(first posted 3/15/2013) If I ever run out of cars to shoot in Eugene (not likely), I’ll just start hanging out in our sister city to the east, Springfield. The other day, I stopped in at two car dealers; Springfield Buick, and Dan’s Automotive. This used car lot on Main Street was surprisingly chock-full of CCs, and I’ll give you a full tour later, so don’t go off about the Stude in the background. But the queen of the lot deserves its own special moment, since it’s one of my all-time favorite cars.
Since all too many of you here have a habit of taking my words too seriously way too often, I just lied. This is not one of my favorite cars. Rather, quite the opposite. I positively hated it when it came out; the only question was whether I disliked it more than its big, fat predecessor. I did, actually. Why?
Where to start? Its monkey-assed trunk? That was just a start, and I suppose not all that egregious of a sin. But it was out of proportion to the rest of the car. This “Cougar” was just a tarted up Mercury Zephyr, the Ford Fairmont’s kissing cousin. And I rather liked the Fairmont and Zephyr for what they were: simple, honest cars in the mold of Volvos. I even titled my Fairmont CC “That Very Rare Honest Car”
That means I get to title this “That Very Common Dishonest Car”. No harm or rudeness intended to you lovers of this fine car, but when you take a simple box of a car and tart it up like this to be a personal luxury car wearing a name that once really mean something in terms of design and performance, it is more than a wee bit dishonest, in the way we all-too often allowed ourselves to be suckered by Detroit’s latest parlor trick.
Why am I such a carmudgeon? I should be telling you how sharp this car’s “gracefully styled luxury half-vinyl roof with intriguing quarter-window treatment” are and how tasty this some-kind-of-animal-skin-like-texture-and-patterned-padded-vinyl top is. My apologies; on second thought, they are sharp, and that padded top is very tasty indeed. They must be; why else did I pull in to shoot this Cougar on a grey drizzly day?
At least in its first year’s incarnation, the Foxy Cougar was actually V8 powered. But it didn’t feel like it, since the standard 115 hp 255 cubic inch (4.2 L) version was as dishonest as a V8 engine has ever been: six cylinder (barely) performance, and not all that economical too boot. But by 1981, there was no more pretense: the Pinto 2.3 L four was now standard, rated at 88 hp. And the 200 inch (3.3L) six was also on tap, even though it was rated at the same 88hp. How did Ford manage that, given the 43% greater displacement? Another parlor trick.
But the 5.0 L V8 was optional, sporting all of 130 hp. And the beloved AOD automatic too. Difficult times; or times made even more difficult for not trying just a wee bit harder. Except for Ford’s Department of Pretense. They were obviously working overtime then.
I’m almost disappointed that we’re not looking at plush velour seats in bordello red. Actually, I’m a bit confused at what we are looking at. The 1980 brochure suggests that the distinctive triple-opera window roof was part of the Luxury Group package. But that also included “Twin Comfort Barco-Loungers” with semi-loose pillow look or something like that. These look so plain and ordinary; not very dishonest at all. And are they just plain vinyl? That just doesn’t read like genuine leather. Who’s being fooled now?
The offer on the windshield certainly is unusually honest too: 0% interest on an old car; what a deal. Wonder how much he got it for? $700? $800. Wonder how much it cost Mercury to tart up a Zephyr and turn it into a Cougar XR-7?
In my defense, I will tell you in perfect honesty that this generation of Cougar was a sales flop. Its chunky 1979 predecessor sold over 170k units; barely 58k of these 1980s found good homes. So I guess I wasn’t the only one who didn’t care too much for them. Honesty is the best policy.
Despite it being a fairly unloved car this one has definitely seen some love in it’s day as it is in amazingly good condition. Say what you will about the design of the trunk, with it forgoing the long hood/short deck theme of it’s predecessors, and most cars that aspired to be in the personal luxury segment, but the inside is huge, even for it’s time.
I owned the black and silver full luxury model with the 302. Full leather seats and the digital speedometer,rack and pinion steering and 8 speaker stereo with 50watt power booster. It was a gas!!! I loved this car.
All the owner of this dealership needs to do to sell this car is to show it to TTAC’s Sajeev Mehta! He loves these things!
The Brougham Foxes show how dangerous a successful new platform can be. Chrysler’s K-car had a similar trajectory: honest initial versions followed by hideous derivatives.
That strangled 302 had plenty of poke in the lighter, non-Brougham Fairmont itself. No hot rod of course, but it had enough torque for it to break loose in my parents’ downhill driveway when the car was aimed that way. Quite embarrassing for my non-hotrodding schoolteacher mother! I think Mom would’ve been content with the 200 Six instead, but at least I appreciated the V8 when I got the opportunity. Imagine, a ’70s Ford one could enjoy chucking around.
I endorse Paul’s “honest” assessment of the Fairmont. One poster elsewhere objected about how cheap its finish was, but that was obvious, so it was still honest: honestly cheap.
Hideous car. Thought so then, and 30+ years hasn’t changed a thing. But your commentary highlights how spoiled we are with today’s powertrains, compared to the depths of the late ’70’s and ’80’s. 88 hp? 115 hp from a 4.2 liter V8??? I get a chuckle when I read road tests today complaining about “only” 150 hp in a 4 cylinder compact, or a “slow” 0-60 mph time of 8.5 seconds. That was Corvette territory in 1980.
My Civic gets to 60 in 9 seconds????? THAT IS SO SLOW!
I traded a 3800-lb., 150-hp Pathfinder for a 2800-lb., 140-hp Civic. I intend to continue this trend with a car that weighs 1800 lbs. and has 130 hp. CRX, perhaps?
Just yesterday, I read a review of the V6 Honda Accord in one of the buff books. It did 0-60 in 5.5 seconds. They called it ‘snappy’, but ‘nothing stunning nowadays’.
Back in high school (82-83) I had a 70 Toyota Corona Mark II, 2 door hardtop, weighed 2180lbs, and the 8R-C was 108hp. After I changed the exhaust, and swapped on a Holley-Weber 5200 carb,had much more. The other guys at school hated me and my Jap car for obvious reasons. Import performance is nothing new, and I was at the FOUR-front of it in the early eighties. Wish I still had it, because I cannot stand anything Toyota has sold us since the 85 model year.
Horrid,a degradation of a great name(Mercury was not the only offender).what a let down after the 67/68 Cougars.Make mine a 68 Black Cherry 302 4 barrel auto.
+1
Oh, there’s the Stude. I was looking at the wrong side of the photo, I think that’s a 1965 Fairlane on the far right.
As much as we dissed the 65 Fairlane in its own CC, I must say it looks like a gem next to the Cougar. That vinyl roof looks like it’s made of sea foam toffee, but no I don’t want a bite.
I don’t nor ever did like this car, but I do like those seats.
I’m very devided on this car. Being that these don’t exist anymore here back east, I find myself admiring it’s condition. But then there is that trunk. I’m also not a fan of that semi-roadster top, or whatever you might find lurking under it’s hood, but I also kind respect it. I think I like it from the B pillar forward, but everything after that looks wrong and out of proportion.
OMG is that thing ugly. Yet it’s also mesmerizing. It would be hard not to notice it in a used-car lot.
+1 (5½ years later).
Seeing this car is like watching a fascinatingly bad movie . . . it may not be good but you can’t forget it.
I wonder why ‘stomach bile’ was the color selected for the half-vinyl top ‘thing’ . . . ? Beats me. Ye Gods!
You’re only half right. Yes the Cougar that bowed for 1980 was a hideous abortion. FoMoCo bungled all their first round of downsizing.
However, having been around when they were new, I can tell you the 1977-79 generation were gorgeous. Perfect proportions, long and lean:
Surely you mean 67/68?Cougar styling went downhill after then although there were some fearsome tyre burners.
One man’s “gorgeous” and “lean” is a another man’s “ugly” and “fat” 🙂
Well, long anyway….
1971 is the last year T bird would want very badly, and cooler heads might suggest even that’s thinking a little too broadly.
The 74-77 wasn’t bad either. Nor the 71-73. Heck they were all nice before 1980. The Colonnades were tough competition though.
Well…..I like the hood ornament. Other than that….
End of the mystery. Even though it was an XR-7, it was the base version devoid of even a proper door armrest. Attached pic is the upgrade option.
Not totally, since that half-vinyl roof is specifically part of the Luxury Decor package. I guess it was available separately too.
In those days, a creative salesman could order a car in just about any combination imaginable. Sometimes it was done to customer taste, sometimes it was done by the manufacturer to test out options, sometimes it was done by the dealer for the same reasons. Oldsmobile was probably the biggest “offender” of creative optioning in the day as I remember quite frequently oddly equipped cars passing through the lot.
Then, every single option was ordered individually, unless options were automatically included in a particular package or deemed mandatory equipment. Our dealership had a fairly small footprint (in relation to Olds’ overall sales volume) so we made a push with our regular customers to order cars to save space. I would say that from 1976-1986 about 50% of the cars were ordered and that figure went down as Olds’ sales tapered off to the point that when the dealership closed in 1996, only about 15% of new car sales were custom orders. Space was often so tight that we often did deals at customers’ homes and even delivered their cars to their homes simply to get the cars off the lot. That is part of how we were able to stay as a single marque all the way to 1996 by having extremely low overhead.
GM used a special Reynolds terminal via modem that we keyed all the orders in off of the order sheets. Once that was done, the order form was saved until the car arrived and then filed for posterity. I think we eventually threw those boxes away when the dealership was dissolved, but I wish we could have kept it as it would have been fun to look through the old orders. Most would have been mundane but picking out a few interesting ones would have been fun.
GM likely wasn’t that happy with the dealership, there was a reason the 76-78 slogan “Can we build one for you?” was changed to “We built one for you in 79-81”. That was the start of keeping the lines running and forcing out inventory to dealers to eliminate those special orders and allow them to start standardizing packages of option to lower production costs.
Luxury Group??
If that’s luxury, I’d hate, to see the base model.
The BMW 320i and Mercedes 380SLC had nothing to worry about. Lol
Could be an XR7 clone? trying to get the big bucks out of a collector….
This must have been one of those head scratchers for the guys at Ford, after all GM had such succsess with their downsized 1978 Cutlass, Regal, and et. al, they must have all thought these were going to be a huge hit, stand back and watch the ThunderCougar fly off the lot, and poof, nothing.
All Cougars for 1980 were XR-7s.
It was a joke.
*crickets chirping
ThunderCougar ! Lol. Sounds like a Saturday morning cartoon…that flopped.
I can’t imagine these garnering much attention on the typical Lincoln-Mercury dealer lot in 1980.
Isn’t a T-bird turbo coupe just a tarted up Fairmont?
(ducking and running now)
Sure it was. Some tarting-up exercises are a lot more successful than others.
The difference between the 80-82 T-Bird and the 83-88 T-Bird was like comparing a Lincoln Versailles with the 80s Continental. The 80-82 T-Bird was obviously a “tart up” like the Versailles, but the at least with the later T-Birds they started with a good platform (and the Fox platform was good) but reworked the bodies into something down right sexy and the car hit the mark. Of course no surprise they were popular as they made sense for their intended buyer. The 70s T-Birds were most popular but of course that was the height of the personal luxury coupe phase. The 89-97 less so not because the cars were bad, but mainly because the market for large coupes collapsed rather fast by 1990. That was the same mistake GM made coming out with their W-body coupes in 1988 before releasing the sedans. We saw that at Oldsmobile, the drop off of interest between the old G-body coupes and the W-coupes was almost breathtaking.
It was done better, the 80-82 Thundercougar just cant hide its inner Fairmont.
A dishonest car indeed! But the Great Brougham Epoch could also be described as The Era of Dishonest Automobiles. No power, no performance? No problem!
Speaking of honest cars again, I’ll take the blue Corolla/Cornova lurking in the background of the third shot!
What a disappointment these were after the 77-79 cars. The older ones were certainly pigs, but they were luxurious, well-appointed pigs. These just looked “off” from the get-go.
My other problem with these was that aggressively orange/tan trim color. I hated it the first time I saw it, but it stuck around for a few years on Fords starting maybe 1978 or 79. Curiously, nobody else did anything like that trim color.
I believe Ford called the color “Chamois.” There was also a special Midnight (blue) & Chamois decor package for the 78-79 Cougar.
I never much cared for these or really ever have had a desire to own one but it is nice to see a survivor in such nice shape. Bought from an estate sale perhaps?
Dishonest car; dishonest deal.
Common-enough matchup. I remember a not-so-bright co-worker in 1977…bought a Mustang Too notchback for “only” $5000. Used.
Same deal: Down payment about the same as trade-in value; then pay-by-the-payday until the schmuck at the lot has had enough.
My grandmother used to say, “God must have loved the poor; he made so many of them.” He must be WILD about the STUPID…
And the stupid are a constant. When I was a kid; today; long after I’m enriching the soil.
Buy Here Pay Here is a racket but like check cashing and payday lending places often are the only source available to some people. I do not like it, it is not smart, but I am at a loss as to an acceptable solution. It is the free market, but seeing as cars are virtually universally necessary in most jurisdictions, these types of things have become necessary evils.
A person with excellent credit can go to Ford right now and get a 3 year lease on a Focus for like the same price as the monthly payment on that Cougar.
The secret is to try and teach kids to live within their means.
Some people just cannot afford cars. That’s all…if you make $8 an hour, you cannot afford to drive thirty miles to work. You live closer, or get a ride, or get another job. Or none…the math just doesn’t add up.
Of course some people who make minimum wage don’t get it because they cannot get it. There are people who leech off the stupid; it’s distasteful – but do we want government controlling private contracts on legal purchases? You can IMAGINE how that would be abused…
There is no answer…except to know: WATER FINDS ITS OWN LEVEL.
When I see payday advance ads and the hoopla with “buy here lots”, I feel sad that a lot of people can’t make good decisions in their life. This also applies to people living pay to pay with excellent positions.
As a former CPA, I’d see people and families with $ 100K incomes and more, have absolutely no savings. I realize $ 100K isn’t what it used to be, but still is a great deal of money.
Bad decisions are not limited to the poor.
Yeah, but the Focus have a mango colored vinyl top? I think not.
Yes but at the end of a year the person will own this Cougar outright while there will be two more years of payments on the Focus and then they will have nothing at the end of those payments and have to come up with another chunk of cash to put down to do another lease. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this Cougar is a good deal but for a person living paycheck to paycheck that Focus lease really isn’t a good deal either.
Well…depends on how you look at it.
What is the customer buying in the end? Transportation.
A new leased car will provide trouble-free transportation over the duration of the lease.
An ancient buy-here-pay-here unit is a gamble…it may run or it may need repairs that cost more than the value of the vehicle. It’s why the buy-here-pay-here places exist: A bank won’t loan on a car that old or to a customer that destitute.
And at the end of the term…he has an OLD car with basically minimal value. Getting rid of it will give him PART of the down payment for another creampuff.
Now, if ownership as a concept is that important to the buyer…and he can’t work out another alternate sort of deal…this may be okay for his needs. But I can’t really see it.
If a person just needs transportation and can come up with the down payment required of the BHPH lots, much better alternatives exist and they don’t involve leasing so that you are stuck making payments for ever. An A body or Panther that was owned by the little old lady/man and doesn’t have a lot of miles but has lots of scrapes and maybe a few dents acquried before the family took it away from them can provide a heck of a deal IF the person isn’t worried about driving a car that isn’t cosmetically perfect. They often have low miles, were very well maintained and if something breaks it will be dirt cheap to fix.
Of course a lot of the buyers at the BHPH lots are looking to live beyond their means which is why they get stuck with having to go to the BHPH lots.
Damn it, I want it.
What’s under the hood? Wait this is a Fox body Ford that is a silly question given all the possibilities of what you could stuff under the hood and change in the suspension department.
Yup you could easily make one heck of a Broughamy sleeper out of this and with the way the axle is narrower than the body you could stick some pretty good tires in the back to harness that built 5.0.
Got it-
As a Cougar enthusiast who doesn’t think the 67/68s are the end all be all of the nameplate, even I dislike these 80-82s. Every styling element looks disjointed from another, there’s vague continuity to it’s predecessor and successor and worst of all, it continues the Cutlassized model lineup in 81-82, complete with the Cougar Villager, ugh!
This was the Cougar’s Mustang II moment. Just like the Stang, the bloated 70s Cougar inevitably needed to get smaller, but like all rapid weight loss cases it just looked like a sad droopy mess. Luckly the 1983 was very nicely nip/tucked.
The Cougar Villager is probably the only one of the line that I might actually like.
+2…….all the expansive Di-Noc wood actually helps proportions. This vintage Thunderbird sold poorly also, hence the rushed 83 version that brought some aero, glamour and SALES back. The interior isn’t too bad, but between the computer generated folded lines and the weak engines there just wasn’t much to like. Everything seemed to be designed by committee.
Still, if I ever saw a clean, well preserved one like this I’d have to take a closer look. I love survivors….no matter the make/model.
My favorite Cougar:
The Villager, as well as the base 2 and 4 door Cougar sedans, were rebadged Granadas, succeeding the Monarch. While all of these early Foxes didn’t hide their Fairmont roots well (excluding the Mustang, the Thunderbird and Cougar XR7 was at least differentiated from the mainstream models. The non-XR7s were the real dishonest ones. Those share virtually nothing with the XR7, not even the dash. It was simply a cheap attempt to spice up Mercury’s lineup.
Those were very nice, Tim B., but I never understood the logic behind putting an obvious Buick trait on the second generation Cougar. Although still nice, I think it would have looked better without it.
Starting to lose it’s looks with the 69s I wonder if Ford didn’t want in house competition for the Mustang,
I would not necessarily call it the Mustang II moment, that car was a full planned designed and executed program versus this generation T-Bird/Cougar which were clearly stopgaps. The Mustang II is just unloved by some people it was bookended by performance cars.
As I said in an above reply, Ford simply did not have the time nor could really afford to invest in a new platform for these cars, so they really only had two choices, FOX or PANTHER. Supposedly the new management after Iacocca left and Henry II semi retired immediately went to work to rework the T-Bird/Cougar like merely months after they came out.
The 1980 Cougar and Thunderbird showed just how bland Ford styling had become.
3 years later they would exonerate themselves with some of the most amazing styling to grace American cars in years. Suddenly Ford was at the forefront of design. All the more amazing using a slightly shortened Fox platform and the same dashboard as the ’80s.
I remember seeing an undisguised spy photo of the ’83 Cougar in Motor Trend and thinking that Ford made an ugly design even worse. Then I saw one on the road and drooled at just how beautiful it was.
Some designs were overly reliant on computers, as if computers were the savior. You can’t beat a real clay walk around. Seeing a car in the “flesh” makes all the difference.
Well, 1980 was the year of “Argo” and the Iran hostage crisis. Car sales tanked overall. The first Panthers were sales dogs and nearly canned.
Ford put off downsizing, and then was forced to per CAFE for 1979-81. So, in a hurry, they used a chainsaw for the first cars. But, at least new managers had sense to restyle the TBird/Cougar after 3 years. Plus, keep Panthers.
I agree this Puma is ugly, but I like the small T-Bird, bettter if it is modified with a good V8. A drag racer 1980 TBird was featured on “Pinks” and it won the competition. The interior was mostly gutted, but still had the same orange steering wheel as this Cougar.
With lead times, this project would have been started around 1977, a few years after the 1973 oil embargo and after the 1974-75 recession. Also, by 1977, it was clear that GM was embarking on a major downsizing. Back then, GM had nearly half of the market, so it was follow or die. The looming CAFE requirements surely played a role as well. By the summer of 1979 when the second gas panic hit the east coast, these were probably on their way to dealers. The awful showing of these right out of the box undoubtedly steered planners in a new direction for the next generation, which debuted in late 1982 as 1983 models.
I think the lead time on these cars was shorter. Given the bodies and mechanical underpinnings were shared almost part-for-part with the other Fox cars, it makes me feel that these cars were almost like afterthoughts added by Ford to the lineup mostly out of obligation. Given that emissions and CAFE regulations were rapidly changing, it is likely that Ford could not and did not want to invest the time and money into a unique car line for these models. Fox was all that was left other than the Panther. Of course management changed rapidly in those years, we know Iacocca left in the fall of 1978, Henry II pulled back significantly after 1980 and new blood was brought in. Reportedly, new management green-lighted a major revamp of the T-Bird/Cougars almost immediately from the time these cars came out so it is likely that they were looked at as mostly stop-gaps.
Maybe Lee green-lighted these right before he left as an Fu to the Deuce. His other calls were always so right on.
I am sure he probably did (green-light it) as he left almost exactly a year before they came out. However I am not sure the 80-82 T-Bird/Cougars were planned that way but merely something like “This is what the public wants but this is what the government is letting you have” kind of a car. As was mentioned, Ford was late to downsizing partly because it could not afford it as fast as GM, and partly to milk the big cars as much as they could. Lincoln came out with the Versailles to mock the Seville, but otherwise Lincoln really try to sell the public on the “but our cars are still big” during 77-79 when the Continentals and Mark V were larger than the corresponding Cadillacs. Chrysler took a different approach with their cars, especially the R-bodies, instead of shrinking them drastically, they tried to economize in other ways but bet on the ‘big car look.’
Unlike 1983 when the T-Bird and Cougars were designed to shift to a new paradigm on the cars (that was ultimately successful) the 80-82 was sort of a way to evoke the same feeling to the eye that the earlier models did but in a smaller package. The problem is, as Lincoln found out with their cars, is that when you try to say the same thing but much smaller its not well received. When you alter a car significantly its best to move away from the old design so people do not compare so easily. The opera windows, the hidden headlights, the slanted back, all evoke the 77-79 while the 83+ are totally different.
Re: Lead times for these cars being shorter.
I think there is a photo in a prior CC article that shows a pre-production Fairmont Futura with the name “Thunderbird.” At one point did Ford suddenly change their mind about the direction of the T-bird (and perhaps Cougar) and come up with these instead?
As a soon-to-graduate engineering student, I interviewed at Ford in December 1976. I had no illusions about working in a hotbed of car enthusiasts, but I left disappointed that no one I met seemed the slightest bit interested in cars. Oh, one exception was the engineer who hosted me for part of the day-long interview, and drove me between sites. He did get very excited about the great employee discount he got on his Maverick. But I did see early Fox protos being tested, and even with that slight glimpse I knew those cars would be good. But still disappointing that they would be “backdated” into these older style broughams.
I have an attachment to these cars as my first car was an ’84 Marquis with the same dash.
Also, please remember that “Argo” is a highly fictionalized account of the “Canadian Caper”. The movie highly plays up the role of the CIA and completely dismisses the role of our ambassador to the US, Ken Taylor. The movie, while entertaining, is an affront and an insult to history buffs, especially in Canada.
Jimmy Carter agrees with me. He also did not say the word “malaise”. Hmmmmm.
I’m not sure they had less time on T-bird/Cougar — if they knew when they needed the Fairmont (which was a good execution) they knew when they needed its derivatives. And Ford was plenty capable of developing competitive products, the Fox and Panther platforms were both good.
I don’t think the downsizing is to blame as GM pulled it off twice around that time, first with the Bs and then with the Gs.
The leadership vacuum before Peterson took over must have hurt but I don’t think that was a root cause either.
The design team’s capability was simply weak between the Brougham and aero T-bird eras. The only looker was the Mustang notch which was a copy of the Mercedes SLC, at least for proportions.
I’m wondering about changes in head of styling around that time. Who were the Bruno Saccos and Bill Mitchells at Ford?
I’m a Cougar fan ( own a 67 XR7 ), and I find these ugly as well.
The front overhang is way out of proportion — moving the front wheels forward about 5 inches would definitely help, but it’d still be ugly……..
I posted this car in the cohort recently that I saw in North Carolina, the T-Bird version of the same generation. The T-Bird had a “HERITAGE EDITION” that originally debuted in 1979 but was quickly bastardized (in true Detroit fashion) for volume sales in later years. A recent CC in the fall of one of this generations was done:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1980-ford-thunderbird-the-fabulous-fubar-edition/
Here in the South, like in the Pacific Northwest, the weather cooperates allowing all sorts of previously unseen and often forgotten vehicles to come out of the woodwork. Sometimes you can just go hang out at a local auto parts store and watch the parking lot, especially in the order sections of town, and it is like a CC delight.
As for this generation T-Bird/Cougar, unfortunately, these cars are an example of when Ford got caught between a rock and a hard place. Emissions regulations choked the engines, but CAFE drove the cars downward in size. The 77-79 T-Bird/Cougars were extremely popular because they were attractive cars, more reasonably priced (than their baroque predecessors), and appeared at the height of the personal luxury car craze. The problem that Ford had was that they were trying to duplicate the 77-79 success in a smaller package, much like Lincoln banked on with the downsized Mark VI.
Unlike the Lincoln Versailles which, at least for the first two years, was a Lincoln Granada, I am not sure that the Fairmont underpinnings were the deadliest of the sins of this generation, more so the rather smallness in size, the lack of performance, and the somewhat wayward marketing stance Ford took with these cars. These cars almost feel like Ford built them because they felt obligated to have something with the Thunderbird name on it. The twins lacked direction, they introduced a Cougar sedan and a station wagon again (as they had once in 1977). Especially by the 81-82 years when Fairmont/Zephyr sales began to wane, it seemed as though especially the Cougar was used to keep those buyers in the family.
Of course that all changed in 1983 when the new sexy coupes came out, only as coupes, and sales rebounded.
I call these Ford’s “WHO AM I?” cars from the day, when we weren’t quite sure who was supposed to buy them…
I knew that CC Clue was a Ford from around this time and thought “something close to the Gran Torino Elite but later and without the chrome molding”. I completely forgot about this Cougar!
Oh man did Ford screw up their greenhouse proportions back then. The Cougar is right up there with the Mark VI and Fox Mustang hatchback. It had to be intentional but… why? The beautiful Mustang II and Bobcat from earlier this week remind me how much better Ford styling was in the 70s.
Like Ford GM also went downhill in the 80s. I can tie that to Bill Mitchell’s retirement. But what happened at Ford, design leadership-wise? The Fiesta was the last attractive car they did for our market until the Taurus (edit Tbird/Mark VII). Remember the Ford Futura? Talk about hideous.
Whoever it was that guessed “American and ugly” in yesterday’s CC Clue hit the nail on the head.
I’ve been there. They have insane prices. They also advertise heavily in the Nickel Ad Penny Saver thing that is still, somehow, published.
The tail lights on the 99-05 Mustang have always reminded me of the tail lights on this generation of Cougar… it’s as if someone in Mustang development found a bunch of them in a back room and decided to save a few bucks.
That’s probably not far off. Knowing nothing of the industry…I’m told, plastic-molding tooling can be easily modified. In fact..it’s entirely possible the units ARE the same!
It wouldn’t be the first time. Maverick taillights were adapted to the Pinto; Montego taillights to the Maverick-based Comet. And the pickup taillights adapted to the 1975-generation Econoline van.
Chrysler did the same when they were in lean times – the Gen3 minivan taillights were shared by the Durango.
I don’t think so. When the original 94 came out it had horizontal taillight designs and the 96s were revised to evoke the classic 3-vertical bar design of the original cars. 94-today borrow heavily from old styling cues.
As an aside, ever look at the lighting on RVs, they often source their lights from Ford so a lot of them sport interchangeable lights.
Noticed that…but they’ve also used Celebrity taillight bars.
I guess it comes down to who they can get a good price on, which at the same time might add personality to a misshapen fiberglass and aluminum box.
Used to be (and may still be true) that low-volume exotic cars relied on taillamps from more pedestrian models, and even at times from completely unrelated manufacturers.
As an example, the Aston-Martin DB7 used the same taillamps as a Mazda (the 323′ perhaps?). Of course, at that time Ford had an interest in both of those companies.
Probably a good way to let someone else do the certification and pay for the tooling…
True. The Fiat 124 Coupe first series (AC) shared taillight assemblies with the Lamborghini Espada.
Another Aston Martin used Scirocco tailights, the Virage, I think.
The taillights on the ’65-’66 Ford pickup and on the late ’60s-early ’70s Ford van were identical except the van taillights had built in backup lights. We had a ’66 Ford F100 (with a 351 Windsor and three on the tree) and an old junk van, and when I was like 12 I put the van lenses in the truck and they fit perfectly. The backup lights didn’t function but the whole housing could be swapped and wired to work.
Well, let’s see what I can throw into this discussion…
First the cons: Terrible proportioning, underpowered engines, and a rather unattractive color combination.
The pros: It’s in amazing condition, the interior is kind of attractive, it wears my favorite FoMoCo hood ornament, it has good bones under it, and did I mention it’s in nice shape???
I seem to recall reading somewhere that Larry Shinoda had a hand in the design of these, which, when you consider some of the cars he had a hand in (Corvette, Mustang), this one is a bit of a head scratcher…
Still, as a period piece, I appreciate this car, and let’s face it, in this day and age, for better or worse, it would stick out on any car lot.
Shinoda was freelancing then so doubtful. When the 80 Birds came out Ford was still operating under the design themes of Eugene Bourdinat who favored the squared and formal look. I guess you could call him “MR BROUGHAMY” lol because that is what he was. Sometime shortly thereafter these cars came out he was replaced by Jack Telnack who favored aero designs which begot the 83 TBird and 86 Taurus among other things. Supposidly William Boyer who was on the original design team was still involved with Ford and may have had a hand in this design. The ultimate problem, though, was they tried to keep the old flame burning in the smaller design and it just didn’t fly – like the 80 Mark VI. Broughamy went away really fast like disco and I can’t think of too many cars that debuted around that time that really took off, at least not RWD.
Brougham still managed to linger on through the TURBO era of the 80’s, Limited trim Buicks come to mind, the Cutlass and Regal were still fairly popular through the end of 87-88 RWD cars, aged, but still available with pillowy seats and wire & landau’s trim.
Hell, whites, wires and woodgrain was still found in mostly Buick & Lincoln-Mercury products into the 90’s and then some, they were airbaged and ABS’d ghosts of the Brougham era.
I remember well when these were introduced the unanimous opinion of us young analysts was, “OMG! What are they thinking??!!” I thought this car was hideous then, and time hasn’t improved my opinion of it. Among other sins, it has the shrunken look of the Mustang II and the late 80s GM C platform.
With hindsight I can recognize this car (and its T-bird twin) as one of the last gasps of Iacocca-design at Ford. All of the elements that said “nice car” to Lee are there. Lines laid out with a straight-edge? Check. Pseudo-classical grille? Check. Thick padded vinyl roof? Check.
Fortunately, Ford came to its senses, and the Cougar in 1983 at least was a decent copy of GM design. It wasn’t really my cup of tea, but for me there was the new Bird. I knew lots of people who had the opposite opinion, and that’s great. It’s one time facing Ford and Mercury models appealed to two different groups of buyers, and Ford was stronger for it.
I hated these cars when they came out, and I still find them ugly now (T-Bird and Cougar). However, I think their baroque predecessors of ’77 to ’79 were even worse.
I’m am totally blown away though by the very nice condition of this survivor. Most of them have long since disappeared from active service, at least where I live (central VA).
The 1977 TBird was the perfect Brougham. I didn’t care for the car but could admire it as one hell of an execution.
Not with the 80-82s. They were trying to look traditional and modern at the same time, which is hard to do. Not impossible — Seville did it in 76, Town Car in 90 and 300C in 05 — but you need a great design, decent hard points and a totally focused team.
They would have been better off going pure Brougham. That was still working at GM and about to work at Chrysler with the K-cars. But Ford screwed up Brougham on the 79 Panthers so I don’t know.
I think they just lacked talent. Even the steering wheels were awful around this time.
The steering wheels had a little box in the middle. The plastic cover snapped off to reveal a small hollow area that looked like it might have been designed to contain a stillborn airbag. Does anybody know about an aborted airbag program at this time? The Fairmont steering wheel didn’t have this little empty box, but they both shared the horn setup where you had to push the turn signal lever towards the steering column to honk the horn. Another “better idea” from Ford.
Let’s be honest, were any domestic cars in 1980 anything to be proud of? I can’t think of one. Therefore, if any of them are around in as good condition as this 1980 Mercury Cougar XR-7, we ought to be writing about how cool it is that someone took care of them, not pointing out their design and performance flaws – LOL. I mean it’s cool to point out a few quirky things, but to write an entire article about how hideous the car is, even the used car pricing? As the article mentioned, sales went down tremendously from the previous year, so that means it’s a pretty rare find, especially in good condition. So cool that the writer found this car and got us all to appreciate its uniqueness.
I get a pass here because in 1980, I was madly in love with the new Dodge Mirada, which made these Cougars and TBirds look like crap. 🙂 But by and large, you are right – 1980 was a pretty grim era.
Didn’t I say: My apologies; on second thought, they are sharp, and that padded top is very tasty indeed. They must be; why else did I pull in to shoot this Cougar on a grey drizzly day?
You bring up a fundamental dilemma that I face here all the time. Should I focus on my own perceptions and feeling of any given car I write up, or gush about what great shape the car is in, or how rare it is to encounter one?
Isn’t the second aspect self evident? And isn’t the fact that I go out of my way to shoot old cars that I wasn’t fond of when they were new a clear sign that I’m thrilled to still see them still on the road?
It seems to me that the web is full of sites where folks gush about old cars, which is a good thing. And we do plenty of that here. But are there sites that try to put a historically correct context to them? That’s our mission, and we rely on comments like yours to help put every car in its full context. Any one writer’s POV is never nearly enough.
I find it hard not to point out known faults in various cars and that thing is loaded with them Id shoot it just for the sheer ugliness of the car its patently awful maybe they were reliable who cares I couldnt cope with vomitting every time I looked at it to get in.
It’s a Geschmacksache Paul. Write it as you see/recall it. Either way, you will be both right and wrong, depending on the reader’s POV.
Btw, I also thought these cars were but a straight-edged light weight shadow of their former selves …and despite the non-offensive styling of the Escort, until the T-bird, Tempo, etc. showed up, I wondered if Ford had lost the plot on styling … Fortunately, to differing degrees, downsizing and the changing of the guard in the C-suites andcstyling studios, messed-up everybody’s styling…
The third gen Camaro, aero T-bird/Mark VII, Voyager/Caravan, C4 Corvette and first Taurus were cars we could be proud of. Even the 80s Mustangs were good.
GM had decent styling at least. The full-sized Caddys got better looking with the formal roof. The 80 Seville while not my cup of tea was a stunning car. The 85 N-body Grand Am was very well done.
There were still plenty of pretty decent cars in 1980, you cant judge them from todays viewpoint, it would be like saying TV in 1980 sucked because they only had 7 channels and were huge, its what you had back then.
Me for 1980?
I’ll take a nice Buick Riviera.
Hey, we agree on something! The Riviera was one of my favorite American cars of that time.
But FWIW, it’s not that we’re judging them so much from today’s perspective, although I know you feel that way. Actually, from today’s perspective, these are all very cool cars, period pieces, and desirable for being so different than today’s cars.
I probably should judge them more from today’s POV; but my memories of how I felt about cars at the time they were new predominate my feelings.
More performance wise was what I was thinking, I think one of the things we’ve been “spoiled” with in modern cars is that even a econobox is a decent performer.
I always shake my head when people, mostly a kid, says: “OMG 140hp V8 what were they thinking LOL”
It was 1980, you know how big a VCR was? A cell phone? HA, there were none.
Though the 1979-85 Rivi is swank, I always had a good image of them ever since we had some business man come speak about something at our elementary school when I was a kid, and remember him driving away in this vintage Riviera.
calibrick: He did say “1980”. Except for the Camaro, the others were still a gleam in someone’s eye.
Ah 1980 not the whole 80s then I agree. It was a tough time for the domestics.
I beg to differ on the Panther, calibrick. Especially that steering wheel. We had a loaded 1982 Country Squire that I learned to drive on. It had every option in the book – and was a great driving car, too. And that steering wheel was a great design. It wasn’t too large and bulky and the cruise was nicely placed on the top spokes. The seats weren’t too “Broughamy” but were very comfortable. It was a DURABLE car, too – as a 16 year old just getting his license I think you know what I mean. My Dad always compared that Squire to his previous car, a ’77 Caprice Estate. There was no comparison in the quality of the two cars – the only thing the Chevy had over the Ford was the fine 350 V-8 vs. the underpowered 302 V-8 in the Ford. But the Squire never gave Dad any trouble and it was almost like driving a Lincoln in station wagon form.
On the negative side, Ford’s placement of the horn on the turn signal stalk WAS horrible. I can’t tell you how many times I saw Dad or Mom push on the woodgrain of the steering wheel thinking it would sound the horn. I thought they were crazy until I drove that car – and did the same thing!! And as mentioned earlier, it could have used more power but it was still adequate. Plus the overdrive transmission shifted strangely at times. But Dad always said it was good on gas compared to his past vehicles so I guess it was worth it.
Looking at what is seen on the streets around here the Panther’s durabilty and better quality vs the B shows through. Hardly a day passes that I don’t see a box Panther out on the road while a B box is seen once a week or maybe even once a month and GM sold way more Bs than Ford did Panthers.
On the Panthers I was talking about the styling Tom. A while ago Paul or Tom K. put up pictures of a iirc 79 Crown Vic and 79 Caprice side by side.
It was so easy to see what a half-hearted effort the Ford was.
As a whole it was a good car, though not quite as good as the GM B. For a while NYC taxi cabs were mostly Chevy Bs. They were noticeably more solid and quiet over the bumps than the Crown Vics that followed. I always thought that was a fair test. A gentleman here from Canada and in the taxi business has said the same thing.
On the steering wheel I had three gripes — the appearance, horn button location and too high pivot point for the tilt. The look was overly decorative and not sporty. It looked really odd in the Mustang (I had the sport wheel on my 5.0 Ghia notch). Too much angle change for the steering wheel face, not enough for the height.
I do have a soft spot for the Panther wagons with the super upright tailgate. It would be really cool to have a Colony Park right now.
You’re right, I’m right, we’re all right! Yes, there are some nice cars from 1980 – I was incorrect in stating I could not think of one car from 1980 to be proud of. I think it’s so cool that we are all talking about these old cars, and good for Paul N for the Curbside Classic articles. I think that $2995 is a great deal for a cool old Mercury, whether it was based on a Fairmont, Granada, or a F150 – did they make the F150 back then?
How about the Edsel, Pacer, Granada and Aztek? Those were not the best looking cars, but they sure would sure get some head turns (and smiles) today! 🙂 🙂 wink /:
I don’t think I could give an Aztek a smile; just too damn ugly. A ’58 Edsel still looks fugly to me. I would be glad to see one, but I couldn’t say “Gee, what an attractive car” because I try not to lie. Maybe I could muster a mini-grin for the Edsel. I could smile at the Pacer and Granada even if I don’t know why . . . 😀
Just snapped these pics this afternoon. 1979 Cougar 15,000 original miles.
Interior Pic
Drove by that car lot this A.M. on my way into Eugene. The car hasn’t sold yet….
Paul – did you get some shots of the Studebaker Hawk in the back row?
That looks so much better than the feature car!
I showed this car to my 13 year old son and told him this was the type of car I’d be looking for him when he starts to drive in a few years. I think he was afraid I was serious.
The 80-82 T-Bird Cougar XR7 never came with a 2.3 Pinto engine. Your confusing the 81-82 Granada/Cougar sedan Wagon which did come with the 2.3 as std fare. These personal lux coupes came with the 255 V8 and 302 optional in 1980. 1981-82 came with the 200 L6 as std and 82 models dropped the 302 and made the 111 Hp 255 the top engine that year. The big difference was that the 80-81 3 speed automatic transmission was dropped when the 255 V8 was ordered for 1982 and the 2.24 rear axle ratio went bye bye. The required overdrive automatic came with a 3.08:1 rear axle and pepped up that engine noticeably. I drove a 1982 tan base T-Bird with 255/overdrive for several months while my Fairmont was getting it’s rear end replaced from our dealership and it was hardly as pokey slow as many would think. It would actually leave a small black rubber patch if floored. it only had 43K original miles so was obviously in tip top running condition.
I had one of these prizes for about a year back in 1987. I had to dump it because it was not in good condition when I bought it and I spent too much time taking it to the devious mechanics in the Balt-Wash area and grew tire of it (a hose failure put me over the top) so I stopped on the way home from work and bought a new Chev/Toyo Nova which was the polar opposite with regards to reliability and adequate power.
The 1980, 80,000 mile, cougar that I had was stricken with a bad oil leak that went misdiagnosed for 6 months, worn out brakes (both fixable), and a 200 CI straight six that was embarassingly slow. If I had Craig in NC as my mechanic or any mechanic in NC for that matter, I would have been fine.
I always hated these. The styling on this and the t bird is awful. Almost like a leg go version of the truly beautiful 77-79 cars. I hated these second to the 78 grand Prix. Loved the Miranda and Cordoba and liked the mini me 78 Monte Carlo and the cutlass. And its definitely better looking than the fastback 78 Buick century and cutlass salon. I hated this cars looks. I liked the 4 door cougar and Granada’s looks. Baby marquis ltd. I worked for a cab company that had a Grenada from the 80s with the 200 six. Slow and road terrible but it had six hundred thousand miles n still was reliable. The not so comfortable seats looked amaaingly good. I had respect for that car but always drove the crown vic with five hundred thousand on it which drove nice and was faster and more comfortable. It was reliable too. The v6 Buick lesabre was always in the shop.
The 1980-82 Thunderbird and Cougar were absolutely the most egregious errors to ever bludgeon the once proud models of Cougar and Thunderbird pasts. The ’80s were without a doubt an era that offered some of the worst looking cars ever built. Primarily cars built in the early to mid ’80s. Those ugly upright roof lines, cheap materials, poor build quality and faulty electronics. I hate the ’80s! The best looking Cougars are the ’67-’73 models. The best looking Thunderbirds are the ’55-’57 and ’61-’66 models.
I love this car. It was my first car, also a 1980 model. Mine was just like this one except that it had a burgundy vinyl top with the same triple opera windows that was faded on the top. I don’t like the look of this car without those windows. It had the TRX wheels so we switched to 14″ wheels because the 390mm tires were so expensive. That meant that the speedometer was off by a couple of MPH. It had a 302 bored over by 0.30 and a POS first year AOD 4 speed automatic transmission. Goddamn I hated that AOD. We eventually put a C4 in it which made it much quicker but the RPMs at highway speeds were way too high. The shift linkage was screwed up somehow, so it wouldn’t kick down into first. Because of this, it was dog slow off the line. I remember being embarrassed by a first generation Escort GT one time. It had plenty of power on the highway, however. And the handling……it handled like a dream. It was one of the best handling cars I’ve ever driven. I drove like a bat out of hell when I was 16 and I took curves way too fast and if I had have attempted them in a car with lesser handling I would probably not be here today. It had a really smooth ride too. I topped it out one night, but I have no idea how fast I was going because the speedometer only went up to 85. When I let off it the needle stayed pointed at 85 for an eternity before it started crawling back down to legal speeds. I jumped it over the local “thrill hill”. When I hit the top of the hill, the RPMs briefly sped up because the back wheels were off the ground. Again, I have no idea how fast I was going because the speedometer only went up to 85. It’s a wonder I didn’t get myself killed in that thing. I loved it and still miss it 25 years later. I still dream about it occasionally. I would like to have one just like it except with a fuel injected HO 302 out of a Mustang with a six speed manual and other fun Fox goodies for better performance. It would be hard to find one just like it though. I doubt that one just like it exists today. I don’t think it’s a bad looking car at all (but the contemporary Thunderbird looked like ass) and it looked rather sporting with the wheels we put on it. It was sleek for the (square) days, and the dark red vinyl top contrasted nicely with the black paint. It did have an overheating fetish that would happen at totally random times. It wasn’t loaded, but it had cruise and A/C but with crank windows and manual door locks. I don’t remember the 255 being available in the ’80 model and the 2.3 4 banger was never available in the XR-7 model, just the cheaper base model which was a completely different car (but still based on the Fox platform.) I may be the only fan of this car in the world, but I’m not ashamed to admit that this is one of my favorite cars of its era.
Just bought this exact car! Literally this one. It’s mine now. Its gonna get a 351 as soon as it gets warm enough to be out in my garage.
Nice!! Tyler, I’m sure I’m not the only one who would like to know about your finished product. Did it all work out?
I had a 1980 Fox body Cougar XR-7, grey, w/navy blue trim and, absolutely, loved it. It was smooth, powerful and, extremely comfortable, to drive. I wish I had it, to-day.
No sugar coating it here, Paul! Agree w/ your blunt assessment, although I’d forgotten about this generation of ‘Bird. Not one of Ford’s “Better Ideas”…quite the opposite. And quite a contrast to the aero-Bird that came after starting in MY83, especially in Turbo Coupe form. Nice to see this one so well preserved, though. Somebody loved it enough to keep it in fine fettle.
Those Cougar hood ornaments were snapped off
and used as pendants back in the day
Same thing happened with Audi Foxes in the ’70s – the emblem became popular as a pendant.
I couldn’t agree with you more on this one Paul. I’d go as far to say it (and the equivalent T-bird) deserves deadly sin status. I find the starting point for this monstrosity, Fairmont/Zephyr, to be decent looking cars too. How Ford-like to evolve them into something like this. I think it even gives the Pontiac Aztek competition for one of the ugliest mass produced cars.
While far from my favorite era of the Mercury Cougar’s but I thought they looked better than the Ford Thunderbird’s of the same vintage, I’ll gladly take this era of the Cougar’s over the FWD version built during the late 90’s/early 2000’s.
It seems like a little girl trying on all of Mommy’s fancy accessories. Shoes too big. Hat too big. Too many necklaces. Sunglasses too big. If you look at it in that context it should look funny or cute, but since cars are not children it just looks weird.
I’d forgotten just how awful these looked.
And the Fairmont/Zephyr, in contrast, were quite attractive to my eyes. Especially the Futura coupes.
At least Cougar ended well after a huge comeback for ’83…
Never drove a Fox body Ford so can’t comment on chassis competence, but all of them, including the original Fairmont and it’s sundry derivatives, always looked really lightweight, chintzy and flimsy to my eye, the dashboards were downright cheesy, and their especially bogus version of the ubiquitous Ye Olde Fayke Woode Graine treatment didn’t help. Somehow ’77-79 GM’s B/C and A bodies initially avoided this, but they too had joined the club by the early ’80s. IMO!
My fifth grade teacher bought one of these when they were first released. I thought it looked to extravagant and fancy to my brougham-impressionable, pre-pubescent eyes. One day I missed the bus and she drove me home. Knowing nothing about cars, I still remember being completely disappointed by how plain and cheap looking the interior was. Compared to what? The bus? My dad’s bare bones ’77 Impala?
I now own this car and drove it from Oregon to Maryland!!! And and it’s runs so great !
Extremely jealous. I loved mine, except for the anemic straight 6. Had no money for projects when I was young, so sold it. Wanted to install a 5.0 with hidden super charger, 3.55 LSD and a Tremec or equivalent 5 speed. So many dreams so little money. Enjoy.