(Not actually today, Thursday)
Sold her to another Capri enthusiast who has 2 other ones. It's been a fun but exhausting experiment - to set up a Capri XR2 for show and use it for my daily driver all year 50 miles a day, despite rain, snow, sleet, ice, white-outs, fog, deer, and SUVs and semis.
We entered 9 shows together in the last 4 years and came away with 5 trophys (1 best of show) and made it to and from work 25 miles each way every work day except 1 (broken clutch cable 23 miles from home.)
The only problem became the unreliability of the 27 year old turbocharged car and the difficulty to get parts or find anyone who could work on it. But slowly another insidious problem began to arise. In the end it was always on my mind, always requiring my attention and I found myself becoming obsessed with it, sometimes finding my worth in it.
Just imagine wearing clothes, say a suit that is so outrageous that everyone stares at you or turns to look when you go by. Now imagine wearing that outfit everywhere you go, to the store, to church, to a wedding, to a funeral, to buy something on Craigslist, to deliver meals on wheels on the poor side of town, and so on... After a while it dawns on you, this suit has become a symbol of me and I don't like what it says anymore. It draws too much attention to me, and keeping it perfect is way too much of a chore, can't have a wrinkle, no spots.
Now I know that most, maybe all of you wont feel the same way about the analogy above and for good reasons. Most of you don't worry and labor weekend after weekend to keep your suit (or Capri if you haven't seen through the analogy yet) perfect, waxed, scuff free in summer heat and winter blizzards, all the time wondering if everyone around is noticing you, but that's where I found myself, so I came to the conclusion that the XR2 had to go - there was too much of me in it to separate us, so she had to go.
It's been wonderful attending Capri Gatherings with you all and meeting a bunch of you, and the help on this forum has been priceless. Thank you so much for all your help, kind words of encouragement and friendship. I sincerely hope someone steps up and rescues you all from the one part supplier left on the internet who seems to know that he or she has cornered the market. But for the moment, I'm enjoying the relief of finding Focus parts much more readily and not needing to look as often (I hope).
Now I drive an average 07 Focus ZX3 stick which has enough zip to be fun to drive, but isn't much to look at (kinda like comfortable jeans) and seems fairly reliable.
May you enjoy your Capris and keep it all in perspective.