Relationship Goals: John Capeta’s 1973 Ford Mustang Grande

If the point of Summit Racing Equipment’s fall Tools and Shop Equipment catalog is to prepare—and inspire—you to tackle winter projects, the spring issue is to get you ready to cruise!

That’s why they chose John Capeta’s 1973 Ford Mustang Grande for the spring 2025 cover; painted dazzling Ford Medium Aqua, the long, low ’Stang is the ideal tool for hitting the road. It’s also a testament to never giving up and being dedicated to getting that old car back on the road—even after nearly 40 years.

John and his Mustang go back—way back. It’s literally his first car, purchased in 1977 from his father’s coworker at the Canton, Ohio, Ford plant. “He bought it new in ’73 and would get a new car every four years,” John explained. Not surprisingly, John learned to drive in his dad’s Ford, which helped the budding enthusiast form some pretty strong opinions on what he wanted for his own car. “He had a ’65 Ford Falcon. It was a four-door. It was a family car, and that’s what he taught me how to drive in. It had a straight-six and I said, ‘When I get a car, I don’t want no six-cylinder in it!’ Although that didn’t have much more,” John said, gesturing at the Mustang, which came with a 302 fed by a 2-barrel carburetor. “In ’73, I think it was rated at 140 horsepower!” he laughed.

The Mustang got its first paintjob in the summer of 1978, for the princely sum of $750. For the next several years, it served as a daily driver and companion as John grew up, went to The University of Akron, and married his wife, Monette. “I had this in high school, then I went off to college in it; Akron U. I met my wife in the fall of ’79 and we got married in ’83, and she drove it for almost the first full year we were married. The motor blew up—the oil pickup tube fell off. She was driving to work and she didn’t know,” John said. A $200 302 salvaged from a pickup truck got the ’Stang back on the road. “One of the guys I ran around with brought his engine picker over. We started on Friday night and by Sunday afternoon the motor was in, and she drove it to work on Monday,” he recalled.

Life moved on and the Mustang was sidelined. “She drove it for a couple more months and then in ’84, in the summer, we decided, ‘We’re gonna buy her a new car,’ so we have one good car, because I always drove something that was…,” John shrugged, thinking about the crusty beater cars that he drove to his job as a millwright at Timken Steel. “So we bought an ’84 Dodge Daytona right when they first came out with that new body style, and that was her car. And then this (Mustang) went in the garage, and it went from our house, to my parents’ house, to my grandparents’ house, to my parents’ house, to our house…for a short time it was in a storage garage. We just kept moving it around, and around, and around. I kept telling my wife, ‘One day, I’m going to redo this car.’”

Finally, in 2020, armed with the spare time that comes with retirement and a beautiful new garage in his backyard, John dug into the Mustang’s restoration. He’s quick to credit his next-door neighbor, Bo Grant, who owns a 1968 Camaro and 1956 Thunderbird, for his help on the project. “When he moved in, he said, ‘I think we’re gonna get along great.’ I said, ‘Good, but what gives you that idea?’ And he goes, ‘You’re wearing a Summit hat!,’” John recalled, laughing.

Having endured a decade of Northeast Ohio winters, the Mustang needed some bodywork. “I did the quarters, the doors, the rockers. I did all the metalwork,” John said. “Those were the first quarters I ever put on. Bo had put quarters on his Camaro before, and he was instrumental. You know, you mess with cars a lot, but certain stuff you never get a chance to do,” he said.

Maintaining panel alignment was critical, but it helped to start with what was essentially a time capsule. “The original doors were still on the car, so Bo and I decided we’d put the quarters on and line them up with the doors; that would be our constant. So we did that, and then I pulled the front fenders off. I got new fenders, ’cause down on the bottom behind the wheel it was all mudded and stuff. When I pulled them off, the inner fenders were just gone on the top, so that became, ‘Well, I guess I’m putting new inner fenders in.’ So I just cut ’em out and welded those in, and lined the fenders up with the doors, thinking, ‘Okay, so here’s the (original) doors, and the back’s lined up and the front’s lined up, and the (new) doors will line up,’” John explained.

With the metalwork handled, John needed to find a body shop to finish and paint the car—easier said than done. “I went to probably a dozen body shops and nobody really wanted to do it. ‘We don’t make money doing it, it’ll sit in the corner—all that kinda stuff,’” he recalled. Sloan Product, a shop in North Canton, was the exception. “So everyone said, ‘Go talk to Sloan. Bob (Sloan) does this kinda stuff.’ So I talked to him and said, ‘Before you say yes, please come out and look at the car because I want to do as much as I can myself. I put the quarters on, and you’re a professional and I’m not…’ And he came out right that day and looked at it and said, ‘You did good. You did fine,’” he said.

However, John was a bit surprised when he learned that all the painstaking panel alignment he and Bo had done was coming right back apart. “Well, he’s telling me the process of what they’re gonna do and he goes, ‘We’ll get it at the shop and we’ll get everything lined up, and then we’ll tear the whole thing apart,’ and I’m like, ‘Wait, WHAT?’” And he goes, ‘We’ll take it all apart because we’re gonna have to paint the doors, and the insides of the doors, and the fenders…’ and I’m like, ‘We just lined everything up!’ and he goes, ‘Oh no. We’re gonna tear it all back apart again,’” John laughed.

While John admits that originally, the Medium Aqua paint wasn’t really his thing, it grew on him and he never considered a color change, nor did he consider eliminating the vinyl top, which is still the same one that adorned the Mustang’s roof when it left the factory more than a half-century ago. “If you were gonna buy a car, I don’t think you’d look in the book and see the colors, and go, ‘That’s the one I want.’ But it works with black. It just sets it off and I think if it was all blue, it’d be too much,” he said.

Body and paint may have been the majority of the work done to the Mustang, but it received plenty of mechanical upgrades, too. A big one was the ATK High Performance Engines 302 crate motor a friend found on clearance in Summit Racing Equipment’s Tallmadge, Ohio, Retail Superstore.

John remembers the day he got the text message: “He sent me a text with a picture, and he goes, ‘Hey, is this the engine you were gonna put in your car?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, it is. Where’s that at?’ And he goes, ‘I’m up here getting some parts from Summit, and there’s two scratch-and-dents sitting here.’ I said, ‘You gotta be kidding me.’ He said, ‘Yeah. A thousand bucks off.’ And I’m like, ‘Okay, thanks,’ and I walked right over and knocked on Bo’s door and said, ‘Hey Bo, there’s two scratch-and-dent motors up there. You wanna road trip?’ He goes, ‘Get in the truck!’

So we get in his truck, we drove up there and looked at them—they were still there. They both had oil pan damage and they were still on busted-up skids. I said, ‘Well, what do you think?’ and he goes, ‘I can’t imagine what would’ve gotten hurt. Maybe you’d have to change an oil pump.’ And I said, ‘Which one do you want to take?’ and he just went, ‘Eeny, meeny, miney, moe.’ So, I paid for it, we backed the truck up at the loading door, they stuck it on there, we brought it back, and I took the oil pan off and tapped the dent out of it. Nothing was wrong with it. I painted it, put it back on—you can’t beat that!”

Backing up the fresh 302 is a C-4 automatic rebuilt by Canton’s Cyclone Transmission. At the time, an AOD 4-speed auto was considered, but John passed due to the expense and the possibility that the driveshaft might have to be shortened. With 3.55 gears in the 8″ rear end, 65 mph requires just 2,400 rpm and 80 mph winds the small block up to about 3,000 rpm, so this pony has the legs to get down the road. Still, an AOD swap isn’t off the table. “I can foresee, maybe later on, dropping the transmission and getting an AOD and putting it in there, just so it has overdrive for cruising on the highway,” John said.

He also thought about updating the chassis with rack-and-pinion steering up front and a 4-link out back, but Bo talked him out of it, reminding him, “When this was new, it was state of the art and people drove it across the country. There was nothing wrong with it!” John did spring for a Lares quick-ratio steering box, a Summit Racing rear drum-to-disc brake conversion kit, and improved both the Mustang’s style and handling with a set of meaty BFGoodrich Radial T/As on classic 15-inch Magnum 500 wheels.

Inside, the Mustang got a basic freshening-up with reupholstered front seats, new carpet, and new door panels, plus power windows. In a testament to John’s decades of care, both the dash pad and backseat were in great shape and didn’t require any attention.

After four years of work, the Mustang was completed in February of 2024 and John, not surprisingly, is thrilled with the way it turned out. As is the case with any classic car, it’s never quite done. He’s looking into reinstalling the factory A/C, something that John says both he and Monette would appreciate for cruising in comfort.

John admits there was even more to the restoration than he anticipated. “Before I started, I knew it was going to be a big job. But I didn’t know how big a job—you know, one thing leads to another that leads to another.” But he enjoyed the process and thinks about what his next project might be. When asked if he’d do it again, John grinned and replied confidently, without hesitation: “Oh yeah, I liked it.”

1973 Ford Mustang Grande Fast Specs

Owner: John Capeta – North Canton, Ohio

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ENGINE & DRIVELINE

• Engine: ATK High Performance Engines Ford 302 (230 hp/325 ft.-lbs.)
• Induction and Fuel System: Holley 600 cfm carburetor, Weiand dual-plane intake manifold, Mr. Gasket Easy-Flow air cleaner, Tanks Inc. fuel tank
• Ignition and Electrical: HEI-style distributor, MSD ignition wires, R&M Billet wire looms, Powermaster street alternator
• Cooling: Cold Case radiator with mechanical cooling fan
• Exhaust: Summit Racing metallic-ceramic coated headers, Pypes Street Pro 2 1/2″ stainless steel exhaust system
• Transmission: Ford C-4, rebuilt by Cyclone Transmission, Canton, Ohio
• Rear End: Ford 8″, 3.55:1 ring and pinion, Eaton Detroit Truetrac limited-slip differential

CHASSIS

• Suspension and Steering: Rebuilt stock front and rear suspension, KYB Gas-a-Just shock absorbers, Lares 10:1 ratio steering box
• Brakes: Stock disc front, Summit Racing drum-to-disc conversion rear, Leed Brakes master cylinder and booster
• Wheels and Tires: Wheel Vintiques Magnum 500 wheels (15″ x 7″ front, 15” x 8″ rear), BFGoodrich Radial T/A tires (235/60R15 front, 255/60R15 rear)

EXTERIOR

• Body: Dynacorn replacement panels, replacement by John Capeta and Bo Grant
• Paint: Ford Medium Aqua 4N, finish work and paint by Sloan Product, North Canton, Ohio
• Other: Scott Drake trim and molding parts, Easy Performance Products LED sequential taillight kit

INTERIOR

• Carpet and Upholstery: RESTOPARTS Supplied ACC interior carpet, Distinctive Industries trunk carpet, Distinctive Industries seat upholstery, TMI standard door panels
• Other: Grant Classic Nostalgia steering wheel, Custom Autosound stereo, Nu-Relics power window conversion

Special Thanks To: My wife, Monette, for understanding and supporting my love and passion for the car, and being very patient while we kept the car and moved it around all those years…not to mention the garage/clubhouse we built before I started the restoration! My sons Korey, Tyler, and Connor, who are always willing to give me a hand in the garage. Bo, for his knowledge, help, and friendship. I’m truly blessed to have friends and neighbors like Bo and Linda Grant. Sloan Product, who did a great job painting the car, were great to work with, and I now consider my friends. Rodney Gerber and Rick Martin, for all their help building the garage.