Saturday, October 19, 2024

if a person ever stops learning, it's likely because they stop being interested in things that are new - outside the day to day rat race grind. Today, I learned of the 8 units built of the Uren Stampede, essentially a British Ford Capri answer to the Shelby Mustang,



the Uren Stampede was developed by British Saloon Car Championship-winning race car driver Jeff Uren, with development assistance from British Formula 1 driver John Miles.

British racing driver Jeff Uren had deep ties with Ford, having won the 1959 British Saloon Car Championship driving a modified Ford Zephyr before becoming the Ford UK competition manager for a number of years in the early-to-mid-1960s.

Thanks to his contacts at Ford, Jeff was able to source not just any old Ford V8, but the high-performance Boss 302 V8.


He would call these cars the Uren Stampede and they wouldn’t be his first specials, they followed in the footsteps of the Uren Navajo, a high-performance Ford Escort, and the Uren Savage, a Ford Cortina powered by a Weslake-tuned Ford V6.

The performance was astonishing for the time, powered by a Boss 302, along with the close-ratio 4-speed Toploader transmission, with a 0-60 mph time the same as a Ferrari Daytona and quicker than a V12 E-Type Jaguar.

based on the Ford Capri but featured significant modifications, including Formula 1-spec Girling disc brakes, aluminum alloy wheels, and uprated suspension. The price was listed on the press release as being 1/4 that of buying a Miura, 1/5th that of a Daytona, and 1/3rd of that of a Pantera.

1 comment:

  1. In South Africa we had the Capri Perana, homologated for racing. Chevrolet's answer to that was the Firenza CanAm.

    Capri Perana:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_Green_Motors
    https://www.speedhunters.com/2020/08/perana-the-ford-capri-with-v8-bite/

    Firenza CanAm:
    https://www.sentimetal.shop/blogs/news/the-little-chev-with-big-muscle-firenza-can-am
    https://www.carthrottle.com/news/chevrolet-firenza-can-am-tiny-muscle-car-z28-heart

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