About the chrome work on the Hooper
Onto the chromework on my Hooper Consul Capri… The actual condition of the chrome wasn’t too bad really, well, certainly much better than the rest of the car anyway! The Hooper had all the same chrome as the standard Consul Capri with the exception of the five star bar on the front grill and the chrome trim around the rear didn’t had the aluminium panel within it. Instead of the five star bar on the front grill there...
The Electrics in my Consul Capri
So onto the electrics in my new Hooper Consul Capri… To cut a long story short, nothing worked. I bought a new battery and fitted it but still nothing worked, and when I saw nothing, I really mean nothing! It was clear that the capri needed to be almost completely rewired. As my Consul Capri had been retrimmed by Hoopers, it had some extra electrics over the standard Consul Capri that rolled out of the Ford factory. The extras...
First pictures of my Hooper Consul Capri
I finally scanned some of my early pictures. Here is a front view of the Hooper soon after getting it home and into the garage. Notice the five star bar in the front grill. This was added in place of the original Hooper chrome bar at some point in the past. And the Hooper interior with its cream leather buckets seats with maroon piping. The door cards were also covered in leather with a small strip of carpet section along the bottom....
The bodywork (or lack of it)
And onto the bodywork… I’m not sure where to start really. At first glance the Hoopers bodywork looked OK, just a bit dull really. The lower I looked however, the worse the bodywork got until I got down on my knees and bravely looked underneath(gulp). There was very little of the original Ford chassis left to talk about. The floor pan looked reasonably OK on the other hand – as if it mattered. All the usual areas on...
How do you start fixing a car like this?
So I finally owner the Hooper Capri but what do I do with it and how can I get it working again? The first thing I did was get in and fiddle around with everything I could find. Well that didn’t last long as although there were plenty of buttons and dials, none of them actually did anything, despite connecting a brand new battery! So what had I actually bought, apart from a good looking wreck? I’ll start with the...
Making contact again
A few months went past and I had pretty much forgotten about the Consul Capri when I received a phone call from the previously so polite owners. It turned out that they had reconsidered selling the Hooper, and to me too. I went round there the next day to find the Capri sitting in the driveway, out of the garage for the first time in many years. I must say that I didn’t really look over the car too much as I knew it was a wreck...
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