Here’s another vintage Car and Track test to put our CC in perspective. This time its a back-to-back comparison with a big fat Cougar. I would have expected the results to be more convincingly lop-sided than they were. Hindsight…
Time Warp Theater: 1974 Cougar vs Cutlass – The Battle Of The Bulge
– Posted on April 20, 2011
To me the Cutlass looked much better in 1973. I am surprised the Salon was Top of the Line.
As for the Cougar, it is just sad that in 7 short years, it had grown from such a beautiful car into this gussied up Montego MX, rather redundant. The original Cougar was one of the finest Mercury cars ever IMO. Especially in a Loaded XR-7 Leather equipped model.
If they actually made them with Paisley print Roofs, I wonder how many came so equipped? In Any case I’d still love to have a 68 Cougar.
The Cutlass always seemed more middle class intermediate than Personal Sport Luxury to me. I think at the time the Cougar was prettier to me, although looking at this comparison it also seems more dated and fat than the Cutlass.
It was fun to watch. Was Car & Track a television show at the time? I don’t quite remember it.
15 seconds to 60mph?
Passing on two lane state hwys and freeway merging must have been a white knuckled affairs in ’74.
With my gutless 2.5ltr Iron Duke powered Chevy Celebrity in 1982 it was still a case of feeling like you were asking the engine for “permission” when you went out to pass. Sometimes the request was granted… sometimes not. Wasn’t the way the auto makers dealt with the new regulations wonderful?
Good thing speed limits were 55 by that time. Plus, they didn’t have the metered onramps in California so accelerating from a stop onto the interstate wasn’t as much of an issue.
Watching this video makes me realise just how far we have come since the days of body on frame sleds. I would be truly frightened to drive a car with such terrible brakes.
A perfect example of why GM was the style leader – at least still in this segment. No comparison. The Fords looked like they came from a different era, woke up and asked “what happened?”
The Cougar (and T-bird) were a disgrace those years. I wouldn’t touch anything after 1970 with a ten foot pole.
One wonders how the Cutlass would have fared with the 455 V-8, or how the Cougar would have performed with the 351 V-8. Interesting that there apparently wasn’t a mileage penalty with the Cougar’s larger and slightly faster 460 V-8.
GM – particularly Oldsmobile (with the Cutlass Salon) and Pontiac (with the Grand Am) – really did try to improve the handling of its intermediates. Ford went the other way, and emphasized plush ride and luxurious interiors, not to mention “road hugging weight” in the late 1970s.
The real loser here was Chrysler, which was stuck with the old torsion-bar suspension layout. Attempts to soften it for a better ride only resulted in handling that was inferior to the GM competition. Meanwhile, the ride wasn’t as soft as the Ford and Mercury offerings, and the interiors came across as too spartan for most buyers. The result was a line-up of cars that was neither fish nor fowl.
The success of these approaches can be seen in the market share trends for each company during this decade. Between 1970 and 1980, GM’s share of the passenger car market in the U.S increased, scoring a healthy gain of 6 percent – from 40 in 1970 to 46 percent in 1980. During that same decade, Ford lost share, falling from 26 percent to 17 percent. The real disaster was at Chrysler, with a share that was almost halved in ten years, dropping from 16 percent to 9 percent.
Interestingly, Ford experienced a bigger percentage drop after 1975 (falling from 23 percent to 17 percent), while Chrysler recorded the biggest drop in the first half of the decade (dropping from 16 percent to 11 percent by 1975).
I drove my mother’s ’76 Cougar XR-7 with the 351 2-v until the transmission died around 1985 or so, I think we had it three years. The 351C was gutless and a disappointment in the power department. Where the Cougar did excel was on the highway, with a serene, smooth ride. It averaged 13 mpg or so, maybe getting 16-18 on trips. I never tried to drive it in the curves like in the video, the handling was not at all inspiring. Other than the transmission (which might have been my fault and which was the only problem that we ever had with it) I couldn’t fault the build quality, as it felt solid, plush and rattle free
While perusing Google Books recently, I saw a sidebar to a Popular Mechanics article from 1963, confidently predicting that in ten years, cars would weigh a thousand pounds less, get double the gas mileage, and have 50% more power.
Instead, they weighed 1000lbs more, got 1/2 the gas mileage, and had 1/3rd the power…
PM has never been particularly omniscient, but they did get it sort of right except for the weight and time. look at the 300 hp V-6 Mustang that gets 31 mpg. A 1965 Mustang would get 15 mpg and have 150 hp under the new measuring system.
Does anyone remember the movie Class Of 1984? It was filmed in Toronto. Anyways, in one of the scenes, a school teacher loses it and try’s to run down some of his students while driving a Cougar of this vintage. Unfortunately he ends up killing himself instead…
A perfect example of why GM was the style leader – at least still in this segment. No comparison. The Fords looked like they came from a different era, woke up and asked “what happened?”
Sort of like 1984?
It’s easy to see how a few short years later the Accord mopped up.