This is one of eight examples of the Uren Stampede that were built. They were essentially a British answer to the Shelby Mustang, a Ford Capri with uprated suspension and brakes, and a Boss 302 V8 under the hood.
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. The performance was astonishing for the time, with a 0-60 mph time the same as a Ferrari Daytona and quicker than a V12 E-Type Jaguar.
Fast Facts – The Boss 302-Powered Uren Stampede
- The Uren Stampede, a high-performance Ford Capri developed by British racing driver Jeff Uren powered by a Boss 302 V8. It was built as a British version of the Shelby Mustang, with only eight examples ever produced, making it a rare collector’s item today.
- Developed with input from Formula 1 driver John Miles, the Uren Stampede featured upgraded suspension, brakes, and handling to better match the new V8. It could achieve 0-60 mph in just ~5 seconds, with a top speed of 160 mph, offering Ferrari Daytona-like performance at a fraction of the cost.
- The Uren Stampede was based on the Ford Capri but featured significant modifications, including Formula 1-spec Girling disc brakes, aluminum alloy wheels, and uprated suspension. The car was designed for muscle car-levels of performance.
- One of the best-known Uren Stampedes, originally ordered by Stamos Fafalios, is set to be auctioned by H&H Classics. This rare example has undergone an engine overhaul and retains its unique livery, with a guide price starting at £29,000 (approximately $38,800 USD).
Building A Faster Capri
The Ford Capri was the locally-built British (and European) equivalent to the Ford Mustang, a wildly popular four-seater sports car that had debuted in the USA in 1964 and sold in staggering numbers. It founded the entire Pony Car class, and led to the creation of competitors like the Camaro, Firebird, Challenger, and more. The Capri represented Ford’s desire to repeat this success on the other side of the Atlantic, and it worked.
The Ford Capri has long been heralded as the European answer to the Ford Mustang, but Ford never offered the model with a V8 engine. As a result, others stepped forward to fill the gap.
The Ford Capri followed much the same recipe as the Ford Mustang, only it was scaled down somewhat. The car was physically smaller and lighter, reflecting the different vehicle trends prevalent in Europe where fuel was more expensive and streets were smaller.
The Capri was built around a steel unibody chassis, with independent front suspension and a live axle in the rear – a relatively standard arrangement for the time. Power was provided by a variety of engines, starting with the smaller 1.3 liter Kent inline-four and rising up to the 3.1 liter Essex V6 in the RS3100 model.
Though the Capri engine bay could accommodate most small block V8s including the Ford 260/289/302 engine family it was never officially built by Ford with one of these engines under the hood. One South African company named Basil Green Motors did offer a 5.0 liter V8 version called the Perana, but it was never officially recognized by Ford.
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.
This was right around the same time that American former racing driver Carroll Shelby had started modifying the AC Ace into the Shelby Cobra, followed by modifying the Ford Mustang into the Shelby Mustang. It seems possible that Uren may have been inspired by this to create his own low-volume production run of fast Fords with his own name on them.
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 Boss 302 V8 was developed by Ford engineers to allow the Mustang to race in the Trans Am series which had a 5.0 liter engine displacement limit. The subsequent Boss 302 Mustang was sold to homologate the engine for racing.
The Uren Stampede
The Uren Stampede made its formal debut in 1972, with sales officially beginning in 1973. The car was a lot more than just a Capri with a V8 shoehorned in under the hood, Jeff Uren and his team reworked every major aspect of the car to make sure it could handle the prodigious increase in horsepower and torque that the new engine would bring.
Thanks to his contacts at Ford, Jeff was able to source not just any old Ford V8, but the high-performance Boss 302 V8. This was an engine that had been developed specially for Trans Am racing, then put into the Ford Mustang Boss 302 to homologate it.
The development of the Boss 302 V8 engine was a determined effort by Ford’s engineers, incorporating features like a thin-wall block, which distinguished it from standard Ford 302s, it also had four-bolt mains, screw-in freeze plugs, and specialized heads derived from the Ford 351 Cleveland V8 to improve flow.
This engine was good for 290 bhp, some claimed as much as 320 bhp, and it responded well to tuning. Jeff sourced a supply of the Boss 302 from Ford in the USA, along with the close-ratio 4-speed Toploader transmission.
The original suspension was replaced with stiffer springs, Girling dampers, a thicker anti-roll bar, and harder bushings. The handling was fine-tuned by British Formula 1 driver John Miles. The original brakes were replaced with Formula 1 Girling ventilated discs up front and upgraded drums in the back.
This is the original press release that was sent out for the Uren Stampede. Page #1 is on the left, and page #2 is on the right. Images courtesy of Jeff Uren Ltd.
The car was also fitted with 14″ aluminum alloy wheels with a 7″ width, shod with Firestone 205/60VR14 radial high performance tires. The front and rear fenders needed to be flared slightly to accommodate the wider wheels and tires.
The performance of the Uren Stampede was exemplary for the time, with a top speed of 160 mph, a 0-60 mph time of 5 seconds, and a 0-100 mph time of 12 seconds. The conversion 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.
Interestingly, the press release also noted that the company had some other cars in the pipeline, including a 6 liter V8 Ford Granada, and a four-wheel drive 5.0 liter Stampede, though neither of these cars appeared to have made it to prototype or production status.
It’s believed that just eight examples of the Uren Stampede were ever made, and only a few remain known to survive today.
The Uren Stampede Shown Here
The car you see here is arguably the best-known of the Uren Stampedes. It was ordered new by Stamos Fafalios, a man who had become wealthy through his family’s shipping business. The car that was built for him was based on a 3.0 liter Capri automatic which had been used by a Ford executive as a company car before passing to the Ford dealer network.
After the car was built by Jeff Uren and his team, Fafalios had it sent off to Mech Spray in Rochester, Kent for a unique livery that remains on the car today. Over the years the car was driven, though only sparingly, and Fafalios would keep it from new until 2013 before finally selling it.
The car sits a little lower than stock thanks to stiffer, lower springs. It has upgraded brakes, a stiffer anti-roll bar, and a stiffened unibody shell.
The car has now been given an engine overhaul using Peter Knight Racing internals, and it’s due to roll across the auction block with H&H Classics on the 9th of October with a price guide starting at £29,000 or approximately $38,800 USD.
If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can visit the listing here. The car also comes with an extensive paperwork file, an original handbook, service book, and press articles.
Inside, the car looks essentially stock, though the performance would quickly leave occupants with no illusions about the fact that there’s something a little more potent than an Essex V6 under the hood.
Images courtesy of H&H Classics
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