(first posted 11/5/2014) What was the most memorable Mercury Cougar of all time? For some, it may be the original 1967-68 Cougar with its clean styling. For racing or muscle car enthusiasts, it may be the limited production XR7-G (G for Dan Gurney), or the GT-E with 427 or 428 Cobra Jet power. For fans of the James Bond movies, it is likely to be the 1969 convertible of Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo, played by Diana Rigg, who in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service becomes the only woman to marry James Bond. It was the Cougar’s most prominent and defining cinematic role.
The overindulged daughter of Corsican mafia lord Draco, Teresa had everything that she wanted during her troubled life, and her Cougar looked not at all out of place in the jet-set company that she kept. Amid Rolls-Royces and of course Bond’s Aston Martin – in this movie a DBS Vantage – this red pony car had a brash presence that matched her strong personality. Teresa made her entrance in it in the opening beach scene and, after Bond rescued her from apparent assailants, fishtailed away with its V-8 roaring and sand flying instead of acting like a grateful damsel in distress. Bond identifies her with the car, describing her at the casino as “the driver of that red Cougar” when he did not yet know her name. She proceeded to pilot it as her signature ride from Portugal to Switzerland.
For an extraordinary woman, the producers of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service selected an extraordinary Cougar. Being one of 9,820 Cougar convertibles (4,024 of them XR-7s) produced in 1969, the first year for the Cougar convertible, already made it relatively rare compared to the 90,249 hardtops sold that year. The hood scoop and hood pins visible in many scenes hinted that a high performance engine lived under the hood, and this view of the car on display at the Bond in Motion exhibition clearly shows Cobra Jet 428 engine callouts on the hood.
Introduced in the middle of the 1968 model year, the Cobra Jet 428 with its four barrel carburetor and 10.6:1 compression ratio had a gross rating of 335 horsepower at 5200 rpms and 440 foot-pounds of torque at 3400 rpms. The hood scoop, non-functional in 1968, became an actual intake when combined with the optional ram air system introduced in 1969. Widely believed to be considerably underrated for insurance purposes, the Cobra Jet 428 was capable of accelerating the 1969 Cougar from 0 to 60 in 5.6 seconds and doing a 14 second quarter mile.
Teresa had considerable skill as a driver to go along with her car’s muscle, and she displayed it when rescuing Bond from Irma Blunt and her team of SPECTRE agents in a snowy Swiss village, impressing the not easily impressed Bond greatly in the process. She piloted the Cougar with the bad guys’ Mercedes 220S in hot pursuit through the town’s streets and around an ice racing track, punting aside Minis and Ford Escorts that got in her way.
Fans of Diana Rigg will likewise be impressed to hear that she drove the Cougar herself during the filming of the ice track scene. Prior to the filming of this scene, an Austrian rally driver taught her about opposite lock and steering the car with the accelerator on ice, and as the chase scene demonstrated, she learned well. Some of you probably fell quite a bit more in love with her just now.
The Cougar bowed out of the story shortly after the chase around the ice racing track, parked in a barn during a blizzard as deep snow deprived it of traction and a flashing red idiot light indicated that the extreme cold was affecting something under the hood. After Bond professes his love to Theresa and proposes marriage, in the morning they abandon the car and happily ski away, symbolically leaving behind her earlier untamed life as well.
The signature car of the only woman to win James Bond’s heart during the first 44 years of the movie franchise, portrayed by the most distinguished actress to play a “Bond Girl” (knighted in 1994 and still going strong at the age of 76, nominated in 2014 for an Emmy Award for her role in Game of Thrones), this 1969 Cougar 428 Cobra Jet convertible was equal to its role. In its first years, the Cougar was one of Detroit’s hottest new models, with a briefly glamorous image, and with the 428 Cobra Jet it was one of the hottest performance cars in the world. Today the Cougar is a little-remembered product of Ford’s indistinct middle division to most, but to the many millions of fans of James Bond, it is a car to be remembered as one of the most significant of the Bond series.
Related Reading:
Curbside Classic: 1969 Mercury Cougar – Premium Ponycar
Curbside Classic: 1968 Mercury Cougar – Mercury’s Greatest (Only?) Hit
If that really is the same car, they have re-installed the stock inside mirror. I have always wondered why they installed that ugly-looking non-stock mirror into the shoot car in the first place. I remember that idiot-light scene too. I’m not enough of a Cougar expert to know what it was, but I suspect it was the Seat Belt or Door Ajar light.
I think it was LOW FUEL if I recall, combined with the blizzard freezing the wipers to the windshield, which is why they had to get off the road.
CC Effect! I saw Goldfinger on Sunday.
“OHMSS” is simply the finest James Bond movie until “For Your Eyes Only” in 1981 and “Casino Royale” in 2006. Having Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas in the cast didn’t hurt. George Lazenby I thought was really good. The story relied more on physical action, not gadgets which made it more believable.
Interestingly, those are the only James Bond movies I own. My own opinion, of course.
I have always been a fan of the early Cougars and would rather have one of those if I couldn’t have a Camaro. Unfortunately, I couldn’t have either if them at that point in my young life!
Now I have to watch “OHMSS” again very soon…
You me and George seem to be the only people that thought he was a good Bond.
Count me in as an OHMSS fan. It’s top 3 for me because where else do you ever see Bond scared? He’s nowhere near as chill as most of the films portray.
That never happened to the “other guy”.
Nice,if only Mercury made a topless 67/68 it would be even nicer.The 69s while still attractive looked heavier and bloated.There were some brutally powerful (even by today’s standards)Cougars as well as the more sensible versions.
http://webpages.charter.net/bpratt/6768cougarcv.htm
There were ’67-’68 Cougar droptops made. Not by Ford, though.
Some of those custom Cougar convertibles are really beautiful. It is unfortunate that Ford didn’t include a convertible in the first generation Cougar lineup. The 1969 hardtop is a bit bloated looking, as mentioned earlier, but without the top it looks much sharper; a 1967-68 convertible would have been even better.
My second car was a 1970 Cougar, purchased in 1986 with under 50K on the odometer. With a 2bbl 351 Cleveland, it wasn’t particularly fast or rare. Just an interesting daily driver with exceptionally low mileage for its age.
While most people seem to believe that the first generation had the best styling, I think the ’69-’70 models have their merits. Perhaps not as crisp and distinctive as the original, but still one of the top 5 designs of that era. A little more subdued than your typical Mustang/Camaro/’Cuda. And at least you didn’t see yourself coming and going with every trip to the Piggly Wiggly.
I enjoyed my Cougar, even as the vacuum operated headlamp covers lost their suction with the engine off and slowly exposed the headlights to a waking state. Got a lot of compliments on the sequential turn signals, too. At least those worked as designed, courtesy of a big brick of complex electromechanical relays in the trunk. I’m sure today’s Mustang accomplishes the same *blink-blink-blink* with a microchip the size of a potato chip crumb. A really small crumb.
Specialty Cougar resto vendors sell a solid-state sequencer to retrofit the mechanical unit.
Thanks roger it’s gorgeous
My second car was also a ’70 Cougar XR-7, purchased in 1972 after finding my first job out of grad school. Found it at Lynch Lincoln-Mercury in Santa Monica, having just been traded in. Dark ivy green metallic with matching leather interior matching vinyl roof (I know, shudder), but it was stunning to my eyes back then. Cleveland 4-bbl. V-8 that went like a rocket ship at mach 1. And a rarity, a sunroof (not sure if it was factory or after-market, but it sure looked factory, and worked perfectly), which really captured my imagination, I never went anywhere without opening that sunroof. I still remember it set me back $3250, and I religiously paid my $69 a month car payment for two years. The only big time problem was the gas mileage, regularly hitting 9-10 miles per gallon, and a lot of carburetor problems, as I recall. But it was an incredible car, and I, too, always thought this second generation ’69-’70 Cougar was the best. Those sequential turn signals captivated me, I would stand in our driveway at dusk and turn them on, just to watch them in action while the car sat in the garage. Of all the cars I’ve had, this is the one that I would most like to have back again. Sadly, don’t know how it happened, but I have no pictures of this car, drat.
That car sounds like a beauty – too bad, no pics. Curious, did it have power windows? They weren’t that common on cars in this class at the time but my friend’s 71 Cougar had them. Ford sure produced a lot of lousy carburetors, and for a very long time. I bought a dealer warranty (the long gone Walker-Buerge Ford in West LA) for the carburetor in my 82 Granada and it was well worth the money as it constantly needed work. My next car – an 85 300ZX Turbo (a big change, shall we say) – was my first fuel injected one and it was a revelation. Do not miss carburetors.
I felt the same way about the sequential turn signals on our 65 Thunderbird. I was a teen when we got that car and I did exactly the same thing, turned them on in the evening with the car parked: beautiful. They really attracted a lot of attention being the first iteration of that technology. One neighbor got a new Cougar in 67 and I was surprised that T-Bird quickly lost the exclusivity of that feature. BTW, I have very few pictures of the T-Bird and all are black and white.
Early production 1969’s had a full solid state sequencer assy box about the size of a slice of toast. The relays strapped to the box appeared in later production models because of durability issues.
A hot Lady in a hot car ~ nothing to not like here ! .
Sweet .
-Nate
I would like to see a chase between Teresa di Vicenzo in her Cougar and Emma Peel in her Lotus Elan on a curvy mountain road.
Mrs. Peel in the Elan would easily win in the mountains, but later on a straight road, Mrs. Bond in the Cougar 428 Cobra Jet would catch up and bump her out of the way. I will leave it up to you whether there is an ensuing catfight, which Mrs. Peel should win.
Mrs. Peel might not have done as well as you think, when she started filming The Avengers Diana Rigg didn’t know how to drive, which complicated some of the car chase scenes.
Well, I was thinking about the fictional characters, not the real-life skill level of Diana Rigg at the time. 🙂
The catfight definitely would be a draw, since I doubt that Diana Rigg ever actually knew any karate.
I love the scene in that movie with the skis mounted to the trunk. If there were ever a car NOT designed for a ski trip, the 1969 Mercury Cougar convertible with a 428 would have to be top of the list. You’ve got a breezy convertible in sub 32 degree weather, rear wheel drive, a torque monster powerplant, and 1960s era tire technology. Endless doughnuts in the parking lot – yes. Practical, functional design not so much.
Actually, the convertible is no more breezy than the coupe. Heat loss through the uninsulated top is well compensated by a good heater system.
But Mrs. Peel…Diana ….was driving!…Mrs. Bond you moron!
I hadn’t thought of Diana Rigg in a long time. I knew her better from The Avengers. I’m not sure I’ve seen this Bond movie, I’ll have to check it out. Thanks for a good read.
I hadn’t either. I loved Diana Rigg in The Avengers, never missed an episode. Even went to see her in a London play when I first went to Europe as a newly-graduated college student. Somehow the pairing of Steed and Mrs. Peel tweaked my imagination. Great series.
The only reason this Bond was memorable was because it starred the one and only George Lazenby, the one shot Bond.I remember Diana Rigg from “The Avengers”. Who could ever forget those black skin tight outfits she wore? For my money, Sean Connery WAS James Bond. Though Daniel Craig ain`t bad in the role,the series was finished when Brosnan played Bond,especially in the miserable “Die Another Day”.
Picking Lazenby was like an ultimate FU to Connery from Saltzman and Broccoli, not only are we going to get an Australian to play James Bond, but were going to get someone who has essentially been up to that point…..a model, a car salesman and a small part time actor. Lazenby, for a brief period, was probably the luckiest man in the world, and he f*cked it all up.
What I noticed is that if you play Bond long enough you will get a turkey, it happened to Moore with the ridiculous Moonraker in 1979 and to Brosnan with the pretty damn awful Die Another Day, Moore was sort of able to pull it out of the toilet with the really good follow up, For Your Eyes Only in 1981, but for Brosnan it sort of signaled that the series had really hit its “Fat Elvis” stage and it needed to “die” so it could comeback again.
I wasn’t pro Daniel Craig at first, but after seeing the bloated parody of a movie the Die Another Day was, you can understand why the series needed a “re-boot”. Craig does remind me a lot of Lazenby, probably the fittest and youngest guy to play Bond since Lazenby, I always had hard time believing that Brosnan could ever really wind a fist fight.
Brosnan was believable in his first three films (GoldenEye remains one of my favorites), it was only Die Another Day, with his gray hairs, that he seemed older and less energetic.
OHMSS is one of my least favorite Bond movies however. While there were arguably worse films in the franchise (Die Another Day, Diamonds Are Forever, etc.) they at least had common elements of the series. OHMSS reminds me of a TV movie instead of an official Bond film.
I think Brosnan was at his best in the first 2 films, Goldeneye is great, and still watchable, it was a triumphant return after 6 years without a Bond movie every 2 years, it was rumored that the franchise was dead, but Brosnan and Goldeneye did a great job of resuscitating the series. Tomorrow Never Dies was good too, it started to go off the rails at The World is Not Enough.
I was really excited when Brosnan was picked as Bond in 1994, and I still think he was a good Bond, but I understand why the series needed a shake up too.
But Connery did come back for “Diamonds are Forever” in `71. An underrated entry, but a good one for fans. Set mostly in Vegas, there was a fine chase with a Mustang Mach ll, and a great finale on an oil rig. Interesting how the series evolved from the stripped down “Dr.No’, the Hitchcock like “From Russia With Love”,:Goldfinger”, through the Roger Moore entries that played like a cartoon, and then there was Timothy Dalton-good, but edgy.Sure there were duds-Brosnan, but for the most part, the Connery ones still remain the best. But wait! Were talking about cars, not movies. Maybe CC can do a series on the cars of the Bond films.
I’ve always liked the first gen Mercury Cougar over the next generation Cougar.
This particular Cougar convertible has always been my favourite. I still recall how much my buddies and I enjoyed the movie in the theatre. We even went back and watched it a second time. And what red blooded young man didn’t lust over Diana Rigg?
Good to know the car still exists, do we know who the lucky owner is?
I am not sure who the actual owner of the car is, but it is on display with the Bond in Motion exhibition that has been traveling around museums in the UK and is currently at the London Film Museum (http://londonfilmmuseum.com/exhibition/).
The exhibition shows original Bond film cars, so the car in the photo should be an actual movie car, but unless it has been restored it may not have been used in the ice track scene. Photos of the same car from other angles do not show the body damage inflicted by collisions on the ice track. It may have been one of several identical cars, one of which was sacrificed in filming the ice racing scene.
Thanks for this info! I’m going to be in London in a couple of weeks and now plan to catch this exhibition.
For some reason the movie has been shown on tv here at least twice in the last couple of months along with the other Bond movies. Hearing Diana Rigg did her own driving is impressive – can you imagine that happening today? There are some other stories from that movie such as a bit of conflict between Rigg & Lazenby. A great ‘role’ for the Cougar. Incidentally the DBS is around too, I’ve seen it at a couple of shows.
Supposedly, Lazenby was a bit of an arrogant dick, but then again, so would I be if I was 30 and picked out of nowhere for the most coveted movie role on earth.
In a Bond documentary aired last year, a much older and more mature Lazenby admitted exactly that. He definitely seemed regretful that he landed the role of a lifetime despite having no credibility as an actor, immediately acted like a superstar who could do whatever he wanted, and ended up throwing it all away after only one movie. The way that he described it, his attitude was precisely what made the producers look at a man with no acting resume and say “That’s Bond!” but also was his downfall.
I’ve seen that documentary, plus, he was advised, incorrectly, that the whole “spy thing” was square and passe, that the “peace and love” revolution was going to make the spy film concept obsolete, meanwhile, 45 years and 17 Bond movies later……
One of the things he said when interviewed on local radio last year was that he never actually signed a contract, so after the movie came out and he ‘was’ Bond he probably thought he could ask for too much. It didn’t sound like he was particularly bothered either way about keeping the role at the time though.
Robert, thank you for this post. I had forgotten about Dianna Rigg & the cougar. I have the complete dvd set of “The Avengers” and most of the driving scenes are blue screen and pretty hoakie, but who didn’t grow up ‘loving’ Emma Peel.
Dianna Rigg was one of only 2 Bond girl actresses (the other being Honor Blackman, a.k.a. “Pussy Galore”) to be older the Bond actor (Lazenby in this film) she played opposite of. Does that make her a cougar too? 😉
I am a true vintage car lover. I like big carbureted American V8s, brougham and landau roofs, opera windows, plush interiors, and the lack of all electronics, emissions, and safety devices. I’m ok with seatbelts, but EFI, ABS and airbags are absurd.
This generation is really starting to grow on me. I hated it until about a year ago. I wonder if the same thing will happen with something like the new Jaguar sedans. A weird Cougar thing with me… if they aren’t XR7s or above I don’t give them a second look. Not the same way with Mustangs.,. although I prefer a ’69 Mach 1 over a non Mach 1 I will still check out a regular fastback.
I just prefer the 70 to the 69. A couple minor touches, like the nose on the front, and the vertical bars on the taillights are grouped in pairs, rather than equally spaced.
Typical, for Ford of the time: ball joints and tie rod ends (cost of putting a 351 on a Comet front end), master cylinder, two bendixes, stumbled terribly when cold and the choke started to come off.
The turn signal sequencer was an upgrade from my 67 Thunderbird. The Bird had a mechanical system. I could hear the motor cycling and hear the contacts sparking on the AM radio. All the timing and switching was done by transistors on a roughly 6×6″ circuit board that controlled relays that lit the lights. The circuit board lived in a pocket in the bottom of the left rear fender behind the wheelwell, under the trunk floor. When I noticed the right turnsignal wasn’t cycling, I figured one of the bulbs was burned out, hence the lights didn’t pull enough current to pop the flasher. Yes, one of the rear bulbs was not lighting. Nope, it wasn’t burned out. Pulled out the circuit board and found it caked with wet sand, the bottom of the fender had rusted out leaving a 6″ wide hole. I didn’t even bother pricing a new board. In those days I saw a lot of older Birds and Cougars with rear signals that all lit in unison. Obviously their sequencers had failed and the owners had just spliced all the wires together. I didn’t even bother with that, I just flicked the turn signal lever repeatedly.
The car sure had the looks thing going on though, and the color didn’t clash with those wretched Michigan bicentennial plates.
That one looks almost exactly like mine, except I didn’t have the sport mirror. Hard to tell from that sepia toned picture, but it looks like yours was that light baby blue with a dark blue vinyl top.
Hard to tell from that sepia toned picture,
I think its the paper that I can thank for the colors going bad. Every print from that processor, identified by the date in the lower left corner and rounded corners, looks the same. I think I saw the negatives around here a few years ago, should get them reprinted.
Anyway, my Cougar was white, with a black top. The interior was black with black and white houndstooth fabric inserts on the seats.
This pic is pretty close to my interior. Mine did not have the A/C vents in the center dash, and I don’t think it had the idiot light group this one has above the vents. Mine also had woodgrain around the instruments.
I’ve never seen OMHSS…but I most definitely want to now! Netflix night, perhaps?
A 69 Cougar was my second car. Drove it to high school for a year. I think the only options were an automatic, power disc brakes and steering. Even with a tall 2.75 rear end it was still my “one wheel peel mobile.” Not nearly reliable enough for college, my next two brothers both drove it during high school before my parents got rid of it for a tax deduction. I still want another one.
Underrated and forgotten movie starring an underrated and forgotten car. Definitely one of my favorite of the series, lots of action, great plot, cool locations, Diana Rigg. It’s kind of comical that the followup was Diamonds are Forever, ironically starring a bloated 71 Mustang along with a bloated Sean Connery lol
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is the greatest James Bond movie because it is the one closest to the Ian Fleming novel. A magnificent movie in every way, even better than Goldfinger, Thunderball, From Russia with Love, and Casino Royale, which were also great. There will be another Bond film as great as this because there are no more Ian Fleming novels.
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is the greatest James Bond movie because it is the one closest to the Ian Fleming novel.
Nyet! Nein! That’s a negative! “Living Daylights” is the best Bond ever. The plot is almost plausible. A couple over the top fight scenes, a tricked out Aston-Martin and a terrific score by John Barry. Best one ever.
Never liked that downward accent line on the side of the car. Mind you I would have no problem owning one but the 1st Gen still has the best lines. As for the Bond car I’d rather have one of those below as there are nothing else like them. Those are four 1968 427 GT-E Cougars in one place.
Sorry, most iconic (movie) cougar for me is another one. Definition of badass.
Great Movie and a very great “Cougar” !
I have one.
I had one of the 96 sister Cougars. It was a sad day when I had to sell it. But I still have the model car!
The bond people really got it right when they cast Diana rig and also the 69 cougar. Diane I was not only beautiful but she was extremely intelligent and the most sophisticated actress the Bond people ever hired. She had a wet and a panache that was and is incomparable.
One minor correction, 68(1/2) Cougar with 428 Cobra Jet was available with ram air. I should know as I own one. I am the second owner, original owner was the sales manager at the local Lincoln/Mercury dealer.
Fifth photo. Corgi models???
Yes – even including the skis.
RIP Diana Rigg
It has Been a bad week .Diana followed by Shaun Connery and the English actor John Sessions. A friend meet Diana two years ago. Lovely down to earth lady. The next Bond will be female “,Bond, Jane Bond” as Craig has had enough after 15 years. He retires and passes the 007 baton to his female side kick. For the first time in the franchises 58 year history, it’s looking like No Time To Die will bypass cinemas and go to Netflix? , or the like due to cinemas not having the ticket capacity for the franchise to make a profit .Delay after delay. April 2020,November ,April 2020 .They need turn over so straight to TV streaming. Sad that both the main cinema companies in the UK have closed their theatres until next year.
I know that I’m in the minority here but this will always be my favourite Bond movie. It was the 1st one that I ever saw- and with Diana Rigg, not to mention Joanna Lumley and the other Bond girls, the Cougar, the AM, the chases etc., etc. it will always be my favourite! RIP Dame Diana!
This is one of the best bond films in my mind too. Countess was very much his equal, and that’s just not present in practically any other Bond movie.
I had no idea Dame Dianna died. I just looked it up. Damn…