When you first look at Jason Duggar's car, you get a nagging feeling that something's not quite right. From the rear it looks like a clean, red Mustang coupe with a staggeringly cool set of hoops. Take a stroll along either side of the car, and it looks like Jason either slapped on a later-edition Fox-body rear onto a four-eyed car, or threw on a front bumper from an '86-or-older Mustang on the later coupe body. By the time you get to the front end, though, you feel like you did the first day you sat down in high-school algebra class. There are front-end parts on this car that look vaguely familiar, yet at the same time, you can't figure it out. In a sense, Jason made up his own math equation: 1+1=3.
To tell the story of Jason's Coupri (which is the easiest way to describe this car) is to tell the story of the man himself. The 31-year-old owner of Performance Automotive in Dallas, Georgia, wanted something different. To say he took that notion way beyond the realm of what most would consider sane and possible is the understatement of the year.
Having owned numerous high-powered Ford products, including a couple of Cobras, Saleens, and Lightnings, Jason wanted something completely different this time around. His idea of "different," however, would come with the merge of a Fox-body Mustang and a Mercury Capri. Crazy? Maybe, but it sure as heck ended up being one fine piece of machinery with turbocharged power.
With nearly 650 rwhp on tap,...
With nearly 650 rwhp on tap, it comes as no surprise that Jason's Coupri rips off trap speeds well into the 130-mph zone. He expects to break into the nine-second zone very soon-all while still driving the car on the street.
"In all honesty, I got the idea from two other cars I saw," Jason says. "A buddy of mine had a '90 convertible Mustang that he modified with Capri body components, and I saw an '82 GT built in the same fashion. What I didn't see was a coupe with Capri bodywork, and I thought it would look pretty cool. I wanted to do something strange and different, and I figured this would be the ticket."
While the powerplant, drivetrain, and the rest of the moving parts are a laundry list of high-performance pieces made to work in concert with one another, by far the most intriguing part of the car is, obviously, the bodywork. "I probably put between 300 and 400 hours into the bodywork and everything I had to do to the quarter-panels, the fenders, and doing the primer and block-sanding of the car," Jason says. "The fitment was one of the harder obstacles to getting the car to look like it was made to appear as it does now. Overall, the front bumper and all of its little crevices were the most difficult things to work on."
To point the car in the proper...
To point the car in the proper direction, Jason wraps his hands around the Grant steering wheel.
It's amazing that Jason says the bumper was the most difficult part of the body changes, and not that the '88 Mustang was changed around with parts from not only another year Mustang, but another make of car. "I had the concept of what the car was to look like long before I bought it," he says. "For four years, I took the time to search for the right parts, save up the needed amount of money to work on the car, and build it. I have to tell you, it took some wheeling and dealing, that's for sure."
After buying the car from a student whom his wife, Peyton, was teaching at a technical college, Jason set about accomplishing his task. Once the Stang was in his garage, he excised the fenders, quarter-panels, hood, and front bumper. He then spliced in fenders and quarter-panels from an '84 Mercury Capri-hence the Coupri moniker. Wanting a different look to the front end, Jason laid down a fiberglass '79 Pace Car-style bonnet and completed the body changeover with the addition of a '79 Mustang front bumper. Once satisfied with the fitment of the new and unique look and parts, he primered the flanks of the Coupri, blocked it, sanded it, and finished it off with Performance Red slathered in clearcoat.