(first posted 8/4/2014) I was certain we’d had the Fox-based Cougar sedan covered, but as it turns out, that wasn’t the case! So thanks to AGuyInVancouver for posting such a well-kept example for me to share with all y’all. It’s not only an example of Ford slowly getting its engineering house back in order, it’s also a great reflection of their marketing machine’s ineptitude during the last years of the Better Idea era.
Now, we’ve covered the ’67 T-bird many times before and its transition into a genuine bloat mobile during the late sixties. But I’d argue the early ’80s Mercury Cougar, despite its downsizing, embodied an equally shameless degradation of a nameplate, begun with the addition of sedans and wagons in 1977, and completed with the 1980 model’s newly chaste, domestic proportions. Imagine if there were a 1983 Celica wagon, based on Camry mechanicals (maybe it’d have been quite good, but certainly not sexy). Perhaps Mercury could’ve reverted to the Montego nameplate if not so bent on maintaining the feline theme, with Lynx, Bobcats and Cougars everywhere!
At least the ’80-’82 Cougar wasn’t a bad car for its time, embodying the Fox-Zephyr’s efficiency and wieldy proportions in a less bare shell. Next to the Montego and ’77-79 Cougar it ultimately replaced, and compared to the likes of the early ’80s Olds Cutlass and Pontiac LeMans, it had little to apologize for (and its rear windows even rolled down!). By the time center high-mount brake lights were mandated, people were already ditching these cars for the sleeker alternatives now on tap (including the new Sable), so the clunky aftermarket unit on this car shows its owner was quite happy with their car during the latter half of the decade. Even better, those white walls and bumper caps show continued pride in ownership today.
It makes sense, too: this is actually quite an impressive sight in 2014, being a mere hood ornament and polishing away from looking truly new. I’m sure it gets plenty of compliments from passersby. While the performance of this fully stock example wouldn’t impress anyone now, it has plenty in common with the Mustang up until about 2004, mechanically. Imagine dropping a 5.0 high-output into this sled; then it could finally live up to its name!
Related reading:
Curbside Capsule: 1981 Mercury Cougar XR7 – Mercury Throws a Cutlass at the Cougar
Car Lot Classic: 1980 Mercury Cougar XR-7 – That Very Common Dishonest Car – Yours For $2995; Hurry!
Period factory “turbine” aluminum wheels & dropping the roof vinyl would be major improvements. This isn’t a Town Car or Marquis, so it shouldn’t try to look like one.
While the plastic bumper end-caps might’ve been a tolerable cost-saving measure on the budget Fairmont, they don’t belong on an upmarket model like this.
Correction: it seems the Fairmont/Zephyr had properly finished bumpers, which probably cost more to make.
I think the bumper end caps that cover the gaps between the bumpers and the body were considered more upscale at the time. The Fairmont’s bumpers, with their knee-bashing metal extremities, revealed too much of an air gap for the space created between the bumper and the body by telescoping impact absorbers. These end caps do a decent job of concealing those gaps. The end caps on economy cars like the ’80 Ford Fiesta, on the other hand, were probably used for the cost reason you mentioned. Or maybe it was just because that’s how Volkswagen added five mile per hour impact bumpers to the 1975 Rabbit, and everyone else copied what was considered the most premium econobox in the ’70s.
I’ve driven a Cougar sedan similar to this one, or maybe it was the Granada clone. It looked fancy from the outside and was kept in pristine condition by its owner. I thought it also did an excellent job at producing the sort of isolated and slow body motions associated with earlier full-sized American cars, which was pretty remarkable for a light car with struts in the front and the Fox-body four-link in the rear. The one I drove had a 4-speed/4-cylinder powertrain though, which made it feel shockingly underpowered. The combination of very good noise suppression and low torque made it feel like a Cordoba towing a house. I’m sure it wasn’t actually slower than my 240D, but the lack of engine noise made it seem like the gas pedal wasn’t connected to anything.
Can’t tell you the last time I saw one of these
Wow. Truly impressive to find one of these cars in this state of preservation. I’ve not seen one in more time than I can remember, and I’ve only seen one of the equivalent Granada (which was in similar condition except for some unrepaired and recent-looking front end damage). I think most of these were used up and thrown away, and the ones left now have quite a bit more rarity value than some of their early 80’s compatriots.
It also strikes me how true it is that this was the right car with the wrong nameplate. Sure, it was neither as stylish at one end, nor as broughamy at the other end, as were the GM A/G-body offerings. But it didn’t compare badly on its own merits, and Chrysler didn’t even have a direct competior in that space anymore (once the Volare/Aspen were killed off, the Chrysler M-body moved upmarket and the Plymouth/Dodge versions became irrelevant outside fleets). But calling it a Cougar was all kinds of wrong. The small boxy Thunderbird wasn’t lumped in with the Granadas, so they could have easily called these (staying in the cat idiom) Pumas, perhaps? Leopards? Catamounts?
What was wrong with Monarch? I know house cats sometimes eat them, but…
The MONARCH!
Mini me Marquis
I always found it interesting that they just didn’t call this car the Monarch. Ford’s version of this sedan was the second generation Granada, so why couldn’t this have been the second generation Monarch? Anyway, an good find and a decent looking car, even if the rear looks a bit too plain and cheap. What really jumps out for some reason, is how narrow its track is. Those wheels look so much closer in than on modern cars.
I wondered the same thing, I spotted a scan from a magazine (Motor Trend? Road Test? Car & Driver?) showing a spyshot of what they showed as the 1981 Mercury Monarch. http://www.lincolnversailles.com/Monarch/1981%20Mercury%20Monarch.htm
Come to think of it, they could had re-used some others former Mercury monickers like Comet, Monterrey, Montclair, Meteor as well.
A well preserved vinyl top. These led to the more up-market Foxes. The 1983 LTD & Marquis. Does have a calm, very American, squared-off look. Almost a Versaille replacement. This was the post, Hank The Deuce era too.
Putting a center brake light(aka CHMSL) on older cars was a way to lower your insurance premiums on said car during the 1980’s. The CHMSL ruling for passenger cars was approved in 1983 with a mandate to equip all new passenger cars starting in Sept 1985(for the MY1986) and all trucks for the MY1994.
According to the NHTSA document below. about 4 million CHMSL retrofit kits were manufactured in the USA or imported into the USA by 1986. (As there was no law mandating older cars getting these CHMSL lights and due to to the skeptical climate of the 1980’s , folks were not going to buy something without a benefit so it had to be a big enough insurance discount.)
http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/doc/wp29compendium/5-4.pdf
I remember those add-on 3rd brake lights. Invariably they were installed on cars driven by folks who already had the lowest insurance rates. Lots of B/C-bodies and Panthers had them.
IIRC, GM had the 3rd brake light available as an option on select models for the ’85 model year. They were, of course, the new FWD 98, Electra and DeVille.
You are correct on certain ’85 GM cars having the CHML. I recall seeing some Deville models so equipped. One of the physicians at the local hospital I worked at bought a new Park Avenue every year. I remember his ’85 PA (silver w/black vinyl top and leather) with a luggage rack and the CHML being mounted to the rack. His PA was one of the first new front wheel drive Electra/Park Avenue models I saw.
I think the CHMSL was standard on the FWD deVille/Fleetwood from their intro in 1985.
The Post Office started experimenting with CHMSLs in the early 1980s. Back then the Post Office was using Jeeps and Ford Pintos as mail delivery cars. Reportedly the accident rate on these vehicles was significantly lowered.
The 1971-78 Oldsmobile Toronados had 2 high mounted brake lights on the placed right under the rear window
In the mid-70s every Ford and Lincoln/Mercury 2-door including the Mark V looked like a Montego and in the 80s every 4-door looked like a Fairmont. I bet the front doors on this Cougar are exactly the same as on the Fairmont. You wonder if the powers that be didn’t know this, didn’t care or knew and cared but didn’t have the talent to do anything better.
Ford was copying GM’s boxy look in late 70’s. It wasn’t until a few years later that they broke away from aping the General, and brought out Aero T-Bird and Taurus. GM never recovered.
The late 80’s were the only few years in that I could recall withing my life that Mercury’s had some significant styling differences from Fords, but within a few years after that it was business as usual, by the 1990’s Mercurys were once again, Fords with a little wood trim and a little more chrome.
If cars were people, this one would be a blue-haired little old lady, presumably on her way to Bunco night with the other ladies from the Rotary Club.
And it should have. Not just for this car, but for the 1977-1979 Cougar four-door and wagon, as well. This car definitely screams a “MONTEGO” vibe.
Or even going back in time, when for a brief moment, the Comet was Mercury mid-size star after the retirement of the short-lived Fairlane-sized Meteor but by 1967, the Comet models was also known as Cyclone, Caliante and even Capri before the coming of the Euro-Capri and the Fox-body Capri.
The “non-XR-7” Fox Cougar line was only sold for two years, 81-82, while the old 1975-era Monarch was on its last legs for 1980. But still, didn’t they learn from the forgettable 1977-79 plain-jane Cougars?
The Marquis name was next to be demoted to middie for 1983-86. However, they were handsome cars, so I don’t begrudge them.
If my opinion were to mean anything (and I’m not trying to imply that it should), there wouldn’t have been any non-XR-7 Cougars in the early 80’s, or any non-coupe Cougars, for that matter. Drawing a line in the sand to say, “Okay, this is what this nameplate is gonna be” and then wiping out that line is a good way to confuse buyers.
I have to wonder, that considering the 1980 Cougar was just that(XR7, coupe only), that the immediate dismal sales of the 1980 model year prompted the half baked rebranding of the sedans for 81 to boost overall sales for the nameplate or the brand. Unlike the 77-79 base Cougars the 81 & 82s don’t actually share the same front clips, dashes, ect. (they’re very similar, but actually quite different if you look closely between these cars linked below). That immediately makes me think this wasn’t the initial intention with these Fox Mercurys and that thy were actually supposed to be Monarchs.
http://www.lov2xlr8.no/brochures/mercury/81cu/bilder/3.jpg
One oddity with the 80-82 Cougars is that for the 1980 MY there was only a XR7 two door, just as it had been prior to 1977. The LS sedan and wagon only showed up in 81 & 82 respectively since the Monarch was still in production through 1980. For a fleeting moment it seemed the Cutlassization of the Cougar may have been over
Fairmont called and wants its body back……
This almost looks like something a guest star on an early 80’s TV show that used Ford cars would drive, but not something that an actual human would have bought, I can almost picture the 2 heavies/government agents driving this Cougar sedan while chasing Magnum or Simon and Simon
Too well-optioned for government agents–the vinyl roof and two-tone were outside the fleet’s budget. Heavies, maybe–having downsized from their Lincoln due to gas price concerns.
Don’t forget Henry’s friends in E.T. being chased by Sinister Gov’t Agents in a swarm of stripper Fairmonts. This is THE film for Fairmont fans, or lovers of Reese’s Pieces.
Nowadays Sinister Gov’t Agents drive black Suburbans.
Thats right, I haven’t seen that movie in years, I remember the Fairmonts and the mom’s Audi 5000 sedan.
Vera Miles also drove one of these in Psycho II, I can’t remember if it was the Ford or Mercury version.
I meant to say Elliot; Henry was the actor’s name. I wonder if Audi or Ford got a sales uptick from that?
I don’t know if that was product placement, but you see very blatant product placement in modern Korean dramas. In one, the characters use Samsung smart phones prominently, & they’re mentioned in the end credits. So is Infiniti. At least they’re forthright about it.
Or something Hunter would destroy while chasing after crooks.
Yes, I could see Sgt. Hunter sliding his green Plodge into this after a brief chase with a bad guy.
Mike’s dad in Stranger Things has the GM equivalent, a G-body Pontiac Bonneville. The family also has a Merc, a Colony Park, so presumably he would’ve considered the Cougar while shopping for the Bonneville.
I think going back to the Comet, Bobcat, Meteor, Monarch and this Cougar was the beginning of Mercury’s demise. This is a loaded Fairmont. They should have stayed away from rebadging entry level Fords, and stayed closer to the Lincoln side of the continuum, such as Marquis and real Cougars. Buick also lost much prestige with Apollos, Skylarks, 3.8 Collonade Regals and Iron Duked Centuries and such.
I think Buick’s prestige was much more damaged with the H-body and J-body Skyhawk and the downsized 1985 Electra/Park Avenue and the 1986 Riviera just as the Grand National was a terror on Nascar circuits.
I’m the oddball here, I always liked these much better than any of the other early Fox cars. Maybe they weren’t so great to drive – I think Ford was in a terrible engine slump about that time. The 255 V8 was worthless, especially mated to an AOD. The 3.3 inline six was completely overmatched. I think it took the 3.8 Essex V6 in the 1983 models to make these into a decent driver.
I liked these because it was the first of the Ford “knife edge” cars that got its edges softened a bit, and the proportions were better than the Fairmont/Zephyr (and a lot better than the 1980-82 T Bird). I found these more attractive than the 1983-86 Marquis.
I was always surprised that these didn’t do better. The FWD GM cars didn’t come out until 1982, so it wasn’t their rear wheel drive that killed them. 1980-81 were industry-wide awful sales years and I guess these just didn’t have enough appeal in that market.
All non Ford Foxes weren’t bad. I love the hunchback Continental, a real Lincoln despite the Fox underpinnings, that had the first generation Seville chassis improvement treatment, with the torquey 5.0, air springs, and JBL sounds.
I am going to go out on a limb here but this car was probably doomed by 4 things.
1. they looked too much like slightly gussied up Fairmonts/Zephyrs at a higher price and people hated both it and the T-Bird of the same years
2. GM was selling the midsize A/G RWD cars which were so much better
3. GM offered the X-Body at the same time and at that time period, the X-Body was still considered a good car.
4. The last year the this version of the Cougar was offered, the new GM FWD A-body arrived and it was an instant hit.
I had one and it looked just like this one!
It was a great car.
I remember having my boss tell me that the lease was up on the Ford Escort I was liking due to all the miles I was putting on it, and they got me a Cougar. I was so not impressed.
Then I saw it and I was so, unimpressed.
By the end of my first weekly trip through the Rockies, I was starting to really get it out of my head that it was an old lady car. It was. It is an old lady’s car. But it was a good old lady’s car!
What happened and why did this car exist?
Because Ford finally ran out of ideas with their old intermediate sized Torino cars and had to do something. Their new Panthers were out in 1979 and you just couldn’t keep selling those embarrassing 1970 Disco Torino cars. Ford had to downsize and they didn’t have enough money to do it pretty.
This was the ugly way. The best Ford available during these years, besides the Panther, was the Escort and the Fairmont. So, with the Torino out to pasture, Ford hustled all the old Torino based cars onto Fox bodies. And I mean everything went Fox, except Panther and Escort vehicles.
So we ended up with:
Fairmont
Zephyr
Continental
Cougar
Marquis
LTD II
Granada
Mustang
Thunderbird
Capri
and another one I probably have forgotten – all on Fox platforms.
The Fox platform was a good one. It was relatively modern when it was being used by this time. It was a rear drive, BOF vehicle available with 4-6 and 8 cylinder engines. It was a box car. It was a Volvo 240, but with the Henry Ford II and Lee Iacocca marketing twists to them. The Foxes were simple cars, but they were solid.
The Taurus/Sable was already being prepared. The new Thunderbird/Cougar was being launched by this time – using the same Fox chassis as this Cougar.
Ford was FOURTH in sales this year. It was behind Chevrolet, Oldsmobile and Buick! It was losing millions of dollars. While the Escort was keeping Ford creditors from calling in their loans, we don’t see the Panther paying the bills yet during its first years. The new Crown Victoria and Grand Marquis Panthers weren’t huge successes. Ford had nothing left but the Fox – which was fortunately a very good car for that era.
The only thing that bugged me about this Cougar was the damn hood ornament. It was a cool cougar profile. I couldn’t stop looking at it while I drove. I had to turn it 90 degrees so I couldn’t see it anymore.
That summer, this Cougar ended up proving itself to me. It was dependable, drove quite well, didn’t float as badly as the older Torino Cougar, was a very good size, and I like the Brougham-esque touches common in cars that size back then.
The black capped bumpers were actually an improvement over the cow catchers common on cars during those years. The black caps allowed the bumpers to align with the styling and it was an improvement. The design of these bumpers is a compromise between the plastic covered integrated bumpers of the new Fox Mustang/Capri and the classic chromed bumper look cars in the Cougar’s market needed to have a wee bit longer.
I’d really love to have one of these. I look occasionally online to spot one, but these cars are rare. All the old Fox Intermediate cars of this generation are rare. Ford didn’t sell a lot of them. Yet, the Fox body cars saved Ford a whole lot of money at a time when it was hemorrhaging a whole lot of money every year.
Thanks for the (rare) firsthand report on these. Really, I don’t think any Fox sedan did particularly well in its segment other than the Fairmont and the Continental. The bottom model and the top one seemed moderately successful, but those in the middle flopped. Strange.
I recall the tail end of the Fox LTD in 1985. My mother bought a Crown Victoria, but I was afraid that she was going to buy an LTD, which I found to be a terribly unappealing and archaic car. These cars had zero appeal to anyone other than a Ford homer at the time. As it turned out, I later owned one (a Marquis wagon) as a cheap used second car and I came to like it a lot. The 3.8 V6 with the C5 3 speed auto (no AOD, thank heavens) was a pleasant combo, really the last pleasant driving Ford rwd car until Mom’s 93 Crown Vic. Those Fox sedans were a lot of car for your money as used cars because nobody else wanted them after the Taurus came out.
I’m not sure how much I would have liked the car with either the old 200 inline six or that awful 255 V8. Sure wish that later 5.0 LX model had been more widely available.
A couple things: First, the Fox-based LTD was simply called LTD, the LTD II was the Torino-based car built from ’77 to ’79. Second, you missed the Mark VII.
The LTD II was NOT a Fox… get it right.
It was discontinued or on its way out when the Fox platform(1979) was introduced and sold…
The LTD II was sold from 1977-79.
The Fox based LTD and Marquis(more like a Fairmont with a sloped aero nose and tail section) was more like a replacement for the Fairmont/Zephyr…
Ford says the Tempo/Topaz replaced the Fairmont/Zephyr but I beg to differ.
The mid sized Fox LTD was known as LTD, not LTD II… THAT ship sailed LONG time ago.
How did the Tempo/Topaz *not* replace the Fairmont/Zephyr? Same slot in the lineup (one step up from the Pinto/one step up from the Escort), kind of similar size, aimed at the same market segment. The LTD and Marquis replaced the Granada and these Cougars, which were dressed up Fairmont/Zephyrs, but with longer overhangs, fancier trimmings, and more expensive.
To me it’s somewhat baffling that Ford bothered to bring out these Cougars and the equivalent Granadas at all. Why spend the money to bring out a “new” car obviously heavily based on the old, while still selling the old, but charging more money for the new? Seems like the more logical thing would have been to refresh the entire Fairmont line for ’81 and just make the Futura/Z7 models more deluxe to attract the same buyer. Also would have meant that the Fairmont wouldn’t be a such a relic by 1983.
The Fox platform did not use body-on-frame construction. All vehicles based on this platform used unit-body construction.
First a well preserved car from that time period. Now that I have been polite I will get down to brass tacks. I was not aware this was a Cougar till I saw the title and it is truly a disgusting car. Ford deserved an F with this. Imagine if they carried this idea through with the Mustang. I happen to be an original owner of a 1968 Cougar and thought, by 1971, that Ford had lost it with those big Cougars. This one shows that Ford was certifiable.
God, I haven’t seen one of these in at least 10 years.
I always liked these, actually. They kind of look like the ’84-’87 Grand Marquis, which was a design I also liked. They still had a legitimate “Mercury” appearance to them, and where the GM looked halfway to a Town Car, I suppose these looked halfway to a Versailles, but in my view, looked better.
I don’t think I ever realized these were Cougars or that there was a Cougar sedan (though they might well have been driven by the people we now call cougars…), these were a mystery until today. I knew they must be some kind of Mercury, but what kind? A pre Fox Body Marquis? I had no idea.
I must hand it to the owner for really keeping it up. It’s surprising they didn’t call up their local Ford dealer and institute a search for a hood ornament, though.
the fourth gen Cougar(77-79) also offered a sedan and a station wagon. I need to get out my Standard Book of Ford/Mercury/Lincoln 1903-1990 and look at production amounts to see if the 4th gen sold well.
Previously on The Americans…..
Actually this season had John Carol Lynch playing an ill-fated government accountant that was spying for the Russians, he drove a brown Ford Granada version of one of these on the show.
Look how much car design has changed in 30 years. You never see cars proportioned like this anymore. The tall greenhouse with slender A-pillars (I REALLY miss those), relatively low hood and trunk, and tiny wheels. Compared to most sedans today we have giant wheels, very high sides, and gunsights for the greenhouse with A-pillars that could hide a ’76 Fleetwood Brougham. Also, you just don’t see a flat, straight hood like this old Cougar. I suppose aerodynamic and safety considerations are driving much of this trend, but is this what people really want? Is this a styling trend?
It changes a lot in 30 years, compare a 1930 car and a 1960 car, I’ll bet people were saying the same thing back then, about how the missed cycle fenders and stand up radiators and complaining about those darn new cars with their knee knocker dashes, huge wrap windshields and fins.
The 60s car looked different from a 30s car because of trends, a 60s car looks different from a current car because of regulations.
There is some that can be attributed to regulations, but style does play a lot into it too, last time I checked, 20-22 inch tires weren’t government mandated…..
…” I’ll bet people were saying the same thing back then, about how the missed cycle fenders and stand up radiators and complaining about those darn new cars with their knee knocker dashes, huge wrap windshields and fins.”
Absolutely. I was just reading a story from the mid-50s where the main character is a young guy restoring a Jordan Playboy, and he makes fun of the ridiculous proportions of the neighbors new car.
“Second Chance” by Jack Finney
I guess I can be that guy. This car mostly is screaming potential to me. Probably just about the ultimate sleeper. I have always wondered what the 4.9 with a lot of clifford added in would be like. The other way to go would be an 1986 or later 351. Just dreaming. Takes more than monopoly money.
Even the 150 hp lo po fuel injected 302 (circa 1985 in the panther) would have made this lightweight sucker haul ass.
I’ve never noticed how HUGE the rear overhang is on these cars before.
The gigantic front and rear overhang makes the car look like it’s standing on its tippy-toes.
Nice looking car, but the bumpers kind of spoil the nice, clean square lines of a car of that era.
Besides being an animal lover Bob Barker is America’s leading supplier of personal care items, clothing, shoes, food services items, mattresses, linens, furnishings and security items to the detentional and correctional industry. http://www.bobbarker.com
I thought Bob Barker was the long time game show host and emcee of The Price Is Right…
The very same person different business line.
Been there before, pal? LMAO
Thanks for putting together the article Perry. Taking pictures is the easy part! I doubled back on my commute to catch this Cougar. It had been so long since I’d seen either a Fox bodied Cougar or Granada sedan, it was something special. And this one looks just as someone’s grandma must have ordered it! Even the vinyl roof was near perfect.
I could see myself in a burgundy one, sans vinyl roof, with the turbine wheels Neil mentioned and a 302 under the hood.
There are an amazing number of really clean, old cars here in Vancouver.The climate is very mild and the roads rarely see any salt However, if you really want to see lots of good, old cars go to Victoria on Vancouver Islandt, there are truly cool old cars everywhere, because Victoria has been a retirement center for decades. I’ve snapped up some really good granny wagons in Victoria over the years. It’s still a premier destination for old ll people cars.
The reaction of this car in Vancouver would be one of astonishment. This is a really snobby car city. The 3 Series BMW is known as the Westside Chevy .
I recall when these came out and I thought they were all wrong. Sales were not just awful thanks to OPEC II and the bad economy, they were also proportionally bad – GM was sucking up virtually all the sales in this car’s bandwidth.
This sedan was a bargain basement “downsizing” of the mid size Mercury by simply moving it to the former compact Fox platform with minimal changes.
The original Foxes in Ford Fairmont and Mercury Zephyr trim were the reincarnation of the ’60 American Falcon. Cheap, simple, sturdy enough, and cheap. They sold well. When you make nominal changes to such a car, you still have a cheap car. The changes boiled down to putting on the most generic versions of every “brougham” cliche that had been on the market for the prior ten years – a market segment that GM had done well with, but even it was near to moving on to the new A bodies and a less broughamy world.
Mercury probably never should have had the Zephyr in the first place. And, the downsizing wave clearly caught Ford with its pants down when the best it could do was redecorate a budget market three year old car. They threw this up against the Cutlass Supreme and Buick Regal sedans and suffered one of the most complete smack downs in automotive history.
Considering the vast improvement in the words “Mercury Cougar” by 1983, and a wholesale upgrade of the Cougar name, Ford must have had religion about what it was going to take to really clean up its product line before this complete bungle of a car was introduced. But, clearly someone was asleep at the wheel in 1978 or so.
These were conceived during one of many “Gas will be expensive forevermore” eras. Auto Media was demanding ‘smaller, lighter’ cars overnight, so Ford could say ‘look we have smaller Cougars!’ and “they now get better MPG!”
But cooler, smarter, heads prevailed and brought out Taurus, Aero-Bird, etc. Not only that but gas prices eased, for a time.
Wish we could say that NOW about gas prices. :/
It wasn’t a bad guess after two major oil crises within a decade.
I’m confused.
An odd attempt to Broughamize the Fairmont/Zephyr, but like the Lincoln Versailles from a few years earlier, it was way too obvious it was based on a cheaper, older car.
You also have to link about the times in which these cars were developed. The Fox platform Granada/Cougar were developed in the late 1970s. The Fairmont came out in 1978 and was the first Fox platform car. The EPA was pushing fuel economy corporate average that were supposed to be 27.5 MPG by 1985. Gas prices got very high by the standards of the day in 1979 with the Iranian hostage crisis. So smaller and lighter were the way of the day. GM, Ford, Chrysler, and AMC were in dire financial straights in this era. So redesigning cars were done with as little cost possible. Interest rates were exceptionally high in 1980 to 1982. So using the Fairmont chassis made sense for the new Granada. Also if you look back to the Ford Falcon, its chassis was used for the early Mustangs/Cougars, Maverick/Comet, Granada/Monarch, and even the Lincoln Versailles. So using the Fox chassis for this Cougar made sense. Calling it a Cougar probably didn’t but I guess Mercury liked the name, It sort of followed as a new “intermediate” line taking the place of the 1977-1979 Cougar. Now 30 years later Ford is pretty much out of the car business in North America and Mercury is gone. How times have changed.
I don’t think the use of the Cougar name for this car is any stranger, in hindsight, than the use of the Mustang name for a crossover now. In fact I didn’t even notice it then, because the Cougar name was not in a car buff’s mind by the early eighties. The Mustang name doesn’t have that excuse.
Funny enough, this is what sprung instantly to mind when the Mustang Mach E was revealed. Ford, Sign of the Horse
To be honest, I kind of wish Ford had brought back the Cougar name for the Mustang Mach E. It might have fit a lot better than using it on the early eighties Mercury Fox sedan.
Actually, while I’d still be outraged, Thunderbird could have actually worked for it. The Cougar was always at its core a PLC, even the 67s and remained that way until 97. Using the nameplate on sedans and wagons seemed to be less about expanding the line and creating a “sub brand” than it was to get some of the name recognition into slow selling lines like the Montego and Monarch on the cheap. The name never graced these cars with, well, grace. Mercury saw the success of the Cutlass and the failure of the Montego and attempted to copy the formula. It’s ironically similar to how in the late 2000s the Montego was renamed “Sable” (as well as FiveHundred to Taurus) with nothing more than a mild facelift of the old body.
The Thunderbird on the other hand moved with the wind of popular trends, first sports car, then personal glamour coupe, then broughamy cruiser, then intermediate PLC, then german inspired sports coupe, then Retro when that trend peaked. It’s something I had been countering speculation of a Tbird revival in the forum I’m on every time it comes up, if that name comes back it won’t be on a large coupe we all clamor for, but a sporty Crossover I imagined not far off from the Mach E.
Mercury Cougar, really Im sorry but as a fan of the original of the 60s this isnt even close, somed badges should just have been retired
A Ford Deadly Sin with a capital D! Everything from using the Cougar name to recycling the barely adequate 2.3/3.3 and 4.2 engines from the very obvious heavier plusher Fairmont body it was not surprising to me that these were extremely thin on the ground even back then. The head gasket plagued 3.8 Essex V6 supplanted the 4.2 in 1982 and a wagon came online but it wasn’t until 1984 when they got these cars right with the more distinct front and rear treatments and interiors and of course the injected 120 Hp 3.8 which finally gave these cars enough power to keep up with traffic and were generally smooth. The name Marquis also replaced Cougar with the Grand version being the larger full frame coupe, sedan and wagon.
As an interim for a couple of years these were hardly the worst cars available but calling them Cougar was a bad idea IMO. My Mustang Fox body friend says he had a 1981 Granda sedan with the 255 V8 and it was a POS. The carburetor gave him fits and both motor mounts went bad but were literally not available for this setup at the time and were distinct to this one off car so he ended up junking it. (His words not mine and I never verified that claim)
My biggest pet peeve about this car and its platform mates has to do with those flared fenders and tiny tires. All of these look like they’re riding on 4 temporary spares to me.
Even the early Fox Mustangs never looked right to me until the TRX wheel and tire packages appeared to put some meat under them.
Guys mourning Cougars because of this car are forgetting their history, aren’t they? Way before this car arrived, Cougars lost their sporty image by becoming a floating road bordello almost a decade earlier. This car is better handling than that old one from the 1970s, right?
Cougars stopped being of interest with the 1971 model, has there been another name slapped on so many different platforms? Luxo barge to FWD coupe! As someone above mentioned, some names should be retired.