Greetings from Detroit! New to the site, not new to playing with cars. I have an '81 Capri that was found as a basket case a couple of years ago, and I'm in the process of turning it into a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max-style pursuit vehicle. There are quite a few post-apoc vehicles running around these days, but very few Fox bodies so once finished it should be pretty unique.
Preservationists, put down the torches! This car really was a Midwestern basket case; it was a 4cyl automatic with a seized transmission, a rusted-out floor and animals had been living in it (as near as I can tell, it started out with chickens, and then an opossum moved in, killed the chickens and stayed on. The rear bumper was missing and replaced by a 2x4.
And the heater core was home to an epic mouse nest). No one was going to restore this thing, and everything I didn't need I sold to collectors (the hatch went to another Capri, and the engine is now in a Pinto I think. I even sold the factory front license plate bracket when I took it off!)
Since then it's been modified in proper scavenger style, with found and junkyard parts. I removed the hatch, gutted the interior, mounted a cut-down Jeep roll bar in the cargo area and high-mounted spares on either C-pillar. I did a 5-lug conversion, then raised the suspension about an inch with spring spacers to fit Explorer wheels and tires. Another Explorer donated its rear bumper, and a third gave me a brush bar for the front. Right now the car is in the midst of a V8/MT swap (engine from yet another Explorer, it turns out) and I hope to have it out prowling the wastelands this summer. I will probably be asking lots of questions that are the opposite of the usual lowering/performance enhancing ones; hopefully y'all will be patient with me!
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