Camaro and Firebird. Challenger and Barracuda. Javelin and AMX. Pony cars seemed to work best as pairs, it seemed. General Motors and Chrysler would pick a body and share it between two marques, while American Motors was left to offer up two distinct flavors of it’s pony car. Ford didn’t do that as much. Yes, the Mustang and Cougar were paired off between 1967 and 1973, but there is a sincere gulf between what the Mustang was at the time and what the Cougar was. Compared to the Camaro/Firebird twins and how well each echoes the other, the Mustang and Cougar might as well have been different platforms. Mercury didn’t get a true pony until 1979, when Lincoln-Mercury quit importing and rebranding the Ford Capri and instead badge-engineered the four-eyed Fox Mustang into the second-gen Capri. Until 1983, there wasn’t really a difference between the pair save badges and taillight treatments. But from 1983 until 1986, the Capri got it’s own style, courtesy of the bubble-back window. A feature that first appeared on the Mercury LN7 (a rebadged Ford EXP), the compound rear glass shape and modified hatchback design gave the Capri a distinct look from the doors back and proved to be more aerodynamic that either version of the Mustang…if only just.

The Capri didn’t live on past 1986, mainly because the Mustang was slated to go away at the same time in favor of the car that would later appear as the Ford Probe. The Capri was 9/10ths a Mustang no matter what year you picked…really, the bubble back glass was the only difference during the Capri’s Fox body years. Makes you wonder what the 1987 version would’ve been if Ford had been willing to let the car continue, doesn’t it? Maybe we would’ve been spared that little roadster from the 1990s…