Another 85 "GS" 5.0L

[negusm]

Hahah another almost identical car:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 08673&rd=1

GS tag, chrome bezels, air dam and sport seats.

-Mike

[Euro#13]

I think it's a case of somebody not having enough to do, or wanting to stir the pot, regarding Capri of model year 1985. Not only do we have RS(s) running around with GS badging, if you recall, 1985 was also the year when in January or so they completely dropped th RS badging nd renamed the car 5.0, deleting the "RS" from being diebossed into the side body moulding, and a plain piece replacing the recessed RS piece, and the car being renamed "5.0" making the series the GS and the 5.0 rather than GS & RS.

Do you think it had something to do with the RS name? I mean first building RS(s) re-badged as GS(s) and then dumping the RS name completely in favor of 5.0 name. There was SOMETHING going on with the RS name, but I guess we'll never know. The car seems to have worn 3 nameplates during 1 model year.

My guess is that it was a last ditch effort to stimulate sales of the of the Capri by drawing attention to the fact that it too had the 5.0L engine.

The Fox-bodied Capri’s sales were in a steady decline since it’s debut, from over 110,000 units sold in 1979 to less than 20,000 sold in 1985.
I’m sure that by 1984 the writing was on the wall and unless there was a substantial turn around in sales, the decision had been made that the Capri would go away in 1987 when the Mustang was freshened up.
Since the Mustang GT was having such a success with all of the magazines and even Ford’s own advertising with the “The Boss is Back” slogan working well for the 5.0 equipped Mustangs and then in 1984 with the debut of the LX 5.0 Mustang.
The marketing people at Mercury were probably trying to do what they could to let the average person know that the Capri also had the 5.0L engine available. They could have continued to market it as the Capri RS 5.0L but by dropping the “RS” moniker from the car, it would force you to call it the Capri 5.0L.

I don’t know if that change in marketing would have really saved the Capri or not, but think it may have had a bigger impact if they had done it a couple of years earlier and pushed the 5.0L engine more like Ford did with the Mustang.

Personally I like name Capri RS better than Capri 5.0L. These days it seems that the Mustang GT’s and LX 5.0L cars of the era are now just referred to as “five-oh’s”. It's probably just my detail oriented retentiveness coming out but I can’t stand it when someone asks me about my car and it seems that all they ever want to know is if I have a “five-oh” car.

Brent

[75coug]

Personally I like name Capri RS better than Capri 5.0L. These days it seems that the Mustang GT’s and LX 5.0L cars of the era are now just referred to as “five-oh’s”. It's probably just my detail oriented retentiveness coming out but I can’t stand it when someone asks me about my car and it seems that all they ever want to know is if I have a “five-oh” car.

I will forever wish that Mercury had gone with XR-6.

[Euro#13]

I will forever wish that Mercury had gone with XR-6.

Or even XR-8 would have been nice, I don't know how trademark laws work from country to country but since Ford was already using the XR-8 name on a couple of cars overseas it might have been an easy name to use here too.

Brent

[fredzilla]

The vin #s are not that far apart on theses two cars. I,m guessing
maybe built a few mounth's apart.
Coincidence, with the GS tag's ..??