Cougar Day would be incomplete without a convertible. Did you remember the third generation, like this one, also had a convertible?
The third generation Cougar shared the platform used by the Mustang. This is somewhat ironic as this would be the biggest Mustang for quite some, garnering various unflattering comparisons such as being the Clydesdale of Mustangs. In true 1970s fashion, the Cougar would continue to grow with every subsequent generation throughout the decade. Might this example be the bobcat of Cougars?
Oh wait; that name would soon be taken by another Mercury.
This was the climactic era of Mercury presenting itself as having a smidgeon more cachet than a Ford. Mercury, in an effort to prove this concept of extra brewed-in tangibility wasn’t a complete marketing ploy, made the 351 (5.8 liter) V8 standard on all Cougar models. Isn’t having a 351 under the hood a bit more awe-inspiring than a pedestrian straight-six as found in a contemporary Mustang?
In yet another ironic twist, the second generation of Cougar XR-7 convertible was a mere twenty-one pounds (9.5 kilograms) heavier than the 1970 XR-7 convertible, had a one inch longer wheelbase, and was the same overall length. The Mustang convertible gained 112 pounds (50.8 kg) from 1970 to 1972, which reflects the first generation Cougar being a might bigger than its sister – or maybe the Mustang simply hit puberty earlier than the Cougar.
This particular Cougar was found over a year ago at a classic car dealer just east of Corinth, Mississippi. Upon exhuming these pictures, I discovered this car has been divorced from all the various name badges that had at one time been upon the header panel, fenders, and trunk lid. The emblem in the center of the grille is the only identifier of this being an XR-7. The 1972 model year is when the tide turned for the Cougar as the majority were built as XR-7 models.
Upon the introduction of the Torino based Cougar in 1974, there was no base model Cougar – they were all given the XR-7 designation.
Mercury built only 1,929 XR-7 convertibles for 1972 with another 1,240 base Cougar drop-tops. Reflecting how market tastes were changing, 98.5% of Cougar’s had an automatic transmission with over three-quarters of the hardtops being adorned with a vinyl roof.
Production of Cougar convertibles would rise for 1973 as those would be the last drop-top Mercury for a very long time. With any luck, this particular Cougar has found a happy new home and is providing some fortunate person the hair-whipping excitement found only in a convertible.
Why oh why didn’t whomever painted this car re-install the badges? It’s little details like this that raise flags for me. And one big detail: How hard would it have been to find some correct wheel covers. The ones on it are from one of those hideous 1981-82 Fox-based non-XR7s, and just looking at them gives me PTSD, and it honestly taints my perception of this car.
Having said that, I like these much better in droptop form, as the concurrent Mustang. It gets rid of that flying buttress roof-line. It’s the same reason I like ’69 Ford XL convertibles, not the SportsRoofs.
But,for some reason, on ’69-’70 Marauders, the design somehow works for me.
Concurred. If asking $9000 this, and aligning the hood, should not have been unreasonable tasks.
Massive peeve of mine- let’s do a half hearted flip, hope the rust bubbles behave under the Mayco job for a few weeks and always ask for a crack-pipe price…
My neighbor has a $10k Falcon with the same treatment, he’s always had a similar project for sale- he’ll pop out of his house and behave just like a time warp polyester suited used car salesman, if you even get near the car.
Too bad, this Cougar is/was cool, but now a red flagged wonder.
The flying buttress rear window doesn’t look quite as bad on the Cougar since it has more curvy, bulbous styling than the straight line Mustang.
I’ve always been amazed that the ’71-’73 Cougar was closely related to the Mustang. When the Cougar switched over to the regular Torino chassis in ’74, it was hardly noticeable.
That’s not just any Bobcat – the ’74 was Canada-only and featured a preview of the ’75 Pinto grille. With it extended to the US for ’75 the Bobcat must’ve gotten more budget for product differentiation and its’ “trying for a mini-Mark IV, seeing an American Vanden Plas Allegro” grille.
The original-style XR-7 wheel covers (the ones they shared with the Maverick) lose the bright plating on the center caps before too long, and most out there look like crap now. or, the center sections just plain fell out. my dad’s ’73 Cougar convertible was missing center cups on two of the wheel covers from repeated pothole encounters.
(this was meant in response to roger628)
Point taken, but surely some good ones exist somewhere, or else put some Magnum 500s on it.
You think the convertible Cougar was rare, check out this ’71 with a 429 Cobra-Jet. One of 29.
For sale on Hemmings a couple years ago.
http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2012/01/23/hemmings-find-of-the-day-1971-mercury-cougar/
Is that actually factory? Wow. We just might have a winner for fastest Cougar ever, at least in a straight line!
Claimed to be factory, yes. I’ve heard about the few 429s that slipped through the cracks for ’71. Long ago I remember reading some obscure article about a 1971 Cougar 429 Convertible 4-speed. Had to be 1 of 1.
…and here it is. That wasn’t hard.
http://www.hemmings.com/mus/stories/2005/06/01/hmn_feature4.html
On the introduction of the new bodystyle, though, Mercury did its best to plug the Cobra Jet option. Lewis said Mercury built about 16 convertible ram-air Cobra Jet Cougars with a white top and white interior, equipped with the Toploader four-speed transmission, Traction Lok rear axle and all sorts of interior amenities, painted them all a metallic blue and sent them to different regions across the country for previews and for testing. All 16 rolled out of Dearborn the first or second day of production, and the first two, built August 3, 1970, headed straight for the Las Vegas Convention Center for the official introduction of the 1971 Cougar. Of those two, one has since been crushed.
During the ’80s a friend’s dad had one of these convertibles. It was hard not to find it a bit weird, sort of an alternate universe Mustang, or kind of like an Australian Ford looks to American eyes. But, it’s plenty lovable today and I’d be happy to have a nice well equipped edition in my garage.
CC effect strikes again as I’m looking at a yellow 72 convertible snapped by my brother at a show in summer
I don’t understand why they made this generation Cougar look so puffy compared to the contemporary Mustang. Even though the 71-73 Stangs are referred to as Clydesdales, they did manage to have crisp fenders that really set off those cartoonish proportions, especially in the “flatback”. What if the Cougar had taken a similar approach, yet with the flying buttress roof? I’m not opposed to the roof, it’s something of a styling gimmick, but no one complained when GM grafted it on to the Cutlass/Chevelle/Skylark/Tempest-GTO for ’66-’67. It’s all in the execution.
Cougar was the original crisp one. Unfortunately, it started to slide into the Krispy Kreme one as the years rolled by.
The ’71-’73 Cougar described as a previous model that had eaten too many Krispy Kreme donuts.
Perfect.
The Cougar did get the Flying Buttress from the Mustang coupe. As mentioned above, the Cougar wore it better.
Those Bobcats were interesting, didn’t they also get two pairs of Pinto taillights like the Comet, more upscale wheel covers with a nicer all glass hatch? I wonder if there was a loaded factory panel van version, with the round porthole? I could have fun designing one, black and white with a vinyl cladded Versailles grilled theme, named the le Stinky Dive Bar d’French Quarter, le Stinky for short.
Bobcat and Comet didn’t do any favors to the prestige of Mercury, I find the idea of them curious and depressing at the same time. I worry now for the Lincoln Horseless Carriage Company.
There’s that Generic Ford Face. Slowly creeping across every car line.
I think by 1975 the Pinto/Bobcat, Muatang and Maverick/Comet were the only cars spared that treatment.
It looks like this Cougar might be on the same wheelbase as the Mustang which would explain some of the weight convergence. The sales figures are informative as to why the ponycar market changed as it did, but I wonder how much the way it had already changed from a few years earlier had driven that? No wonder the product planners seem to have been quite reactive in retrospect, when their decisions were made years ahead in reality.
The ’71-’73 Mustang got a one inche wheelbase stretch to 109″, and the ’71 -’73 Cougar got two inches more to 113″. The wheelbase gap between them got even bigger, FWIW.
Thanks Paul (tried to reply earlier but it snafued), that doesn’t quite account for the difference in weight changes then! On one level it is not surprising that they kept on with the different wheelbases as the Mopar E-bodies did, although GM didn’t with the Camaro/Firebird, and I suppose the decision was made before the sales levels of the convertible in particular were known.
Great point, even with the hottest engine offered, these were GT personal luxury coupes. It’s easy to forget the Cougar was originally an upscale pony car in it’s early history. They latter drifted up into Lincoln country, down to Fairmont land, (sedans, oy vey) and were proper personal luxe GTs towards the end in 5.0 and 4.6 versions.
That last one based on the Contour didn’t count as a Mercury in my book, a decent car it was; I can just imagine the reactions in the showrooms from the elders looking to trade their Cougars.
I like these especially as a convertible. This is the nicest I’ve ever seen, for sale on eBay a few years ago. I liked it so much, I saved a picture! This one was especially nice shape, low miles, fully loaded. I think the asking price was in the low twenties.
Now that’s the way to do it. The Magnum 500’s change the whole character of the car compared to the hubcaps, and this also points out how much better these looked in dark colors. Like in fashion, it’s a slimming effect, and it sets off the chrome accents like those on the arches.
Comparing this to the ’71 and ’72 photos also makes me realize that Ford did a pretty good job with the 5 MPH bumper on these Cougars. While a close inspection reveals it to be bulkier and the center section of the nose to be slightly abbreviated and less distinctive, it doesn’t really stand out at first glance. A minor difference compared to the gross bumper injustice perpetrated on the Mark IV, the Gran Torino, and so many other cars for ’73.
one of the few Ford products which managed to still look OK even with the 5mph bumper.
Dare I say it I actually kind of think the 73 Bumper improved the looks of it.
eh, I still think I prefer the ’71-’72, but a ’73 without the two bumper guards looks just fine to me.
My least favorite Cougar of them all, and this includes the early Fox version. That front end always seemed all wrong to me, and none of the rest of the lines really worked well either. The huge, character-free sides always looked ripe for billboard advertising. Sometimes, I take a fresh look at a car I never liked and like it better. Not today.
I would have taken any other vehicle in the line of this used car lot.
The thing I remember most about this gen was that the XR7 came with the 351 Cleveland. No hoopla just a 351C note in the specs. On a Mustang that would have been a huge deal.
as I recall, once the 429 was dropped in ’71 the 351C was the only engine you could get in the Cougar in ’72 and ’73. The base engine had a two-barrel carb, and the 4-bbl and 351CJ were optional.
So does anyone else think the 1974 Firebird cribbed these taillights?
I used to really hate these Cougars, the Ford face in all it’s glory and all, but they’ve grown on me significantly. I too was surprised to learn how comparably lithe these actually were compared to the 69/70s, which were(are) my favorites. These really represented the change in the guard in the ultimate influential Ford changing from the Tbird to the Mark III, and it shows clearly in that front end styling. I’ve gradually embraced it and actually wouldn’t mind owning one at this point, the prices are certainly right lol
Oh and I’m happy to see a vert example, they look way better than the buttressed hardtop IMO
The similarity in tail lights is quite uncanny. I almost stated as much in the article.