(first posted 10/3/2012. A follow-on to the ’77 Cougar sedan recently posted) This Cougar has been taunting me for months. I keep seeing it at the same interchange and always too far away to capture a picture–that is, until now, even though I was able to capture only two pictures. I thought the Cougar nameplate had been fairly straightforward during this era. Boy, was I ever mistaken.
These Fox platform-based Cougars share a lot with the eighth-generation 1980-82 Ford Thunderbirds.
There were not only XR-7 models….
but also standard Cougars, in both two-door and four-door variants. A friend of my mother’s even had the wagon version. And oh yes, there was a Ford version called the Granada. Remember those?
Look at the left column: You could even get a standard Cougar with a four-cylinder engine and four-speed manual transmission. I would imagine such cars are pretty rare.
Nineteen eighty-one was only 31 years ago, but notice how color choices have dwindled since then. Doesn’t “Pastel Chamois” (perhaps the color of our featured car), sound great—or at least so much better than the “Light Silver Metallic” so frequently found today?
Mercury knew they had a good thing going with the Cougar name. In 1979, Mercury sold 170,000 Cougars, some 164,000 of which were XR-7s. Just two years later, a total of 37,275 XR-7s would find happy homes.
It seems like Chrysler put the LeBaron name on half the cars they built between 1977 and 1995. Similarly, Oldsmobile smacked a Cutlass nameplate on nearly everything post-1980. Apparently, Mercury was just as guilty of trying to spread the Cougar cheer.
Much has been written about the Brougham/Malaise era, but boy what a dark time it was to work at a L-M dealership when this thing came out. I worked at a very large L-M dealership while in high school; 1978-1980. Ford was really riding high on the success of not downsizing their models as quickly as GM had and selling boatloads of Cougars, Marquis and Town Cars in the late 70’s. Suddenly in 1 year (2 model years actually–1979 & 1980,) practically the entire lineup was downsized and customers didn’t know what to think. What’s funny is that at the time, the dealership personnel thought that the new Cougar would be the star and the new Marquis/Town Car would be a disaster. Didn’t quite turn out that way. As an 18 year old, all I knew was that the only new car I cared about driving was the new Fox body Capri.
Well, the Panthers started out as disasters, because of the recession and the gas crisis. I recall Ford leasing some Town Cars to the Dearborn police on a “giving them away” basis to get some on the street and keep Wixom running. Of course, the Panthers eventually were the ultimate cash cows. I was a newish employee of Ford at the time, and I thought the original Fox T-birds and Cougars were the ugliest things I had ever seen. I was with you and only wanted the Fox Mustang and Capri.
I miss 3 box design. I also am really tired of the wedge profile. I saw a T-Bird of this vintage at a recent car show and it had a lot of detail that is lost in the overall view, It was actually a nice looking if a somewhat subdued followup to the crown victoria T-Birds of the late 70’s but it was still a very sharp baroque cruiser. I always liked the LTD/Grand Marquis over the Caprice/88/Le Sabre, which I know is the contrary position around here. I think it is because I like the “bladed” fenders and upright grilles. Cars of this vintage have to be in perfect condition to appreciate, any patina on a post 1980 car and I think it tends to look like a clunker.
“crown victoria T-Birds of late 70s” ?
There were no Crown Victorias at all in the 1970’s Ford line up. Wasn’t until 1980, and then not til 1983 were all Ford Panthers called LTD Crown Vic.
The 77-79 T-Birds were Gran Torino underneath.
Oh by crown victoria I meant the “basket handle” design motif like the 1950’s era crown victoria, yeah I know it was torino based, poor description on my part.
I see a 2dr sedan around quite a bit as well as this 4dr. Still haven’t captured a wagon yet.
I spotted a picture of one of these 1982 Cougar wagons http://www.flickr.com/photos/that_chrysler_guy/7155808819/ More rarer then the 1977 ones.
I actually liked the Fox body Granada and Cougar sedans and wagons. The sedan had better proportions than the XR7/TBird, I thought. But the rest of the world disagreed, because that has to be the rarest of all of the Foxes.
This XR7 actually comes off a bit better to me than the TBird.
I love the brochure. I’m not sure how I would have felt about going into a LM dealer and ordering a car with “Glamour Paint”. But I guess these cars needed all the glamour they could get.
I agree that the this era XR7 looks better than the T-Bird of this era not that that’s saying much.
I’ve always thought the 80-82 Cougar XR7 looked much better than the same years Thunderbird.
It’s probably because the Cougar doesn’t share the T-Bird’s ridiculous opera window.
Actually, the 1980 Cougar XR7 shared the opera window (with vertical lines through it). See picture below:
http://hooniverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/1980-Mercury-Cougar-08.jpg
Article makes it sound like these smaller Cougars were new for 1981. But, for 1980, the Cougar XR-7 coupe was available, and the Monarch was in its last year. Then, for 1981, the 2 door and 4 door sedans were offered. The 1982 Cougar wagon was offered for one year, replacing the Zepher.
Gas crunch hurt L-M in those few years, and dealers were screaming for a small car. The 1981 Lynx was a big seller for them, and got them to the 1983 Recovery, and the big comeback for Town Cars, Grand Marqs, and aero Cougars.
A Cougar wagon. Does that say it all or what? What a disaster.
There was actually a Cougar Villager (wagon) in the previous body style, but it was only offered for one year, then dropped after 1977.
My father had one – a 1977 Mercury Cougar Villager. It was a very nice car.
Just as in 1981-82 there were Cougar XR7s based on the T-Bird, and “regular” Cougars based on something else (Fox-platform Granada), in 1977-79 there were Cougar XR7s based on the T-Bird, and “regular” Cougars based on the LTD II (warmed-over Torino/Montego). The ’77 Cougar Villager was Mercury’s version of the ’77 LTD II wagon. The wagon body style was dropped from both the LTD II and Cougar after 1977. The two types of Cougars offered in 1977-79 were more similar in appearance than the two types offered in 1981-82, especially from the cowl forward.
So would a standard Cougar coupe be shopped against a Monte Carlo/Gran Prix/Cutlass Supreme/Regal, and an XR-7 coupe be shopped against a Toronado/Riviera?
I don’t know that the sedan and wagon versions were cross shopped against anything since the sold so poorly. I didn’t think that the Monarch that it replaced as the “expensive” compact sold as bad so it is hard to imagine why Ford decided to make them Cougars while the Granada name was kept for it’s cousin at Ford dealers. Maybe since they had OK success with making all the midsize Mercurys Cougars on the last version? Either way the Fox based Cougar sedans were the worst selling Fox.
Well remember also Mercury was really pushing the whole “the sign of the cat” thing in their marketing, Bobcat, Lynx, Cougar, etc. I imagine that they thought that the Cougar’s “nameplate” magic would spread over the line up, but Cougar does not equal Cutlass. Buick did the same thing, they spread the Regal name on the sedan and wagon after 1981.
Boy does that say it all for corporate groupthink or what?
Let’s create a Chevette and put the Cutlass name on it. And we will rename the Pinto to Cougar and boy we will sell them like hotcakes!
It reminds me of the naming of All in the Family. Some moron at CBS had determined that shows with “Family” in the title had higher ratings. Hence the name. The show was supposed to be called, “Those Were the Days” would of course matches the song and the content.
It’s funny, I can never remember the title “All in the Family”
There was no Olds version of Chevette, just Pontiac. And the Mercury version of Pinto was Bobcat.
I was just throwing out names. I mean, come on a Cougar station wagon?
A rose or a turd by any other name…
There was a Cutlass wagon, though there always was a Cutlass wagon since the 60’s, though the thought was, a popular nameplate can make less popular cars more popular, by spreading that brand equity over the lineup.
I have to disagree. Yeah, their was a cutlass wagon forever and the cutlass brand was used on everything.
I think people are loyal to brands but not to model names – at least not when the model name changes segments of cars.
You may go from an LTD sedan to an LTD wagon but I can’t believe you would go from a 1972 Cutlass Convertible to a 1975 20 foot Cutlass station wagon just because of the name.
In fact – a lot of times I think dilution of the model name hurts.
But what do I know.
When Acura first came out, they had two models, the Legend and the Integra. About 10 or more years ago, Acura decided to drop all model names and rename them in letters only, TSX, TL, RL, and so on. The reason? Marketing determined that the public knew what an Integra was, but not necessarily what an Acura was. The brand name is much more important than the model name. Cougar? Sign of the cat? Where’s Mercury now? Same goes for Cutlass. Oldsmobile? Dead. I believe that is why Cadillac went to lettering as opposed to names also, they were trying to save an iconic and valuable brand name. Another example: There’s lots of Eric’s out there, but only one Clapton.
Good point, but people on blogs lament CONSTANTLY about how sad (and stupid) it was that Acura got rid of the names Integra and Legend. Obviously it didn’t kill Acura (yet) but I bet there was another way they could have boosted the Acura brand.
I agree, even my parents went “Cougar wagon?” when the TV ad with Farrah Fawcett was on promoting the new 1977 line up.
The show was a huge success – it was the number-one show for several seasons – so I don’t think any CBS executive lost any sleep, let alone any bonuses, over the name change.
Yeah, but it wasn’t because family* was in the title.
*or was it?
I Think All In The Family worked Better ,than Those Were The Days ever would have . TWTD soulds like a Network Series I Think ABC Once Had With OUR WORLD;; 1972,
and they’d show 1972 Car Models among The 1972 Car Ads.,etc. Then, Each Week OUR WORLD Would Cover a Different years Trends, Movies,Cars,..) It was a Good Show, that unfortunately went up against 60 minutes and the cosby show anf quickly got cancelled.
I think “Those Were The Days” probably might’ve got lost in a pea-soup fog somewhere between “That Was The Week That Was” and “Days Of Our Lives”.
There’s a “put a Cougar on the
Marquismarquee” wisecrack in here somewhere, but I can’t quite find it.GIven that Ford and GM were downsizing their line-ups at different paces, their offerings didn’t line up as neatly against each other as they did in the 1960s and early 1970s.
The 1978 Fairmont, for example, was meant to replace the compact Maverick, while the downsized 1978 Malibu was meant to replace the “Colonnade” 1973-77 Malibus. The 1978 Fairmont and Malibu were, however, roughly the same size.
The XR-7 was meant to be Mercury’s answer to the Buick Regal, Chevrolet Monte Carlo, Pontiac Grand Prix, Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, Chrysler Cordoba and Dodge Mirada.
The Cougar sedans and wagons were meant to compete with the Buick Century, Chevrolet Malibu, Pontiac LeMans, Oldsmobile Cutlass sedans and wagons, Chrysler LeBaron and Dodge Diplomat.
The XR-7 is only marginally less ugly than its Thunderbird counterpart. The Cougar sedans (and post-1980 Ford Granadas) were, however, reasonably attractive, competitive cars in the context of their time. Mercury just shouldn’t have called them “Cougar.”
geeber’s comments about what the XR7 and “regular” Cougar were intended to compete with are right on. The only nit I’d pick is that calling the 1981-82 Fox-platform Granada and “regular” Cougar competitive may be a bit of an overstatement. To be sure, they were more competitive than the contemporary T-Bird and XR7 were. They also certainly did better than a 1981-82 continuation of the 1975-80 Granada/Monarch would have done. From that perspective, at a time when Ford was taking a real beating in the sales race, they weren’t half bad. But I think these cars were only introduced in the first place because the earlier generation of Granada/Monarch desperately needed to be replaced and Ford didn’t have anything better to offer. The 1983-86 downsized Fox-platform LTD and Marquis were a bit longer-term of a solution, but Ford wouldn’t really get their act together in the midsize sedan segment until the Taurus/Sable.
The plain Cougar [2 door sedan] coupe’s competitors were fading away at GM. Cutlass and Century aerobacks were gone for 1981, and LeMans coupe was dead for ’82. Malibu Classic two door gone by ’83.
More likely competing with base Cutlass Supreme and Regal, while dressier XR7 was for ‘Brougham’ buyers.
By 1983, only four door Fox Marquis and LTD for mid size competition. Two doors were only aero T-Bird/Cougar til 1997.
Much of this decline was no doubt due to the popularity of the Ill Fated X Models That Often Appealed to the very same buyers, in 1980.
This and the Thunderbird of the same vintage are proof that you can follow the recipe and still come up with turd instead of a cake. They must have been scratching their heads over at “the glass house” in Dearborn wondering why they couldn’t sell these, when Oldsmobile was racking up 300K plus Cutlass coupe sales every year.
Luckily, they got the ’83 Aero T-Bird out in three years!
I am fascinated by cars, especially by cars from 1949 to 1979.
I especially like the 1970s cars because they were so UNIQUE. I would ride around at night and identify cars by their headlights. Try to do that today!
But, being unlucky, I hit high school then (1979 to 1983) and some of the worst cars ever made came out.
Government safety regulations, bumper requirements, rollover requirements, no more convertibles, two gas crisis, and then the whole EPA thing just demolished cars for about 15 years.
The neatest car from 1980 to 1995 may be the Ford Taurus. That is one scary thought.
I spotted at http://www.lincolnversailles.com/Monarch/1981%20Mercury%20Monarch.htm A old picture from a magazine (Motor Trend? Car & Driver?) who mentionned what they known as the 1981 Monarch before we knew it’ll be the Cougar.
Since the Torino based LTD II/Cougar were killed off for the 1980 model year, the Granada and Monarch were suddenly pitched by Ford/Merc as ‘mid size cars’. I think they should have kept Monarch name up to the 1986 Sable, instead of confusing buyers.
I don’t think Ford pitching the Granada/Monarch as midsizes was actually all that sudden. While the Granada/Monarch didn’t have the midsize segment all to itself until 1980, Ford’s marketing had been trending in that direction pretty much since day one. This ties in with geeber’s earlier observation that the Ford and GM lineups in this era didn’t always neatly match up with each other. For much of its production run, there were both competing compacts and competing midsizes with similar exterior dimensions to the Granada/Monarch. If you were interested in buying a Granada/Monarch, I’m sure Ford didn’t care which competing model you were cross-shopping it with, or whether that car’s manufacturer considered it to be a compact or a midsize.
It is my understanding that the Granada/Monarch was originally intended to replace the compact Maverick/Comet. After the energy crisis caused sales of the Maverick/Comet to shoot upward, Ford decided to take a different approach, selling the two alongside each other. The Maverick/Comet was marketed as a low-end economy model, and the Granada/Monarch as a more upscale, broughamified compact. In that role, the Granada/Monarch was pitched towards traditional midsize buyers who were looking for a car that offered all of the comfort and convenience they expected, but in a smaller, more fuel-efficient package. In 1975-76, the presence of the Granada/Monarch undoubtedly took a chunk out of Torino/Montego sales, even if at the time the Granada/Monarch was pretty much universally considered to be a compact.
The introduction of the LTD II/”regular” (non-XR7) Cougar in 1977 and the Fairmont/Zephyr in 1978 further focused the Granada/Monarch on the midsize segment. While the LTD II had one eye on the collonnade A-bodies and the Chrysler B-bodies, I think its primary role was to do for the fullsize market what the Granada was doing for the midsize market: attract traditional full-size buyers who now wanted something in a smaller package. More succinctly, Ford felt it needed something to match up more directly with the downsized ’77 GM B-bodies. The LTD II’s name and its styling both said “fullsize car”. This left an increasing share of the midsize market to be covered by the Granada/Monarch. Note that Chrysler was also doing something similar with its B-bodies and M-bodies during this period.
The LTD II/”regular” Cougar sold reasonably well its first year, but tailed off badly thereafter. By 1979 it had become too big for the midsize market, as GM and Chrysler now had Granada/Monarch-sized cars as their main offerings in that segment (downsized GM A-bodies, Chrysler M-bodies). By ’78, ’79 at the latest, I’d say that the Granada/Monarch had pretty clearly become Ford’s main entry in the midsize market. The LTD II/”regular” Cougar was also no longer competitive in the fullsize market. It was too obviously a warmed-over older midsize design, and the introduction of the Panthers for ’79 made the LTD II/”regular” Cougar completely superfluous in the fullsize market.
Meanwhile, the Fairmont/Zephyr had taken over as Ford’s primary compact entry, even if it was inititally a little bit smaller and lighter than the vehicles GM and Chrysler considered to be their compacts. The Fairmont/Zephyr offered a broader range of models and sold in far greater numbers than the Maverick/Comet had in the immediately preceding years. GM still had a Granada/Monarch sized compact model until midway through the 1979 model year (RWD X-bodies), and Chrysler did until the end of the 1980 model year (Aspen/Volare). Until then, I’m sure there was still some cross-shopping going on between these “compacts” and the Granada/Monarch. But by ’78, ’79 at the latest, covering the compact market was no longer the Granada/Monarch’s prmary mission.
Ironically, by the time the Granada/Monarch got the midsize market all to itself, in 1980, it was falling into the same position that the LTD II/”regular” Cougar had been in around 1978. With the GM FWD X-cars at their peak and the Chrysler K-cars waiting in the wings, the Granada/Monarch was getting to be too big and too dated to attract compact buyers. At the same time, it was too obviously a warmed-over older midsize design to compete with cars like the contemporary GM A-bodies or the somewhat smaller Japanese sedans that traditional American midsize buyers were turning to in increasingly large numbers, like the Toyota Corona or Honda Accord. As a result, the existing Granada/Monarch had to replaced with something else pretty quickly.
The result was the 1981-82 Fox-platform Granada and “regular” (non-XR7) Cougar. I’m not sure whether this is how Ford viewed at the time, but these cars turned out to be just a stopgap until Ford figured out something better. In fact, the cars that replaced them, the downsized 1983-86 Fox-platform LTD and Marquis, were just improved stopgaps. Ford wouldn’t get their act together in the midsize sedan segment until the Taurus/Sable appeared in 1986, following years of neglect.
I think you are right about the Granada/Monarch in 1975-77 or so. My father had driven two Lincoln Marks and got a loaded up 76 Monarch sedan. He never for a nanosecond considered a Gran Torino or Montego. Those were plainly refreshed 1972 cars that did not come across as anything special. The Granada/Monarch, on the other hand, gave the vibe as something new: smaller but more luxurious. Sort of like the Gen1 Seville, but at a much lower price point.
Lots of people at that time considered the Granada as a turning point for Ford – a new kind of car that was smaller, but with high-class looks, lush interiors and good quality. Maybe the Mercedes comparisons swayed some folks, especially those midwestern buyers who had never been in a Mercedes, but knew that they were small but expensive cars that the people at the country clubs drove increasingly instead of Cadillacs.
By 1981, the world had changed again. Not only were the Japanese big 3 making inroads, but now you had the X and K cars which were the embodiment of modern high tech. GM and Chrysler did a sales job on the superiority of fwd and America bought it. The Granada (which I considered one of the best looking of all the Fox sedans) was now old-fashioned. Sort of like a modern Studebaker Lark when compared with Falcons, Corvairs and Valiants in 1960. Up until the Taurus, all of the Fox sedans were always seen as a stopgap design for Ford loyalists.
These cars have an absolutely stunning side profile, no doubt about it. I always appreciated FoMoCo’s straight line designs of this era. But then you walk around and get a look straight on at the front end, and it all goes so horribly wrong. The grill is too big compared to the light sets, the plastic bumper covers are horrid and the whole car just winds up looking about 18″ too narrow. The TBird is worse in this regard compared to the Merc, but both cars suffer from it. And if that wasn’t bad enough…. you open the door and get in. That ugly mini-Marquis guage cluster is something of a joke, right? Did *every* non-Mustang Ford product use the same cluster? And I thought Chrysler was bad about that back then… lol
The funny thing is, the brochure pic of the XR7 with the two tone blue is pretty sharp looking, yet i only remember seeing the horrible prosthetic-limb beige out on the streets most of the time, making this car look old the second it came out. Not the brightest idea from Ford.
Hilarious and so true… I can’t ever remember seeing one in any color but this, and it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen one, period. The plastic bumpers do look worse than the chrome ones on the standard model, even with those big black plastic endcaps. I’m not into the trunk bulge either, but otherwise I’d say those brochure renditions actually look pretty good – compared to the horrible contemporary T-Turd at least. It’s too bad Cougars like that were rarely/never seen in the wild.
IMO, the ’77-’79 Cougar was gaudy and flamboyantly hideous in it’s own right, so I can’t say this was really a huge step backwards. If they would have toned down the stale Broughamy details like the too-tall grille, bobtail and mandatory vinyl roof it might have been a real winner – but I’m sure it would’ve sold even worse.
“prosthetic-limb beige”………LOL boy does that create an image!
I think many of these designs of the period were computer designed. Maybe they couldn’t rotate them, a lot of cars then look like paper folded cars.
One of my teachers owned one of these things and I remember a feature that some of these had that brought Brougham to the next level (that Dante wrote about). Went through the 1980 brochure and although they didn’t show it there was a vague reference to exterior vinyl inserts and that was not referring to the Landau roof. Looked all over for a photo but I couldn’t find one. One of the options was a padded vinyl trapezoid on the ass end of the trunk lid between the tail lights. I kid you not. Kraft had nothing on this era of the Mercury Cougar-it was the cheesiest hands down. I’ll keep looking for a photo.
Do you mean this?
http://hooniverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/1980-Mercury-Cougar-08.jpg
To paraphrase the late great Moms Mabley, this car was so ugly that it hurt my feelings.
rip moms, hope you and totie fields have a good laugh over this.
Shame on Detroit for peddling things like this. They weren”t necessary. I drove Saabs in those days that cost about the same to buy. They rode just as good as these cars, handled better, and always embarrased these luxo barges in a drag race.
H’mmmm…rilly? According to this site, The ’81 Saab 900 was originally priced at $10,400 – $15,100. I can’t find new-car pricing for an ’81 Cougar, but this CC vintage road test has the ’80 Lincoln Continentals and Marks new-priced at $12,000 to $14,000, which gives me a bit of a hard time with the idea of a new ’80-’82 Cougar asking for ’81 Saab money.
That said, oh hell yes I’d rather have the Saab!
Umm, his comment was left in 2012, so I doubt he’ll see your reply. But yes, even the top-of-the-line 1981 XR-7 started at $7,800.
Here’s the window sticker for my factory-ordered 1982 Granada GL coupe. I think the Cougar was comparably priced.
Wow, that sticker is roughly the same as the one on the 77 New Yorker Brougham my family bought used in 82 (for somewhere areound $3500 IIRC). That, boys and girls, is what inflation looked like. A Granada cost what a loaded New Yorker had cost 5 years earlier.
You are so right. My father’s 1978 Mark V Cartier with options had a window sticker total of under $16,000. Inflation was raging during these years. Nixon’s pressure on the Fed to keep interest rates low to ensure his re-election in 72 contributed to what turned out to be a decade or more of inflation. Let’s hope we do not repeat that history.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fed-political-pressure-20180727-story.html
That was the era of the trifecta… triple-digit inflation, triple-digit interest rates, and triple-digit unemployment. Good times… 🙁
I realize that the 70’s were the era of automotive costume jewelry and while today’s cars are more efficient and safer, I wish there was just one automaker out there that’s bold enough to bring out a color combination as wonderful as the XR7 with the “Midnight/Chamois” decor package on the cover of the 1979 brochure.
I remember going down with my father to the local Lincoln Mercury dealership in 1983 when he picked up his 83 Cougar Wagon. With the faux wood grain sides, wire wheels, and budoir interior..it looked like a Colony Park after a trip to weight watchers. My father was in FORDMOCO heaven. This was the same man that also drove home a 73 T-Bird a week before the 73 OPEC crisis. My mother refused to drive it and she referred to it as the freak of Ford. It was easy to drive, easy on gas, and great as a hauler as I used it twice to move. Sadly it got t-boned in 1988 by an early 70’s Lincoln..and off to the crusher it went. If I can dig up the pictures I will be glad to share-I haven’t seen another one like it.
A minor error, but there was no 1983 Cougar wagon, just 1982. The Mercury Fox wagon was renamed Marquis for 1983-86.
This is correct; the Cougar wagon that SAFJR spoke of must have been an ’82 (unless it wasn’t actually a Cougar).
For the duration of Fox-platform wagon production, from 1978 to 1986, the wagon was always available in exactly one model line at any given time, but which model line it was changed a couple of times. From 1978-81 it was the Fairmont/Zephyr. For 1982, it was moved to the Granada/Cougar. From 1983-86, it was an LTD/Marquis.
Imagine my horror to have my first post be inaccurate! After a quick email South my father confirmed it was a 1982 Cougar wagon that had been ordered and not picked up until it came home with us in Jan 83. It was an actually very nice looking wagon…tan with the dark wood grain sides-1 inch wide white walls and the full disc hubs with the cougar emblem in the middle-I loved it just for the Cougar hood ornament. Interior was dark brown cloth with the famous Ford shag carpeting but no options-crank windows and AM/FM stereo.
Sounds very similar to my fox wagon, at the very end of the line – an 86 Marquis wagon. Same color combo, but mine was loaded with all kinds of things on the FoMoCo option list. I liked mine a lot.
I’m amazed so many of you had experience or even memories of these cars. If you asked me about Cougars, I could tell you about the original Mustang variant and the 429 Eliminator, then the aero versions (’83 and up) with the notched roofline, but in between? A big black hole. I remember a lot about the Granada and Monarch and subsequent Fox platforms, but Cougar 4 doors and wagons? Nada. That’s why I love CC.
Mercury should have called the regular coupe and sedan Monarch. It would have given strength to the Granada as well and they probably would have sold more units.
I owned a 1980 XR-7(grey, w/navy top & trim; med. blue cloth) and, absolutely, loved that car. If I could have another, I, gladly, would.
I rented a gray 1981 Cougar sedan while I was in Arkansas on a job assignment. The car was entirely forgettable except for one thing – the wide C-pillar was painted plastic, with obvious horizontal seams separating the panel from the adjacent roof and fender sheetmetal. Cheap-looking.
I can’t blame Ford too much for the ’80-’82 Thunderbird/Cougar. The GM PLCs had been downsized the previous year and were selling okay. Ford thought they could pull a “Mustang II” on their PLCs and have just as much success. Not to mention that fuel prices were at an all time high. It should have worked.
But it didn’t. The main issue was simply that the styling just wasn’t there. Spreading the Cougar name around on down-market models didn’t help, either. Sticking with calling them Monarchs might have helped retain some of the Cougar’s caché. Imagine if they’d have labeled the Granada from those years ‘Thunderbird’. A Thunderbird station wagon? Brilliant!
I think if these had been decent drivers they might have done better. But the bodies felt flimsy. The 255 V8 was completely gutless and was attached to a tall axle. The AOD transmission that locked up immediately upon the shift to 3rd gear made a gutless, badly geared car almost completely unacceptible in daily driving. It if had been beautiful, maybe. If it looked like this and felt solid, maybe. If it had driven decently once you were inside and belted in, maybe. This car had none of these things going for it. An aunt bought one new and let me drive it. I was horrified, trying to tell her how nice her new car was (“your aunt has always wanted a TBird”) without lying my ass off or making her feel bad about her car. I couldn’t get out of it fast enough.
I wonder how much the conflict between Henry Ford II and Lee Iacocca during the latter’s last days with the company had with the fouled-up Fox Thunderbird and Cougar. Iacocca was fired from Ford on July 13, 1978 (his right-hand man, the brilliant, but brash, Hal Sperlich, had been fired by The Deuce a few months prior), which seems like it would be right around the time plans were being finalized for the 1980 Thunderbird and Cougar. IOW, the ‘brougham king’s’ input on what was arguably Ford’s eminent brougham product would either be instrumental, or completely disregarded. Either way, it seems like the turmoil would have lent itself to at least some of the problems with the final 1980 car.
The Cougar stood alone as a PLC in 1980 while the old Falcon based Monarch was carried over that year, so the brand erosion couldn’t be blamed for the poor sales of the 80 out of the gate. I actually believe the opposite happened, I think the Cougar XR7 did so badly so quickly in 1980 that the “base Cougar” was hastily reintroduced in lieu of Monarch to improve Cougar sales for 81 and 82. Unlike the 77-79 base Cougars, the 81-82s don’t even share the front end with the XR7.
“the “base Cougar” was hastily reintroduced..[for 1981]”
The 1981-82 non-PLC Cougar sedan/wagon body, etc, was in development longer than a year or few months. But, name could have been changed at 11th hour.
Probably meant to be the 1981 Monarch and quick name change.
I do remember magazines announcing new Fox based ’81 Granada/Monarch coming, but no mention of Cougar name until intro.
That’s what I think happened, all it would entail is using existing Cougar badges and hood ornament in place of the Monarch ones and changing the literature. Everything else is the same as a 81-82 Ford Granada.
The wife drove Honda’s, Subaru’s, and later Volvo’s during this time period. Thanks for reminding me why we made those choices.
I have softened on this generation some, the dimensions are close to the classic Mustang based Cougars, the styling is anynomous but not terrible and the bumpers are better integrated. I definitely prefer the styling to the Thunderbird at the very least, and it’s a more thorough execution than the 74-76s. What intrigues me in particular is while most if not all of these came with typical brougham trappings of its predecessor, if you look through the option sheet you could create a very atypical Cougar. You could get an XR7 without the puffy vinyl top, equip it with HD suspension, cast aluminum wheels, and most interesting of all Recaro bucket seats and console. I have never seen such an example, but I sure would like to.
I also can’t help but imagine the mods I could do that would surely irritate Syke. So much opportunity to improve with the Fox aftermarket, and I sure would like to see some wide wheels and tires on the featured car to mitigate the very narrow track, that alone would take away a sizable chunk of the perceived ugliness
I actually liked these a lot better than the Ford T-Bird of the same vintage, always felt this was one of the more underrated cars of the early 80’s.
This doesn’t deserve the XR7 badge. I loved the black over gold aero XR7s like a love a Mark VII. No love for XR7 Brougham.
If you could find one of these with the 302/5.0 V-8 and the Motorcraft non-VV 2 bbl. carburetor, they were very good running cars.
These were all decent cars. The styling of the rx7 and t bird ha grown on me. It has a big rear end. It’s better looking than a shovel nose Cutlass. The base model I think Is a beautiful design like baby Marquis. A friend had a base cougar cab and it lasted over six hundred thousand miles including 5 accidents,being stolen and shot at.
One of my High School teachers bought a 1980 two-tone orange-red over pale yellow XR-7 in the fall of ‘79. I still remember seeing that car every day – started to feel sorry for it’s owner, it had to be one of the ugliest new cars I’ve ever seen.
I wonder what sales would of been like if Ford had a design closer to the 1980-83 Chrysler Cordoba / Dodge Mirada (which had the same angular form of the ‘77-‘79 XR-7 and Lincoln Mark V). The Mopar personal luxury cars of the early ‘80s were more original than the GM like downsized T-Bird and XR-7.
All Ford was doing was trying to follow market leader GM. Gas prices at the time were among the highest in US history, so fuel economy was thought to be the paramount sales consideration, even in the PLC class. As JPC pointed out, Ford’s short-lived 255 V8 (1980-1982) was an absolute dog, even in lighter cars like the Mustang and Capri. In the heavier Thunderbird and Cougar, it came close to being dangerously slow, with minimal improvement in fuel mileage over the previous generation. In effect, Ford was trying to sell a smaller, uglier, worse performing car than the one it was replacing, and at a higher price. Unsurprisingly, buyers stayed away in droves.
A better performing drivetrain definitely would have improved sales, but unlikely enough to have kept the first Fox-chassis Thunderbird and Cougar in production for more than three years. Overall, it was just a horrible effort that deserves its reputation as one of Ford’s worst cars, both in driving dynamics and, more importantly, sales. The only thing that keeps it from reaching rock-bottom is that there were no glaring mechanical issues so reliability was no worse than anything else being built at the time.
It’s worth noting that the traditional-sized Cordoba/Mirada had some really lackluster engines, too, beginning with the power-sapped slant-six.
Slant six was durable though