When the MN-12 Cougars and Thunderbirds were unveiled in 1988, they were considered a breath of fresh European air that was going to inject new life into the declining personal luxury coupe segment. Alas, it was not to be, as these cars were plagued with problems stemming from cooling issues, to rust issues, to general quality issues, to the 3.8L Essex V6 having a bigger appetite for head gaskets than most Subarus. As attractive and great to drive as they were, they were as plagued with issues like cheap hotel beds are with bedbugs.
When new, these cars were very advanced. With technologies ranging from supercharging, to advanced electronic gizmos, to OHC engines, the MN-12 coupes must have seemed positively space age to its Greatest Generation target demographic. They definitely were impressive cars, in both a technical sense, and in a sense if a status item that shows “I’ve made it this (very) far in life, and will buy an impressive car to prove it.”
Like many of its competitors, the MN-12’s were left to rot, shrivel up, and die on the vine after 1995. Similarly, any plans for a successor probably went up in smoke like the Marlboros by the shifter would eventually do. Sometimes, people will say “The end is near! The end is near for ______!” In the case of the personal luxury coupe, they were right.
By 1997, the MN-12 coupes were the last of the Mohicans. With all other RWD competitors dead almost a decade before, all that was left were FWD “imposters” to carry the personal luxury car torch with the ThunderCougar. A decade after the MN-12s passed on, the 2007 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, the last car to carry the personal luxury car torch was killed by the corporate heads at GM. As of now, the American personal luxury coupe is likely never to be seen again.
The personal luxury car was a special car, for a special time, and a special people, in a special country. It was the car that represented the peak of American Exceptionalism, and the American Dream. A time when one could walk into a factory with little more than an able body, and a will to work, and live a comfortable, middle class lifestyle in return.
It was a car that was luxurious and refined, stylish and oozed gravitas, without being ostentatious, flashy, or high-priced. It was available with a bevy of options for those looking for either a sporty, but respectable coupe, and for those looking for a flat-out boulevard cruiser. It was the embodiment of 1945-80 middle America and its ideals. It was born during a time of prosperity, and killed during a time of crisis and recession. It was a sign of the times, and it is to be looked at as such. Goodbye personal luxury coupe, we hardly knew ye.
Related reading:
Curbside Classic: 1972 Cadillac Coupe De Ville – A Beginning As Well As The Beginning Of The End
CC Capsule: 1996-97 Ford Thunderbird LX – Counterpoint
Nice. Certainly not the nicest of its generation of Cougar but as you say it was the end of an automotive era.
Back in 1999 or so my then-girlfriend bought a midninties Cougar XR7. It was from one of the years when for some reason they made all Cougars XR7’s. She was probably influenced my me speaking highly of the Thunderbird and Cougar as cool sporty rear wheel drive cars. Her’s was that maroon color common at the time with the V6 and blacked out window tint (actually rather practical during the summer in the deep south). The interior was nice for the time and it felt very solid, it definitely felt like a personal luxury coupe. Unfortunately the V6 was rather underpowered giving pretty leasurely acceleration. She kept it until perhaps 2003 when it was totaled in an accident, it gave her no trouble and she was very fond of it.
“When new, these cars were very advanced. With technologies ranging from supercharging, to advanced electronic gizmos, to OHC engines, the MN-12 coupes must have seemed positively space age to its Greatest Generation target demographic.”
The Greatest Generation was more interested in buying the 1997-1999 Buick Lesabre next to it.
That 1994-1995 Cougar with its 205hp V8 was nothing to write home about when you consider that the engine in the late 1995 model year to 1999 Lesabre offered a 3800 series II V6 engine with the same 205 hp and it had more get up and go then the Modular V8 in the 94-97 Cougar/T-Bird.
What is more sad is that the V8 was kinda pointless when you consider that the T-Bird/Cougar’s base 3.8l Essx V6 offered between 190-200hp at different points and the supercharged 3.8l offered in 1995 had 230 hp.
Still the interior of the Cougar/T-bird of that vintage was cozy and nice to drive
The base V6 only had 140 horsepower naturally aspirated and it was a dog in the MN12 that got no better mileage than the V8, and had that head gasket issue. The supercharged version was only on the Thunderbird SC.
I’ve always heard that for the first few years of the MN12 the XR7 package denoted the supercharged engine. It was nominally available with a five speed but I’m sure very few were made.
LeSabre from that time has far from ideal handing ( much better than ’93 Chrysler New Yorker and endless Lee Iacocca specialties though ) and you can feel the body is twisting when turning hard enough ( after driving my Mark VIII and pushing to 60mph on dry ramp for non-winter time, I struggle to keep my LeSabre on pavement. it can do around 20-30 on the same road with a whole dashboard of Johnny Lighting Caprice rolling around, like the stuff rolling aside on Monaco’s dashboard in Blues Brothers ) but for the price, durability and handling in snow, and how comfortable it is, it’s really a good car for winter!
The LeSabre was a better car. The Cougar styling seems to be penned from the Taurus, a far from exclusive-looking car.
The Buick had the larger, more powerful, more reliable 3800. The Buick had better styling on the outside (I like the interior too, but it’s outdated), and still had brand prestige. Buick had a personal luxury coupe. It cost more, but truelly screamed “Success”.
For those who wanted to arrive in style and personal luxury, Ford couldn’t hold a candle. We all wanted one of these:
Show me another 1995 car that can still make my heart skip a beat.
+1000
I always loved this generation of Riviera. Fantastic cars.
Actually the 3800 in the LeSabre is 231 cuin, the Ford had 232 cuin of suck.
Ford just didn’t seem to want to build power in their engines and left a lot on the table.
The 92 LeSabre of moms was not a terrific handler either, but that 170hp 3800 could work wonders about turning those FWD whitewall tires into a haze, and embarass a few all-hat-no-cattle wannabe civics.
+1 The Riviera always catches my eye. The Cougar was never ugly per se, but was far from unique in the way that the Riviera was, and a personal luxury coupe needs to be.
Lol, the unreliable, underpowered 3.8L garbage engine, perhaps the worst ever produced by Ford, is the better choice over the smooth OHC 4.6L V-8. Sure, buddy. Sure.
These were the Cougars of my childhood. Although I never hated them and have a greater appreciation for them today, they always looked like the Thunderbird’s significantly older sister. The vertical rear roofline looked horribly out of date by the mid-’90s, and the overall styling wasn’t updated, as you pointed out. Cheap as it was, the redesigned instrument panel in this one was as least modern and distinctive.
I will always remember this vintage Cougar as the preferred ride of 78 year old ladies in Tamarac, they all had one, they were all this sort of red-ish color and they all had CALIENTE fake dealer installed ragtops with cheap gold electroplate on all the badges and Vogue gold stripes, I swear, they were all like that.
The most memorable one was one that was accidentally driven off a 3 story parking garage by an 87 year old lady that looked like Zha-Zha Gabor, she wasn’t in the car, she got out of it while it was in gear and it drove right through the wire railing and off the edge of a 3rd story parking garage, landing right in the middle of a Civic sedan, like a big fist punching the roof of the Civic down to the doors, very impressive.
Oh Lord, you had those, too…I wrongly thought those Caliente Editions was just the evil workmanship of a certain Naples/ Fort Myers FL dealership chain- that gold platting was sure lousy. They are still at it, with Lexus ESs. They offered a similar Floridian? or Key West? Grand Marquis package, my mind blocks my recall.
There were several Grand Marquis packages, Floridian, Presidential, Park Lane(which I thought was cool since it actually reached back to historical Mercury name)
Far worse than that Lundengaard’s Tru-Coat.
You could get a “Bostonian” in the exact same getup, driven by the same owner’s sistah back up nawth.
It seemed like nine out of ten MN12 (and, for that matter, Fox) Cougars were of the “Bostonian” variety here in New England.
Well said. I always like the idea of putting a highly personalized body over a mainstream vehicle to make it distinctive enough but still reasonable to maintain. But when the mainstream RWD vehicles switch to FWD, they have to change ( to Monte Carlo based on Lumina. a popular car for 16yo boy working in McDonald though ) or use specific chassis ( like the Cougar/Thunderbird when no family car shares the chassis with them. unless they are as rich as GM in ’70s building Riviera Toronado and Eldorado altogether ) Even though I always wonder how possible it would be if building a personal luxury car over a Panther platform in recent years ( I cant imagine a ’00s Continental Mark VI though. and forget about the prototype Mercury convertible ) but not ending up too similar to a LTD Crown Vic coupe neither a Caprice coupe.
I found in the case for Cadillac, their key for personal luxury car is to keep 50% the styling and 50% concept alive by building half. ’90s Eldorado sells pretty good ( despite the Northstar, they still outlive Mark VIII in numbers more than 10 times to me. I live around Detroit/ North Michigan, snow might contribute to higher frequency of Eldorado, but as I drive my Mark VIII in non-winter season, I see Eldorado in those areas every week, usually every day, while Mark VIII pops up no more often than once a week. and they almost disappear in winter. Still, they are slightly more common than MN12 Tbird maybe for the better rust resistance ) by clipping nearly the same front and interior from SeVille pasting with a distinctive tail. They did the trick again on CTS Coupe, the same not too big not too Brougham Cadillac. And CTS coupe sells in reasonable number and many senior people in North Michigan drive them like how it would be if an Eldorado in ’90s. But I still feel CTS coupe only gets 50% of a personal luxury.
If the declining high end personal luxury market is a result from the flopping sales of 02-05 Thunderbird and Mark VIII ( two different possibilities for high end personal luxury cars. extreme retro styling or extreme futurist ) I always wonder. For reasonable priced personal luxury cars, I think Monte Carlo gets way too cheap to become a darling for 16yo Jet Pizza delivery boys.
Too bad Lincoln let the Mark VIII wither away, it could rub shoulders proudly with the big boy CEO type cars from Europe and Lexus. Now I only see them lowriding around on failed airbags, driven by cop/narco dog bait drivers. And you are right, oddly Eldo’s are quite common, often mint examples piloted by octogenarians.
FWD coupes have largely fallen off the face of the earth because the larger ones like the Monte Carlo were replaced by the RWD retro-muscle cars, a move that’s paid off for every manufacturer that’s done it.
In the compact class the trend has been to offer a 5-door hatchback rather than a coupe as the sporty, alternative model to the default sedan because, since it offers enhanced rather than compromised functionality, it tends to sell well throughout the model run while a coupe has one or two good years followed by a drastic drop in the second half of the model cycle.
Re Exceptionalism, let’s see: Foreign carmakers often have specialized US or at least North-American models, Americans still like to drive massive barges compared to many foreigners, & even among the economy-minded, hybrids are favored over Diesels common elsewhere. We still have ridiculously cheap gas relative to most developed nations; as a sign of how much wastage there is, I often see parked cars with engines idling for minutes at a time while their drivers fiddle with smart phones. I hope these folks aren’t the ones who bitch about price increases.
So I fail to see what’s unexceptional about the US car market.
This article was not about the said Exceptionalism of the American car market, but instead that of the US in general. It used to be a very special place, boosted up by the collapse of Europe, Asia, that of the Mercantilism era, and the growth of the USSR. We lost it all during the reemergence of Asia and Europe, and during the collapse of the Soviet Union, along with the collapse of communism in general.
Ridiculously cheap gas? No. Our elected officials just haven’t tapped into it (yet) as a huge means of revenue like Europe. At $3/gallon, gas is not “ridiculously cheap”.
Compared to $9 per gallon in Europe, it is.
Now, I’d love the $2 gas (or lower) we had ages ago. I could afford to drive my Curbside Classic then.
Get drilling! I have a land barge that I want to drive!
You think $3/gallon gas is “cheap” simply because there isn’t much tax involved? It’s not cheap. It costs pennies to produce.
Allowing for inflation (which has been the real problem), gas is still relatively cheap here. It was about 30¢/gal ca. 1970, & a basic car cost about 6000 times as much. This ratio still holds, more or less.
Fed. fuel tax has been 18¢/gal for years & I’ve hear no one talk of raising it.
No. Gas prices doubled in 2001. That is not inflation. Gas prices have doubled since the current President took office. That is not inflation. A loaf of bread and a gallon of milk are basically the same price the past 10 years. The gas situation is not inflation-induced!!!!
Yes, Obama doubled oil prices by the wave of his hand. Seriously, If you don’t understand the dynamics of global oil prices, maybe you shouldn’t be debating them.
Uhhh, did I say he doubled prices, or had anything to do with them? I didn’t. Perhaps you should re-read what I wrote. I used it as a time-frame (like 2001, when Bush was President; oh no there goes your theory). The prices and time-frames are true whether you like them or not. I have a degree in economics; I know how economies and markets work actually 😉 I’d love to discuss global economics with you! Or politics. You can speak, but I can’t! Bitter over Tuesday?
We’ll ALL be bitter over Tuesday soon. And Bushie is the one who did it to the oil prices (can you say Chevron and Halliburton?). Heck, it’s what we got for “winning” his senseless trillion dollar debacle.
And most potential American personal luxury coupe buyers migrated to full-size extended-cab or quad-cab pickup trucks (which offer every bit as much luxury, but with greater versatility and larger, brasher, bolder styling). The people American personal luxury coupes tried wooing are now driving around European sport coupes from Benz/BMW/Audi and cheaper Asian coupe offerings from Nissan and Honda. At least that’s my personal hypothesis.
indeed. it looks like mid-class either gets to upper-class ( buying Mercedes S Coupe. much more expensive than an Eldorado if it exists now ) or gets poor ( when Altima coupe overlaps with a Thunderbird base, or Monte Carlo based on Lumina. Infiniti G Coupe could be equivalent to a Riviera with supercharger, but there is a void from Lincoln Mark class, marginally filled by CTS coupe now ) is it a social problem?
“The end is near! The end is near for ______!” In the case of the personal luxury coupe, they were right.
I seem to remember a certain BMW 3 Series Coupe that has been selling quite well the last few decades. I’d say it’s the worthy successor in the personal luxury coupe market. And it’s even RWD. 🙂
And there are some others too; from both Europe and Japan.
Paul, what I meant was that the Personal Luxury Car, in the classic American idiom, with more than ample for 4, 6+ foot tall, corn fed Americans, and all of their golf clubs, and briefcases, is dead. The Dodge challenger fits all criteria, but is marketed as being too sporty to be a true PLC (luxury and comfort first, performance second), and the BMW 3/4 series coupe is both guilty of the sportiness curse, and they lack the room for the described people, and their assorted stuff.
I known what you mean. But seriously, good luck getting 6+ foot tall corn-fed Americans to be happy about sitting in the back seat of almost any of these Personal Luxury Coupes. The back seats were generally miserable, some of the worst being the 70s coupes, even if they were the largest.
My point is that Personal Luxury Coupes are bought overwhelmingly for…style, and for being in style. As such, the BMW and others have become the true successors to them.
If you buy a personal luxury coupe, you sit in the front. If you want rear seats, you buy an Audi A6.
The European cars have room for me. I own an A6 Avant. The front seats are big enough to fit my overweight frame quite comfortably.
Europeans have figured out how to cater for us large folks.
Pass the brats, now!
If the 3 series is a “personal luxury car” then so is the modern Camaro.
Whatever. There’s just that minor little detail about “style” 🙂
What are you saying? That the new Camaro has no “style”? 🙂
As opposed to what? The 3 series? Which has become a German Camry, sign a paper and lease one for $299/mo nothing down, pick your choice of silver, dark silver, dark grey, dark grey metallic, or black. Lots of style there.
So those 400,000 that have been sold over the 5th generations run. Were people buying those as mini-van alternatives or instead of a cargo van?
I’m not sure if you were joking, but you’re waaaaaaaaaaaaay out in left field if you don’t think that the 90% of Camaro purchases are made purely on looks and style.
I know that the Camaro probably enrages and offends every inch of your being, being that its a GM car, popular and well…..a GM car, but you can’t deny that it does have style in spades, like it or not.
No, the new Camaro is fugly. I wouldn’t even consider it for a personal tourer. And Ford had to match GM, the new Mustang also hit every branch of the ugly tree on the way down.
Well everyone is entitled to their own opinion(no matter how wrong it may be) you may think its’ ugly, but the 400,000 people that have made it a best seller since it came out would probably disagree.
Maybe Paul has a point; way back when, I had the impression that BMWs were owned by enthusiasts, “Road & Track” types. Now, I see them driven as if they’re Buicks, so it looks like they’ve devolved into prestige items, owned for show more than go.
After all, our geography hasn’t changed since Ford Elites roamed the highways, & traffic hasn’t gotten any lighter. Opportunities to fully exploit the considerable power & roadholding of Autobahn cars are rare; it’s not worth paying for unless you like talking to cops.
What the Europeans are doing is what the PLC should have been in the first place: Stylish, sporty, but clean and not over wrought. On the base level cars, you get the stylish 2 door cars but that are still practical in a pinch. But the options are there to make them true performance cars.
On the other hand, the new pony cars are designed as true muscle cars, at the lower end, theyre more like PLCs in that the style and relative practicality take the priority over performance…on the V6 models. What the Asian coupes are doing…Im not real sure.
Very nice, Mr. Mann. I have such mixed feelings about these cars. I liked these quite a bit when they were new. The roofline was so much more attractive than the prior two series’. I never cared much for that odd slightly orangish metallic red. Every time I looked at one, I tasted cough syrup.
It is unfortunate that these didn’t age better than they did. Had these possessed the durability of the Panther cars, they would make great older sleds for those of us who like rwd cars. Sadly, the Panthers were head and shoulders above these in durability.
Your picture captures the 1990s nicely – Cougar, W body LeSabre and a Ford Expedition. All that is missing is the Chrysler minivan.
oh, H-Body LeSabre. H-Body has strut bar and W-Body has bar across the suspension tower and fender-subframe part, they handle in different sloppy way, I cant imagine without them.
My LeSabre handles just fine. You have to remember what it is.
Don’t compare the LeSabre to the Riviera. Compared to the Taurus I drove, my LeSabre handles much better.
I also owned a W-Body Impala (2000), and found it to be a capable car in the handling department.
My Audi will of course handle better than a 1995 LeSabre. It was also in a completely different price bracket.
I hate this color. I don’t know what it is about it but it fades the worse of all the metallics Ford used in this era, whether on a taurus, cougar mustang crown vic, ect.
All my biases aside(keep in mind I made a lot of changes to my 94) the 93-95s are kind of shells of what this platform’s Cougar was all about. The XR7 package was still a real package from 89-92, with 89 and 90 being Tbird Supercoupe equivalents through and through, and the 91 and 92s being a hybrid Supercoupe body suspension interior but the 5.0 H.O. standard. The 1993s lost much of that distinction, they were nicer than the previous year Base LSs mind you, having real leather on the 50/50 seats as well as a few other standardized options that were previously optional or XR7 specific, but lost all of their distinction and became retirement specials from then on(with the exclusion of the 96 and 97 sport package, the equivalent to the Tbirds).
Now on the plus side, I think the 94/5s look the best. They are basically a 91 with some cleaned up details, and while dated for the time perhaps, I think for that reason they’ve aged better than the same year Tbirds or the Tbird nosed 96/97s which just have that generic 90s car look going on. The 91 nose is arguably one of the better facelifts pulled of to a car midcycle since the 89-90s have that tall grille and carrying that over unlike rounding it out like the Tbird, it retained the original design purity longer(as many wish the Thunderbird did). I’m quite fond of mine in modified form, and it’s quite amazing how wider wheels/tires change the whole personality of the car, and since so many steer away from Cougars for projects It’s very distinctive now a days, just as a Cougar is supposed to be.
That cat is ready to pounce! I like what you did.
Ed wrote: “As of now, the American personal luxury coupe is likely never to be seen again.”
That alone is reason to preserve them.
“Ed wrote: ‘As of now, the American personal luxury coupe is likely never to be seen again.’
That alone is reason to preserve them.”
Exactly!
I never understood that tall grille on the early MN12 Cougar. It just looks odd. The 91 lift made a big difference. The later Bird nosed Cougar and Bird updates look too generic.
Well, not so much generic as they look too smiley faced. Like a cheeky cherub.
What kind of wheels are you running in the XR7?
Thanks! They’re 2003 Mustang Cobra 10th anniversary wheels, they’re not that often seen on Mustangs and they vaguely resemble the 7 spoke wheels on the 89-91 XR7 and 96/7 Sport models so I found the design fitting and pretty original looking. They’re 17×9″ with 255 tires, it’s also got matching 13″ Cobra brakes under them. Doing my best to preserve it, I’ve kept a lot of the original parts on hand too.
I agree with you, the 96/7s look too smiley faced for the rest of the body. The Tbird wore it much better, as it should since that was clearly the primary design purpose.
The memory that I’ll always associate with this car is of my uncle’s silver ’94-’95 Cougar spontaneously combusting in our driveway as we were having breakfast and the brief pause and silence as everyone blankly stared at it in shock. This was in ’98 and I still remember it clearly.
I was always suprised Chrysler didn’t field a personal luxury 2 door version of the 300. With all the work that already had gone into the Challenger, surely it could have been done with relatively low cost. Just make the sheetmetal more formal and luxe up the interior with some woodgrain and rich Corinthian leather. You’d have a Cordoba for the 21st century!
I wondered the same, there is a really well done custom job I’ve seen on the road down here, I almost thought that it was some sort of prototype, but no, it was just a really clean custom chop, I have to try to catch a picture of it.
+1…actually like + a billion. The 300 just REEKS of big bruiser car, but to really wear that style well its gotta have a 2 dr hardtop. I don’t want to see it as a personal luxury car, more like a beefy and mean muscle car with a bit of class..in the vein of the original letter cars but with a little Audi RS-5 and Caddy CTS-V coupe in the mix, but Mopar style. Ive said this before, but someone at Chrysler is really leaving money on the table by not doing a 2 dr h/t with the 300s body lines intact and calling it the Fury. What could be hotter than a triple black HellCat Fury? No way it wouldn’t sell.
I just inherited my brother’s 94 Cougar X-7. I am looking forward to getting it road ready. Body is in excellent condition, original paint and interior (front seats ok). He was so happy to get this car … unfortunately, he didn’t live long enough to enjoy it.