Featured Ride -Bryan Quinones 1981 Black Magic Mercury Capri

Mercury Capri's are a rare sight nowadays. Once the brethren to Ford's venerable Mustang, today they are a distant memory. Many have been raced, some have been "converted" to Mustang wannabes by affixing a Mustang front end to them. Such is pure sacrilege amongst the Capri faithful.

Make no mistake, the Capri faithful are alive and strong. There remains an almost a hero worship of the cars, and many favor them over Mustangs from the same era. They are celebrated for their more angular, muscular appearance.

Bryan Quinones' 1981 Capri is an even rarer sight to behold. That's because it is one of a handful of "Black Magic" cars, a special edition that Mercury produced in model years 1981-83.

The Black Magic brought with it some special appearance modifications. They were black cars with gold striping, gold metric TRX wheels and a gold cat's head on each side of the "nose piece" just ahead of the front fender. The interior received special black seats with gold inserts. The 1983 model is extremely rare and the only Black Magic to receive the compound rear window.

Bryan's Black Magic has quite an interesting history. Bryan first saw the car in a YouTube video, and at the time the car was owned by someone in Ohio. He had previously owned a 1982 5.0 Capri, and his son is restoring a 1985 bubble back Carpi, so he knew it was something special. Having been a fan of four eye cars for many years, he was immediately enamored with the Capri.

Later on down the road a man who lived in Bryan's home state of New York purchased the same car that he had seen in the video. The man was unable to hold on to the car for long, and had it listed on Ebay three months later. Bryan quickly realized that this was the same car he had seen on YouTube and jumped at the chance to buy it, working out a deal with the former owner.

Bryan has modified his Black Magic with some tasteful additions both under the hood and on the outside. The underwhelming stock motor has been replaced with a GT40 crate motor that churns it's power through a C4 automatic transmission and into a 3.55 geared posi traction rearend, with a 125 hp shot of nitrous for good measure. A racing tach helps to visualize the high revs.

On the outside, Bryan has fitted the Capri with some black Saleen replica wheels, 17x10" in the back and 17x8.5" in the front to give the car a nice intimidating stance.

Bryan's car has been featured in the reader's rides section of 5.0 magazine in 2002, as well as Muscle Mustangs and Fast Fords in 2003.

Whether it be destiny or just plain good luck, Bryan has obtained the car of his dreams. He currently enjoys cruising to local car shows, where he is almost certain to have one of the most unique rides around.

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