This Cougar was my second, notable Mercury find this summer, the first being an ’03 Marauder I had seen only a few blocks away from this silver coupe. I say “notable” because I’m sure I’ve seen some Mountaineers and Mariners around in my peripheral vision, and maybe even the stray Montego, but the final Cougar has always been special as the last Mercury that stirred anything inside of me. I remember seeing one new for the first time, parked in a display area inside a mall in Tampa. My friends and I spent a good five minutes or so examining that gleaming black example, and we all seemed to concur that it was genuinely cool. My insurance career was in its infancy, and I was a young professional at work in my first, post-college career job. I was driving a teal-colored ’94 Ford Probe at the time, and this new ’99 Cougar was its spiritual successor.
I still roll my eyes when I hear or read that others don’t consider this car a “real” Cougar. Allow me to digress, and I will circle back as to why. It has been my observation that others are resistant to when we personally change or grow in some significant way. Since I had first left my parents’ household as a young adult (with a one-year return to the nest), I had not only tried on many different hats, but had genuinely grown in directions that were different than what had been familiar to others from me before. There has always been some reaction I’ve had to deal with, or ignore, in every phase of my life thus far.
Some of my straight-laced friends raised their eyebrows when I started listening to alternative music and started dressing and presenting myself in a manner decidedly outside the mainstream. Some of my edgy, more counterculture-leaning friends would look at me sideways when I’d talk about things like loving nature and going to church. When I quit drinking three years ago, that was another whole thing for some people I used to know, and it has actually been more than fine for me to let certain individuals keep their distance. Throughout most of my life, I’ve been simultaneously told by different groups, individuals, and family members, that I’m too much of something and not enough of something else. Not Black enough. Not Christian enough. Not “gay enough” (whatever that means). Et cetera. Not enough in some way, or adequately waving some flag in someone else’s estimation.
“You can’t please everyone, so you’ve got to please yourself.” – Ricky Nelson
The only lasting peace with many different aspects of my identity arrived when I had finally internalized that, ultimately, nobody else’s ideas about me matter, as long as I’m a good person. All of that external noise was deafening and distracted me from simply being the best me I could be. Caring about others’ opinions may be something I’ll always fight against just a little bit, but awareness of this tendency puts me leagues ahead of where I would be, otherwise. I’ll still always be Joe Dennis, even if I am not exactly the same as I was last year, five years ago, or at age five. I have given myself the grace and freedom to reinvent myself as needed and appropriate.
When I had first seen it, I thought the ’99 Cougar was beautifully styled, exciting, loaded with cat-like identity, and perhaps most thrillingly, distinctive as a Mercury. Some seemed to like it, but what I remember most was others whining about how it should have been called something else because it: a.) was front-wheel drive; b.) didn’t have a V8 option; and / or c.) was a hatchback. Many of us here at CC are car people, and we remember a particular model at its most memorable incarnation. The original ’67 Cougar was a stunning car by any standard, and still looks terrific today. Its V8-only, rear-drive, hardtop notchback configuration was completely and acceptably modern when the first one hit the market in the fall of ’66. It was luxurious and capable of tire-smoking performance.
By the introduction of the eighth-generation Cougar, however, attributes of a truly modern sporty car had been expanded to include front-drive and V6 engines as well as some well-executed four-cylinders (according to a license plate search, this one has the V6, as did most examples). Sure, the New Edge-restyled ’99 Ford Mustang was still a RWD coupe with six- and V8- engines available, as were GM’s F-Body Chevy Camaro and Pontiac Firebird, but let’s at least acknowledge that then-new iterations of these cars occupied a niche that was much narrower than in the decades prior. By the late ’90s, the Mustang hadn’t been the kind of car for everyone it that it was when it had originally started life.
While I acknowledge the Probe’s failure to launch as the Mustang’s front-drive, partially Japanese-engineered replacement in the late 1980s, it’s also true that the Mustang, unlike the Cougar, had been a cultural icon from its introduction, arguably on an international level. This has bound it to its same, basic formula from its inception with the exception of the supplemental Mach E (and the ’74-only lack of a V8). It will be an enormous paradigm shift when a rear-drive, V8 Mustang is no longer available for purchase as a new car. I also simply will not buy the argument that all front-drive cars are inferior, and would buy ringside tickets to watch the biggest Acura Integra fan on the planet face off against someone who would try to tell him or her that their favorite car is deficient.
The Cougar was no Integra, to be sure, but it was a good car when new. According to one period test from Car And Driver from May of 2000, their car had two major issues among a set of strengths. Front seat comfort of the standard units was poor to the point of being uncomfortable on long trips (I would actually care about that), and the 170-horsepower, 2.5L V6 did some wonky things while idling at rest. Performance was said to be good (0-60 mph in 7.7 seconds with the five-speed manual), as were numbers for braking (188 feet to fully stopped, from 70 mph) and skidpad (0.85 g). These figures weren’t best in class, but were certainly right in there with other cars of its type.
Styling is subjective, but this was only the second genuinely attractive, new Mercury of my entire lifetime, following the ’79 Capri. (The earlier, imported Ford Capri, was also a great-looking car, though it was not technically, nor marketed as, a “Mercury”.) There were cat-like shapes and cues all over the place, including the almond shape of the headlamps, the triangular taillamps which mimicked a cat’s ears, and the smooth, rounded rear quarter panels which resembled a cat’s rear haunches as it would prepare to pounce. Its entire look was genius to me, with an exceptionally clean, almost Audi-like profile. Four model years yielded sales of only 176,600, half of which were for the first model year. That kind of downward trajectory in production was to be expected for a sporty coupe from twenty-five years ago, but when the car was discontinued after 2002 with only about 18,300 sales that year, I remember lamenting to myself that the Cougar’s story just wasn’t supposed to end that way.
I’ll wrap with my thought that the final Cougar was a clever, modern interpretation of the original Cougar formula, which was a distinctive package chock-full of feline identity that offered a certain, sporty elegance over other cars in its class. Could Ford have reskinned the SN-95 Mustang and repackaged it as a Mercury? Not only would that probably have been a bad business decision (ponycar sales weren’t what they were even ten years prior), but there was no way a modern Cougar was going to look or have proportions similar to the original. It was clean-sheet time.
It’s the essence of what the original Cougar was that should have been examined, and I think Ford did that in the development of this car. Should the Cougar have been allowed to die after the last rear-drive ’97 left the factory? To me, that car was no more of a ’67 Cougar than this one, which in its final, eighth-generation was allowed to be reimagined and become a new expression of an original idea.
Rogers Park, Chicago, Illinois.
Sunday, July 30, 2023.
I appreciate you coming to bat for this car and making me look at it afresh. I can’t say that I agree with your “two thumbs up” assessment, but then I am older and have vivid memories of that original Cougar that still seem fresh in my mind.
Really, the Cougar had been through a whole bunch of disappointing iterations before anyone ever thought of this car. My conclusion is that this car was a reasonable effort, and may have been a decent sporty coupe, but that there was nothing about it that said “Cougar” to me.
You might as well be yourself – if for no other reason than nobody else can do it.
If I am not for myself, who will be? – Rabbi Hillel, lol
Or, in the words of Oscar Wilde: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
I’d wager that the Cougar had a wider proliferation of body styles than any other U.S. model that had started out with just one (two-door hardtop notchback coupe).
And the last sentence is very true.
I am in agreement: the Cougar (sold as the Ford Cougar in Europe) was a well-styled and distinctive car. Car magazine went so far as to put on on the cover in the autumn of 1998, set against the imposing landscape of American table-top mountains. The UK used-car website Honest John says “Sensational looking coupe. Handled and went well enough with 2.5 V6.” The downside are the parts special to the car but then again alot of the mechanicals are standard Mondeo. Further on the text contradicts the headline “So, the Cougar was ugly, poorly built, slow and certainly not ‘born to be wild’. But we reckon that while it might be too soon to forgive and forget such misdemeanours, by the time you do come around there’ll be none left and the prices will have shot up.”
Wow! That review just kept getting worse and worse. I remember reading the occasional UK car magazine around the time these were new, and when the Ford Puma came out, I had mistakenly thought it was the Cougar until I realized they were completely different cars.
The Puma was pretty small, based on the Fiesta of the time. There’s one I see around locally (not the one photographed). Of course now there’s a completely different Ford Puma about. And a Kuga which could perhaps be pronounced like Cougar.
These always seemed like a bland afterthought in comparison to prior Cougars, although the Cougar nameplate as a whole was really all over the place in target market. Was this particular Mercury a Cougar? Yes, Ford branded it as such.
In regard to the “it’s not a Cougar!” thing…sadly, too many people throw out expectations of what others should do (be, act, live, drive, think, behave, etc.). Some, sadly, try to live up (down?) to these expectations, obviously, and I suspect most of us can name examples of people who try to meet these expectations of others. It’s a sad situation, really, as such really only stymies a person with all parties ultimately shortchanging themselves. Unless somebody is about to compromise some part of your overall well-being, it should be live-and-let-live.
I shall now step off my soapbox. This morning finds me grouchy and I better just go water my garden before I become too unfiltered about the ridiculous expectations of others! 🙂
I like it when you’re on your so-called soap box, because we agree on a lot! Not about this Cougar, though, because I still like them.
Hey, this was the last Mercury that was something else besides a (U.S. market) Ford with extra chrome, so I say that counts for something.
My ex-boyfriend had a 99 cougar when I met him in 2002 in Germany. He had a green cougar, the five speed and a four-cylinder. The car was a blast to drive. It wasn’t what I was expecting. As I had an 83 cougar with a 5.0. I don’t recall any major issues with the car. It was fun and capable, and I wouldn’t mind finding another one.
I like that you brought up the four cylinder, because I’m curious. In the bit of research I did on this car, I had read that the optional six really cost so little over the four, which is why most of them had the six. I imagine things were different in some parts of Europe, where there’s taxation (is there? or is that only in Japan?) based on displacement. Plus, petrol seems to have always cost more in Europe, so the four would make sense.
What I’m curious about is how different the performance was between the two engines, say, with the same five-speed.
I really can’t tell you the difference between the 4 or 6 with the manual transmission. My ex bought his new through the AFEEs car program. He did say he paid extra to get it without the spoiler. The 4 cylinder was plenty fast enough… especially compared to my 1984 Ford Granada wagon with its 2.0 carburetor engine and 3 speed automatic which was German spec. His was an American version. He sold it to a friend of ours when we all came back stateside. The friend in question managed to roll it in an accident. I just Remember a fun green car that was limited to 109 mph on the autobahn… it never gave us any grief. But it was only 4 years old
” … simultaneously told by different groups, individuals, and family members, that I’m too much of something and not enough of something else … ” .
It has always been my impression that when people express opinions of how you should live your life, that they are really looking to rationalize how they have chosen to live their lives.
It is not about you; it’s about them. If you are more like them, then they feel more comfortable with their chosen life styles and actions.
The 2000 Cougar’s 7.7 second run to 60 was quite good then and now. But the single plane of the front end design, while probably good for aerodynamics, seemed … what’s the best word for this … cheap.
But, as the Dude almost said, well, that’s just, like, my opinion, man. Any Mercury Cougar after the 1968 XR7-G is going to be a bit of a disappointment.
Such is the curse of a good memory, or being born too soon.
Your second paragraph rings true for me, and this was something I wish I had learned much, much earlier in life. The upside is that I’m able to help others with lessons learned, as I am today.
A 7.7 second 0-60 time does sound very good to me for the time. And I cringe when I see old shows from the ’70s where a classic ’67 or ’68 Cougar gets trashed or crashed. Noooooo!
I agree, these were nicely-styled and packaged cars. Though, I did prefer the softer edged-styling of similarly-styled competitors like the Eclipse, Celica, Sunfire and Integra. Their rarity here in Canada. limited my chances to test drive, or own one. But I respected them, from afar.
How one perceives the ‘Cougar’ name, probably comes down to age. And what version of the Cougar, one associates with the name. I think of the mid-70s brougham version, as my first introduction. So, the ’83 and ’99 versions, seem like stellar improvements. From my POV, the name ‘Cougar’ is baggage. Were old guys the target of these? Of course not. The Cougar of the ’60s, would play no role in the minds of buyers of these. To many people in the early 2000s, Cougar meant a middle-aged woman making moves on a young man.
If you were writing for a younger audience, I think they would better see your rationale for giving these a solid endorsement. Different times, with more regulatory and environmental constrains. Hard to expect it to compare its legacy, to a car from half a century earlier. The baggage of a name. Nice work, as always!
What I think I remember liking most about the Cougar’s looks when the ’99s came out were some of the ruler-straight lines on it, after a decade of softer and rounder (culminating in my mind with the first Hyundai Tiburon).
“The Baggage Of A Name” would have been a great subtitle and direction for another essay on this car.
If you think of the Cougar as Farrah Fawcett’s car, then this car was the look for a young Farrah Fawcett. This generation looks soft as a kitten, without any feline muscle or killer instinct. It is a passive style, doesn’t leap into the wind, doesn’t pounce. It is a fine car, but there wasn’t any taunt lines anywhere.
It is a nice car. However, I prefer a meatier look, a more purposeful statement than this. Cougars really sold themselves as the Mustang with the European polish. They ended up within a decade of their first generation, into becoming personal luxury cars. Farrah’s ride meant seeing her with a Cougar, wearing a diamond collar – not a wild cougar at all.
These cats had no claws, and obviously neutered.
Unfortunately, one had to be several decades well beyond the target market of the ’99 Cougar, to genuinely appreciate whatever ’60s cache, the name had.
This ’99 Cougar was not declawed. It had no business in the first place, being burdened with a name with so much more recent baggage. That separated it from its earliest years.
Why would anyone blame the car? Marketing up to their tricks. Same silliness with the ‘Capri’ name.
To be fair to this ’99 Mercury, it is vital to separate it from any long distant memories, of a different era. And assess it, within its current market.
I saw it as unfortunate, they burdened such a fresh design, with a name with such a confused past.
I had seen some of the Farrah Fawcett Cougar ads (I love old car commercials), and while I love her, the ’77 Cougar, while okay, is not what I’d imagine her driving (and not necessarily a Mustang II Cobra II). It always seems disjointed that a beautiful, young woman like her would be driving a middle aged woman’s car.
I had mostly grown up with the idea that a Cougar was like a Thunderbird, but uglier. Having been aware of the original, this did seem to be a reset to the original plan away from the Silent Generation badtastemobile the Cougar had, rightly or not for the MN12 platform, devolved into.
Time and a world awash in increasingly clapped-out gen 1 Focuses has blunted how bold, dramatic and *new* Ford’s New Edge design language looked on this car which was the first to carry it.
I certainly never liked the formal roofline on the last two generations of RWD Cougar.
I’ll run circles around this extreme gen xer fast and furious wannabee car with my silent generation badtastembile any day.
“Like a Thunderbird, but uglier” almost had me cackling on my lunch break. I didn’t like the Continental spare tire look on the ’77 – ’79 models, or the upswept rear quarter windows on the early aero models, but there were some Cougar’s that I felt improved a little on the Thunderbird’s looks. In a few cases.
Not a real Cougar? It’s the most real the Cougar ever got since the first generation models. Actually, it’s probably more real than the first generation Cougar, since there wasn’t a Mustang or Thunderbird sharing the same platform.
Considering how the Cougar name got debased at one point having a station wagon version, and was absolutely nothing special in the Mercury lineup, it takes a certain amount of gall to claim this isn’t a real Cougar.
Thank you! I had to research it again, just out of my own curiosity, and at least there was just one year of Cougar Villager station wagon, and that was for ’77. https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/classic-wagon-capsule-1977-cougar-villager/
At least got to ride in one of those ’77 Cougar wagons…I worked for Hertz in ’77 and ’78 as a transporter (we drove one way rentals back to our home location). Often we’d have several cars to pick up, so we would go out with several drivers and of course a spacious car like a wagon was good for this. That’s when I got to ride in it.
Odd thing is, I don’t recall many Mercuries at our location other than the Cougar wagon…back then Hertz specialized in Ford but we did have GM and MOPAR rentals as well as Datsun and Toyotas. Maybe Mercury was more expensive and not that different than the similar Ford?
In terms of name debasement, yes, the Mercury Wagon was pretty sad use of the Cougar name, but they used “at the sign of the cat” as part of their advertising back then so hardly surpising. Olds did much the same thing with the Cutlass name (glad they didn’t have “at the sign of the sword” as part of their advertising, but so many models were called Cutlass, even being sold in the same year with slight addition to name, that maybe Olds should have become the “Cutlass” brand while Mercury could have been the Cougar division.
As a fan of hatchbacks, I should have been a fan of these….but I just stayed true to form and bought another VW Golf (my current car) in 2000…but it is a 4 door rather than 2 door.
There was a Cougar wagon in 1982 as well, a Fox body variant of the ’81-82 non-XR7 Cougar that looked like a Fairmont wagon. The next year the wagon was facelifted and rebranded as a Marquis.
Not more real – rather, sort of the same. The last gen Cougar was based on the Mondeo platform which can be said to be the late 90s version of the Falcon (upon which the original Mustang and the Cougar were based).
Good points made all around. This particular Cougar was a pretty decent car but, as noted, it didn’t fit into a wide variety of expectations – which was all over the map depending on age demographics. Sure, as a kid, I’ve seen the original ’67 model with the funky sequential turnsignals on the Mustang platform evolve into a bloated luxo twin to the Torino and then as a more formal coupe and finally to the sleeker format. Something of either an identity crisis or evolution or transformation.
But it’s great to appreciate it for what it is and its individual qualities. Just as we should appreciate ourselves for what we are as individuals.
Thank you, and we agree. I especially like what you said at the end. It takes some of us longer to get there than others, but it’s worth getting there.
As someone who is also Black and gay and with Christian roots (though I wouldn’t identify as a Christian these days), I share your pain. I get it.
As for the Cougar, I do recall that it shared its underpinnings with the then-current Ford Mondeo, and was indeed sold in Europe as the Ford Contour. When I started my first job (this would have been in 2009), the store manager had a yellow one, and I thought it looked slick at the time.
I agree that transforming the Cougar into a FWD sports coupe in the vein of the Eclipse, Celica, Tiburon, etc was the smartest move Ford could have made at the time, especially for getting young blood into the showroom. That, along with the Mariner (Escape) would have been a breath of fresh air for Lincoln/Mercury dealerships.
If they had wanted to keep the Cougar as more of a powerful, relaxed personal luxury coupe–like its MN12 predecessor–it probably would have ended up on the DEW platform, along with the Jaguar S-Type, Lincoln LS and final (retro) Ford Thunderbird. And I’m not sure who the buyer for such a car would have been, especially because the price point would have been unattractive.
It’s too bad the Cougar ultimately didn’t meet sales goals, because it was a good effort. One wonders if it would have been more successful with a new, unfamiliar name. Ford used the Puma nameplate for its Fiesta coupe of the day; that could have worked on the Cougar. If anything, the Cougar nameplate was baggage.
The prospect of a DEW-platform Cougar is interesting. When I had first read this comment, I wondered if that Cougar might have had too much overlap with the other cars on that same platform, but I don’t think it would have. The Thunderbird was a two-seat roadster, and the S-Type and LS were sports sedans. I think you’re correct about the price point that would have been unattractive. I think even the Thunderbird was a little overpriced; I can’t imagine what the Cougar would have had to charge.
Well, the Thunderbird was $35,500, equivalent to roughly $60,000 today. It basically pole-vaulted its way up to a Lincoln price point, as the halo coupe of the company (at least, for the mainstream Ford/Lincoln/Mercury silo; the Jaguar XK8 and Aston Martin products were far pricier).
But the Thunderbird also returned to its roots as a sort of glamour/showpiece car. I see no way the Cougar could have trumped that, so it would have had to come in cheaper and been a bit more practical. And there wasn’t really room for such a product.
Almost bought one of these. I was looking at it as a successor for my 91 Probe. Basically a better version, more power. They should have done a higher performance version, a GTI. But I bought a real GTI instead. Mercury was just screwed, Ford should have killed Mercury off and used the money developing better Fords and Lincolns.
I have a 68 Cougar, have owned it since 1973. I’m in the camp that Mercury lived off the Cougar name for years when they should have dropped the name after the 1970 model cars. But the problem was Mercury had only one name that caught on and it was Cougar. Almost didn’t matter what car was in the ad, seemed like all the ads closed with the tag line, “At the Sign or Sound of the Cat.”
To back up my argument that The Cougar name should have been killed after the 1970 models. GM did kill the Camaro and Firebird and didn’t resurrect the Camaro until they put together a new pony car. Same with Chrysler, put the Challenger back on the shelf until they resurrected a new (somewhat oversized) pony car. No Barracuda’s, no Javelin’s. Cougar 4 door sedans and station wagons, debased, blasphemy, jumping the shark.
Milk that name until there is no value left.
Counterpoint; GM and it’s buyers let the Camaro and Firebird evolve, the 70 looked exactly as different from the 69 as the 71 Cougar did from the 70. There’s a very dogmatic thing within Ford camp I’ve noticed – lose the dual electric shaver grilles and the Cougar is dead to us” or “lose the forward thrusting grille and three bar taillights and the Mustang is dead to us”. GM clean sheeted nearly every major redesign of the F body, and they don’t catch nearly as much, any at all really, flack for it.
Plus GM was no better, the same thing could be directed at Toronado and Riviera after 1968. And Cadillac and Buick should have gone the way of Oldsmobile and Mercury 20 years ago
To me the ’71 Cougar was just not the pony car that the 67-70 ones were. Broughamificationed overnight! No hint of a possible performance in this design.
GM designs were still pony cars, they still offered “performance” models of the pony cars, Trans Am’s, etc . What GM did not do was build Camaro or Firebird 4dr sedans and station wagons. GM didn’t do it to the Monte Carlo or Grand Prix.
Mercury just milked the name for all its worth. This last use of the Cougar name has nothing in common with any of its other previous lives, not a pony car, not a personal luxury car, not a bland mid-size 4dr sedan and station wagon. Has any other model name covered the range of vehicles that Cougar did? The Thunderbird did have its 4dr sedans.
Perhaps the thought was “Jeez, before our division get axed, lets remake the Cougar one last time. What haven’t we done to it yet? Pickup, van, wait …… a Sport Compact!”
Well there is the Mustang Mach E, and Maverick. Cutlass got pretty driven into the ground With its name gracing G bodies N bodies and FWD A bodies all at the same time at one point, it wasn’t a sporty car of course but it did the name no favors. The grand prix sprouted 4 doors with the W body and I in all good conscience can’t say the 95-99 “Lumina coupe” version of the Monte Carlo was any better than the laziest Cougar iteration. On the whole the Dodge Charger is probably the closest to the Cougar in variety; never got a wagon body, but sporty car 66-74, personal luxury car 75-78, bland generic coupe 76 only, sport compact 81-87, 4 door sedan 2006-present, EV future?
I think the Cougar was pretty abused but from 71-97 it was pretty much the same PLC if you only pay attention to the bodys that the XR7 badge was attached to, never the sedans or wagons, nor the 99-03s for that matter. It departed from that great 67-70 styling, but I’d argue the Cougar always had a little more Thunderbird/Lincoln Mark series aspirations in it than Mustang like sportiness, it was downsized luxury from the start.
Thunderbird itself wasn’t much better, less the odd 67-71 4 doors it remained a 2 door throughout its life but the type of two door it was varied wildly starting as a 2 seater “sports” car, morphing into a glamorous 4 seat cruiser, morphing again into a brougham sled, into a mark clone, a intermediate plc, a compact plc, a grand touring coupe and then full circle with a retro convertible. Styling was all over the place. Cougars between 71-97 you can at least see a gradual evolution, whether it strikes your fancy or not. There was a striking familial resemblance when I parked my 94 next to a 73 one time
I do agree that it seems like for most of the ’70s, Mercury’s identity as a brand was wrapped up in the Cougar. Even when there was a special black w/ gold accents Capri II (John Player Special, overseas), the best Mercury could do to market it was to call it “Le Cat Black”. And then there was the ’75 Bobcat.
Was on my short list at the time too. The local L-M dealers total inability to have or try to get a V6 – manual was no help (remember – at the time most sport coupes if you wanted the V6 you ended up with the automatic; but one telling me they’d recalled all V6 – manuals due to the wheels (EXACT SAME as on the I-4’s) sunk it completely. Yep, these were still the same imbeciles who wanted $600 for a set of 1992 Mercury Capri plug wires.
Ended up with a 2000 Prelude and never, ever E-V-E-R regretted it.
“Throughout most of my life, I’ve been simultaneously told by different groups, individuals, and family members, that I’m too much of something and not enough of something else. Not Black enough. Not Christian enough. Not “gay enough” (whatever that means). Et cetera. Not enough in some way, or adequately waving some flag in someone else’s estimation.”
Hey, friend, you do you! Nobody else can be as good at it!
I know what you mean. Growing up gay in the 1960’s and 1970’s wasn’t a piece of cake for me. And like you I’ve been deemed “not enough ” by others. Now, at the ripe old age of 70 I don’t care. To quote the poet Dorothy Parker: “In youth it was a way I had to do my best to please. To change with every passing lad to suit his theories. But now I know the things I know and do the things I do. And if you do not like me so TO HELL, my love, with you!”
As to the Cougar, I thought it was a bit odd at the time, but it’s grown on me. Kind like a Cadillac “Art and Science” design that got shrunk in the wash.
To quote Mariah Carey in “Shake It Off”, I “gotta do what’s best for me,” which is exactly what I did once I learned to prioritize myself and understand that doing so and setting boundaries doesn’t make me a bad person. Just the opposite. You can’t help others if your own footing is shaky. I have zero problems with shaking people (and things) off these days.
I think the Ford expression of “New Edge” on the Cougar was a more palatable (to me) expression of the “Art & Science” look.
I’m seeing the Cougar differently since reading the post and the comments.
In England it was a Ford ‘World car’ (we never had Mercury) and I thought the styling was reflecting blue ovals, the feline theme passed me by.
To me it never looked quite comfortable in it’s own skin, as if it was too far forward on it’s platform, with too much overhang at the front, not enough overhang and too high at the back.
In keeping with your theme this Cougar didn’t sell well here because of what it wasn’t, not a premium brand, not European and not a successor to the Capri.
Now that you mention the Blue Ovals styling themes at Ford from that time, I’m starting to see more of that on this Cougar. Maybe I had already formed my own mental associations with the cat-like features I had mentioned in the essay. I think the car’s look is a little bit of A, and a little bit of B.
I’m a huge Capri fan, but they really are small cars. One of the things I remember reading about these Cougars when I was putting this together was that they had a longer-than-normal wheelbase for cars in its class that supposedly gave it a better ride. For me, I’d feel less bad about sticking some of my friends in the back seats for short trips than in the Capri.
I liked the look of these when they first came out–a modern car with a real “personality”. I then found out that the interior was cramped and not too comfortable, the build quality wasn’t great, and there were reliability problems–so I never pursued one. Now I hardly ever see these latter-day Cougars.
It has been observed that Americans (who often talk about “Liberty” and “Freedom”) are really some of the most conformist people on Earth. Even when individuals think they’re “rebelling”, they’re doing it in a conformist sort of way.
So I agree with your philosophy (being true to yourself and not caring so much about what others think), generally speaking. To quote from two rather divergent sources, (Sammy Davis Jr. and Tammy Faye Bakker): “I’VE GOTTA BE ME!”
I know what you mean… I’m getting ads in my Facebook feed for T-shirts that say “I Will Not Comply”. Comply with what?
Very true, and I think that links back to Joseph’s comment that “I’ve been simultaneously told by different groups, individuals, and family members, that I’m too much of something and not enough of something else.” Everyone seems to expect folks to conform in specific ways. Just a bunch of stiff-necked particularism.
When this Cougar came out, it was a car I wanted to like. Joseph presents this more eloquently, but to me Ford was attempting to thread the needle, weaving its heritage (i.e., the Cougar name) with a new outlook. And that may have actually worked had the car been better, but alas it wasn’t, so this Cougar just retreated into obscurity.
I love the sentiments expressed here! I’m surprised to read the interiors were cramped, given the longish wheelbase for a coupe in this class. I wonder if the build quality was really that bad compared to other cars in its class, or even against the Probe it essentially replaced. I didn’t read any used-car reviews of these Cougars when putting this together, as I was trying to find more period information from when they were new. It would be sad to find out they just didn’t last. This one did, happily for me!
Next to the Japanese contenders (excepting the Eclipse I suppose)? Yes, the build quality really was ‘that bad’. A Prelude came across as coming from a completely different world in regards to materials, fit, finish, and tactile quality. When new, these Cougars were actually relatively cheap to obtain, but then they also felt (and aged) like it, too.
Interesting take, I never liked these Cougars, but ironically for similar reasons you like them. I remember the magazine press when they came out, particularly Car & Driver’s which as I recall dubbed these as the “Neco Cougar” (New Edge Cougar IIRC?) and while I remember the reviews of it largely being kind of middling in its field the overwhelming opinion by reviewers was that the 99 was “what the Cougar should be”. That because the original back in 1967 was derived off of the Ford Mustang, it was therefore supposed to be sporty….
I think a big disconnect I have with cutting this particular generation slack is most people don’t really consider ANY Cougar worthy of the name after 1970. Were the 99s unfairly judged against what the masses thought the Cougar “should be”? Maybe. But so were the 89s, the 83s, 80s, 74s and 71s. Heck, some people even think the 69 refresh ruined it. Each generation has overwhelmingly has a higher ratio of detractors to defenders, so while I’d be open to softening my overall negative opinion on these, I’m not going to sit and pretend they added anything valuable to the Cougar brand than any other of those interim ones like my 94. The sport compact market that was fairly healthy in the 90s was losing steam already by the time these hit showroom floors, and was pretty much dead by 2005 at the end of the run, and being a middling player made it another footnote generation in the Cougar’s history.
My personal opinion is this class of car just never was my thing, be it Probes, Eclipses, Integra/RSXs, Celicas, Preludes etc. I don’t like the Cougar any less than any one of those to be honest, they’re just too small for my taste. The Cougar’s styling I found a little too cute, I’m sure the designers were going for aggressive but it always reminded me of like Pikachu in Pokemon on wheels, not helped by there being a surprising amount in yellow. Incidentally from that same C&D article had captions of prior generations on a page, and the one I liked the most outside the classics was the handsome (to me)91 XR7, which probably directly influenced me to get the 94 7 years later, despite it not being cool to my peers, or the best Cougar generation to enthusiasts. I liked it and still like it.
Great points to ponder, especially when thinking about the different generations of Cougar having its own fans and detractors. I remember reading one particular review of the refreshed ’69 where one author likened its growth and side contours to “Buick-ization”. That stuck with me. I like a lot of Cougars over the years, though its not a continuous through any long stretch of model years.
I never liked the original Ford Mondeo/Contour/Mystique (which were the basis of this car) or Ford’s New Edge styling (or any Ford styling on cars that debuted between 1995 and 2010), but I always liked the Cougar name, even on sedans and wagons, and have no problem with this car using the Cougar name.
Always liked the car as a modern Cougar, and Mercury’s next cat could have been a 3-door Mountain Cat based on the Escape, with a lower roof and shorter rear overhang. But as usual, PDC’s Area T didn’t get it.
A very well-written article. Even if I don’t very much appreciate the car, I totally appreciate how you come around to discussing it.
And the Ricky Nelson reference…it’s been a while since I’ve heard that 🙂
Thanks, Jeff! I feel Nelson’s angst in those lyrics, even though he sings them in a very laid-back style. Another song I think of when put into similar situations with people’s unrealistic expectations of me.
In Europe, this was sold as the Ford Cougar and didn’t soar as high as Ford might have hoped. It was held back by its arguably US taste styling, by being a little too big on the overhangs, the rather cheaply finished Mondeo interior and by not being as compact or tidy as a Capri, which even if it was 20 years or more previous was still the market’s benchmark.
Also, it was a form that was dying in Europe – VW, GM, Fiat, Volvo all closed production of Coupe models unreplaced around this time.
Roger, I like reading your perspective. From my own, I look at this Cougar in direct profile and I don’t see overhangs at all. I see wheels pushed to the corners on a long-ish wheelbase that I wasn’t used to seeing on sporty cars in the U.S., regardless of origin. That this car appears to have significant overhang to someone from the U.K. makes me look at this Cougar just a little differently. And you’re right about coupes having been on the way out when this car arrived to the party.
Another example of “a Car of the Future passed.” Like previous models that seemed to indicate a new direction for design, they ended up unsuccessful. Think Chrysler Air Flow.
Ford was ready to take chances, they produced the groundbreaking Taurus, then followed that up with the “Aero” T Bird and related Cougar. Eventually all Ford products were influenced. They might have gone too far with the Oval Taurus.
For many years these models were dismissed as “jellybean” cars, especially by the competition. The ’94 Mustang got a lot of hate at first, and these models still are not as popular with collectors.
I remember the original Cougar, it was considered a Mustang with a European accent. In 1984 My Wife and I had been impressed by the “I’ll be seeing You” ad campaign and bought a new Cougar. I had preferred the T Bird, but my Wife liked the more formal roof line of the Cougar.
As a model, Cougar had ups and downs, some earlier cars had definitely lost their essential “Cougar-ness,” but the personal luxury car was on it’s way out, with a rapidly shrinking market. It made sense for Ford to reposition the Cougar as a hot hatch. It would probably have been better to have used a different name, since the car was aimed at a different demographic. I don’t think that a worse name could have ever been chosen by Ford, than PROBE!
It’s interesting to think about the Cougar then having become Mercury’s specialty coupe for whatever was in vogue at the time, going from a luxury pony-car, to a personal luxury car, to a hot-hatch. I supposed Mercury had thought enough of the brand equity invested in the “Cougar” name to keep it alive and in constant rotation.
The Dodge Avenger coupe, a respectable domestic competitor for the Cougar. Also, largely forgotten. Years, since I’ve seen either car on the street. A great find, and background on this Cougar.
This is a car that had a lot of presence in my life. My parents bought a 96 ES V6 new when I was in high school, and it’s what I did my driving test in. They had it for many years, and then it was passed to my wife and I when my grandmother died and my parents inherited her car.
Decent ride, the Avenger, with very good handling, a large trunk, and a usable back seat (as if that’s why people buy coupes). But it really could’ve used a manual transmission and a bigger engine, especially in the mountains. They should’ve just carried over the same engines from the Stealth, since the Avenger was mostly Mitsubishi anyway. Those issues were rectified when the Stratus Coupe replaced the Avenger, but that car’s awkward styling and lackluster dynamics along with the dying coupe market (that and the stupid decision to call the coupe Stratus) made it not a success.
The Sebring coupe twin has had a couple of CCs here, but not the Avenger.
I was daily driving a 1997 Avenger ES V6 until December of 2020. Something went sour in the steering column clockspring, and I couldn’t find a replacement. Long out of production, and second hand ones never worked. Horn and airbag wouldn’t work. It also started to burn oil, so I finally gave up trying to keep it going. Body was rusting even though it had been Krowned since new. Window and trunk seals leaked and no replacements could be found. I loved that old beast, but it was time.
, Im sure the late Cougar didnt sell here neither did any other model, basing it on the Mondeo wasnt a bad thing, FWD platforms done right can be a very entertaining drive.
Right! I thought the Mondeo (here, we called it the Ford Contour / Mercury Mystique) was a good car. I wasn’t a hit here because it was smaller than what people wanted, but from what I remember reading about them, they were fundamentally good. Basing the Cougar on it was a solid idea.
I also took note when this car was originally introduced to the market in 1999, viewing it as a fresh take on a small sporty coupe, but found the name “Cougar” a little off-putting on a platform so obviously modern. Too much baggage, given that for most of its 35-40 year history, the Cougar was desperately trying to recapture some of the sportiness of its original iteration and was burdened with excess weight and ostentation. Such confusion was endemic to the Mercury division throughout its history, so why would anyone expect the Cougar to be different?
However, in keeping with the spirit of this essay, maybe this final Cougar should be viewed as finally escaping the bonds of its muddled Mercury heritage and was indeed successful on its own merits as class-competitive, unburdened by unrealistic expectations imposed by others.
But shouldnt success translate to, well, success? These were the USA sales figures for these by year
1999 – 56831
2000 – 40343
2001 – 29487
2002 – 19345
2003 – 2024
By comparison these were the preceding generation’s
1989 97,246
1990 76,467
1991 60,564
1992 46,928
1993 79,700
1994 71,026
1995 60,201
1996 38,929
1997 35,267
Seems like escaping the bonds of heritage should come with some sort of vindication for such a bold move, no? Instead the Cougar name just bounced from one decaying 2 door subsegment to another decaying 2 door subsegment. To that end its lack of success actually muddled Mercury’s heritage further, representing one of the handful of last ditch efforts that tried and failed to keep Mercury from going the way of Oldsmobile, who likewise found little success in its own bond breaking efforts.
“However, in keeping with the spirit of this essay, maybe this final Cougar should be viewed as finally escaping the bonds of its muddled Mercury heritage and was indeed successful on its own merits as class-competitive, unburdened by unrealistic expectations imposed by others.”
This was my favorite.
I liked these when they came out, really fresh style. I distinctly remember looking at a new one with my brother who was in the market for a new car. But I do think it was a giant mistake for Ford to both make this a Mercury and call it a Cougar.
It should have been some new Ford model to appeal to younger people. No one who liked the previous Cougar was going to like this car.
From what I remember these cars had a lot of issues. No way would I have bought one over say a Prelude or Integra in that era, but at least they were doing interesting designs.
A fun tidbit about these: the headlamps, made by Bosch, had a design/engineering flaw. Sunlight entering the low beam projector’s objective lens (the thick glass ‘eyeball’ at the front of the projector) at a particular angle was reflected perfectly to focus at the exact distance where the headlamp’s polycarbonate outer lens lay. The effect was exactly the same as a gradeschooler using a magnifying glass to cook ants on a sunny day: a melted/burnt spot/hole in the outer lens. It’s been awhile, so I’m no longer certain exactly when in the process this was discovered. I think it was before the cars went on sale, but after a fair number of them had been built, so there was no recall involved, but there was an expensive and frenetic rush to redesign and retool the lamps, do all the validation (including sunshine tests!) and certification, purge the supply line of first-design lamps, fill the supply line with redesigned lamps, refit the already-built cars, etc.
Wow! And now I’ll probably think about frying ants on the sidewalk with a magnifying glass the next time I pay attention to the headlights on these, whenever that may be. One of the stylistic details I liked were the round, raised sections on the taillight and headlamp lenses. I had no idea all of this had gone down on early-production models.
As someone interested in this market segment and in the prime demographic at the time of this Cougar’s introduction (30, upwardly mobile, no kids yet), it wasn’t the Cougar name that was the most off-putting part (although the too-recent memory of the old Thunderbird’s dowdy clone didn’t help), it was the Mercury name itself. For most people under 55 today that didn’t/don’t live in the past the only remotely sporty thing that Mercury had prior to this in their living memory was the Australian Mazda-based Capri that immediately was drawn and quartered by the (oh, such delicious irony here) actual Mazda designed, engineered and built Miata which was everything the Capri wrongly thought it was. And a bag of chips.
Mercurys of recent memory at the time were all too painfully obviously badge-engineered Fords built to fill out the production line, sold with the even older demographic Lincolns, and with one foot in the grave already with the other foot at the end of an arthritic knee and ankle bending its way down towards the soil as well. Nobody in their right mind that was looking at or had owned a Celica, Integra, Prelude, 240SX, Scirocco/Corrado, Eclipse (well, at least an early Eclipse), or perhaps even ever driven any of those would be looking at a Cougar in its stead, no matter what C&D’s advertising department told the editors to say. And then the only “fast” one needed a V6 to do that, whereas none of the competitors did.
So who did that leave? Just Mercury diehards that had somehow grown up with the brand or remembered it from their parents; the problem was that most of those people were in their late 40s by this time and a low coupe wasn’t what they were looking for at all. Or they’d already moved on from Detroit for good by this point, the main selling point of the Probe on the coasts was that it was mucho Mazda underneath. These Cougars perhaps sold well for a little while in middle America where you just didn’t buy Japanese, but on the coasts? D.O.A.
I would be curious now to see just how many had cross-shopped a Cougar against some of the other established sporty coupes you had mentioned. Great points to think about. I could see how the Probe might have managed some conquest sales from those who considered only Japanese imports, but with the Cougar being based on Ford’s own Mondeo from Europe, I wonder if made it lose some cache with some erstwhile import shoppers.
Yeah… there wasn’t much at Mercury dealerships for youth for much of my own lifetime. The Capri (the import, the domestic, and then the Australian), the EXP-clone LN7… and then this Cougar. I honestly can’t think of any others, and I do not include the reborn Marauder in that category as it clearly seemed to appeal to an older demographic.
To each their own but for some reason the Cougar didn’t turn my crank. However your previous ride was a Probe and that car in GT form always appealed to me. Especially when lowered a couple inches to sharpen up handling and reduce the tire wheel well gap. Congrats on giving up alcohol three years ago. I’ve been sober a while yet despite my introverted nature have made multiple friends over the years from every walk of life in my 12 Step program.
I love the Probe GT, especially the final-year ’97 GTS. I’d also love one of those.
And thank you. Breaking up with alcohol has been one of the biggest acts of self-care I’ve ever done. For every person I’m no longer in contact with directly or indirectly as a result of my decision, there have been either new people or loved ones from my past who are back in my life. I have been provided for…daily.
The ad you included of the man sitting on the bench holding a paper with his head swiveled 180° to view the Cougar on the street behind him is advertising at its most subversive. No human could do that without needing a trip to the hospital afterwards. I showed that ad back when it was fresh to my co-workers at DELL and none of them noticed that absurdity until I pointed it out.
Re. the Cougar: I thought I was the only guy in America who really liked them. As a fellow member of the dudes-with-pierced-ears club, we share that in common.