LET’S go back to a wintry day in Leyburn in 1981 when a snazzy-looking motor, covered in snow, was trying to make it out of the Market Place. What sort of motor, we asked a fortnight ago, was it?

“It’s a Ford Capri, which owes its svelte lines to American designer Philip Clark who also styled the Mustang,” says Gary Cunningham in Boltby. “Several friends of mine had Capris although I owned its arch rival, an Opel Manta. Ultimately, the Capri won, with nearly two million vehicles made between 1969 and 1986 with everything from a 1.3 Kent engine to the final lairy 280 Brooklands. A true Ford icon.

“Could that also be the infamous 'All Agro' estate behind?”

Ah, such words are music to a petrolhead’s ears.

Gerald Burnett of Richmond had a go at identifying the type of Capri. “It is a Mark III: ‘the car you always promised yourself'. Mark II and Mark III were almost identical in the sheet metal but the Mark III is differentiated by having a four headlamp nose and wraparound bumpers.”

No one dissented. “It was a car much coveted by young men in order to attract the ladies,” says Derek Noble of Hutton Rudby. “I could never aspire to one.”

Michael Waite of Catterick Village says: “I had one about 1982, purchased secondhand from John Gills at Aiskew: Cosmost blue with a black vinyl roof. The previous owner was from the racing fraternity in Middleham and had had a chrome horse mascot fitted on the bonnet. The mascot was removed, presumably for his new car, and Gills fitted a chrome bolt and nut to fill the hole on my purchase.”

Honourable mentions to Chris Robson, John Weighell of Neasham, Tony Martin of Caldwell, Brenda Richardson, Graham Symons, Chris Payne, and Howard Thomas of Carlton, Leyburn, who said succinctly: “Had one once. Very small boot, but what a bonnet!”