Home
Welcome to African Muscle Cars
This site is dedicated to South African built muscle cars and other rare South African cars. In the late 1960's and early 1970's several muscle cars were built in South Africa. Very low volumes of these cars were produced and they are becoming very rare.
Some of the cars like the Fairmont GT and Chev SS were imported in CKD form and assembled in South Africa. Other cars were high performance versions of models sold through dealerships like the Capri Perana, Granada Perana and Chevy CanAm. One thing that is similar amongst all these cars is the fact that they were all built in South Africa. It makes me extremely proud to open the bonnet of a car and see "Made in South Africa by...."
Information on these cars is extremely hard to find, because of this, a lot of the information on this site can also be found on other sites. Where possible links will be provided to the original sources. The goal of this website is to provide a central place where information on all the different muscle cars can be found.
Capri Perana
- Details
- Hits: 26731
The Capri Perana is a homologation model built by Basil Green Motors, but sold through Ford dealerships in South Africa. The Perana was modified quite substantially from an ordinary capri to take the 302 Windsor engine used also in Mustangs at that time. The use of such a powerful engine in a very small car provided awesome performance.
- 0-60 mph in 6.1s
- 228 km/h top speed
- 210 kw 281bhp SAE
- 270 Nm torque at 3500 rpm
A road test outlining this performance is given below (orginally from www.retrocars.co.za)
 |  |
|---|
The perana was a gook looking car, with unique stripes added to the front, a blacked out rear, louvre and the bulging bonnet from the V6 capri. Images fromwww.borderstreetrod.co.za
 |  |
|---|---|
 |
 |
A fantastic article by topcar was published on the capri perana - go out and buy it! Here is an excerpt showing the essentials.
 |
Anfd finally a nice picture of capri peranas in action
 |
|---|
Sites worth visiting:
Capri-Perana.co.za By far the site with the most information on these cars.
L A S E R - Capri V8 A german site about South African muscle cars!
Ford
- Details
- Hits: 28640
Ford Motor Company of South Africa built several muscle cars and uniquely South African cars.
Some of the most well known are CKD (complete knock down) form imports that were assembled in South Africa. These include both the 1970 style Fairmont GTs and 1971-1973 Fairmont GTs.
Many of the uniquely South African cars are homolagation specials like the Sierra XR8, and Capri Perana.
Although many of the Perana cars produced by Basil Green are homologation specials, there are some that were not used for racing at all like the Granada Perana
Chevrolet/Holden/Opel
- Details
- Hits: 26270
Just like Ford, Chev had both CKD form cars assembled here, and homologation specials like the very famous Firenza Canam.
