Maybe not so much in terms of realism, but certainly in creating the right sort of fantasy atmosphere. Which is what it takes to sell cars, for the most part.
Vintage Ad: 1974 Mercury Cougar – Now That’s More Like It
– Posted on November 19, 2021
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Curbside Classics Archives
I think of the Cougar of these years as “minimum acceptable Mercury”. Agreed, this one kind of pulls it off.
I had a much higher-than-normal dislike for these back when new because I still carried a torch for the original.
Alternate history scenario: Cougar continues to share DNA with the Mustang, and we get the Cougar II [shudders].
Yeah I think that’s important to keep that in mind, in 1974 the Cougar was a badge without a platform, it’s very unlikely the Cougar would have gone back to its 67-68 styling roots like the Mustang II did and we would have simply seen a miniaturization of the 71-74 styling tropes like the formal grille exposed headlights and bladed turn signals only on the small Mustang II body, not far off from the cheesiness of the Bobcat really.
The Mustang Grande and Ghia kind of pushed away the Cougar’s luxurious smaller car buying base and the Capri sold in Mercury showrooms took up the sporty smaller car buying base so upping it to intermediate PLC where Ford had a pretty big market gap was the logical step really.
EWWW
The closest we can get would be a Mustang II Ghia with every luxury and bling option checked on the order sheet.
https://www.cjponyparts.com/resources/mustang-ghia
… and this new 3-door Capri would instead be called Bobcat, to build on the marketing theme.
We did, in 1980.
My first thought was to give the ’74 Cougar II the Mustang II’s liftback body and Ghia interior exclusively, and drop the Capri. Also, include Exfordman’s suggested independent rear suspension.
But then I looked up the sales numbers for the ’74 Cougar and realized that Mercury made a very profitable decsion. So maybe the Capri needed to become this car. In an ideal world, Mercury would have profited from both types of buyers.
This ad hits all the proper aspirational buttons. A very attractive Personal Luxury car in white, which I think looks great. Parked in front of a very impressive large white house, with your very attractive passenger dressed in white, waiting to get in for a ride. Chauncey the cougar has to sit in the back seat. Just the ad to appeal to a striving up and coming middle manager.
While this is a great advertising photo, in reality most Cougars were probably parked on a street that looked like something out of the ’90’s TV show, The Wonder Years. Early Cougars were attractive cars, but unfortunately they got even bigger than this in the mid ’70’s. I bought a new Aero Cougar in 1984 and thought that it was a very smooth, quiet, pleasant car.
The Cougar would be driving while she and I got in the back seat…
I never get tired of the imagery of the seventies. So bizarre, in a good way.
Long ago I saw this picture on a FB page and somebody asked how many cougars are in this picture. I’m leaving that alone.
This seems to be the forgotten, overlooked Cougar. Despite the Torino roots, I rather like it although I cannot quantify why. My aunt’s brother-in-law, who is a year older than me, had a silver ’74 Cougar as his first car. It was a very attractive Mercury.
If it were 1974 and I were looking for an intermediate PLC, I would have went with a Monte Carlo or Grand Prix.
But for someone who was strictly a Ford man, the Cougar was okay. It really pulls off the ‘baby Mark IV’ look well, going with a downsized Mark grille and exposed headlights. There’s no denying the Lincoln influence and it’s certainly better than the craptacular Torino Elite.
Well, by the time I got my license, the PLCs were already thick on the ground at the used car lots. When I had nothing else to do, I’d visit them and look thru the cars.
The Fords and Mercuries seemed to be better assembled, the GPs and MCs all had saggy doors that made noises (GROONK) when you opened them and needed two or three tries to shut them by slamming them harder and harder until the latch found the back of the post. The Cutlasses and Regals had better doors that didn’t do that. The GM PLCs had more powerful engines. This was during the tedious days of the 55 mph national speed limit, so it didn’t matter much then.
The plastic interior pieces on the MCs seemed to be of better quality than Fords, with better color consistency and not so many cracks at the screw holes.
I only remember one Cordoba, but the seats were cloth, not leather (damn you, Ricardo Montalban! I thought all Cordobas had them) but the cloth felt very thin, almost like pantyhose. It was of about the same quality as it’s other PLC brethren.
If I had my choice of any PLC, it would either be an Elite with a 460 or a GP with a 455.
The local versions of the Live Cougar promotions were pretty fun too.
“Bring the children – they’ll love it”
The big cat looks so happy chained with a 1-ft. long chain to the hood.
Glad they didnt do the same type of promo with a Mustang or Bronco.
These old 70s ads look like the backdrop to a murder Columbo would investigate, beautiful wealthy eccentric femme fatale suspect, murder weapon “accidental” death from pet Cougar, big three product placement.
Nailed it!
Victim is a good looking, much younger man. Or he’s the gardener who did that awful pruning, and the victim is the older husband.
Just one more thing, ma’am. . . .
I knew that Daddy Gotrocks didn’t like Biff. He bought his daughter Buffy this Cougar and poor Muffy got stuck with a Comet. I blame it all on Biff.
While I wasn’t of driving age until the 1980s, and up till then, the only Mercury Cougars I liked were the original 67-69 bodies, I was a big fan of ALL Mercury Cougar commercials in the mid/late 70s—the model on the left exemplifies why Cougars had the most visually appealing car ads and commercials. But then again, I could find nicer models in other magazines….
Perhaps CC/Paul will do a POSITIVE memorable car ads:)
As with the 70s themselves, to me at least, memorable print ads would be dominated by “The Ultimate Driving Machine” ads in first, the Porsche “engineering note number 1,2,3….” in second, and “Engineered like no other car in the world”.
I liked the combination of prose and technical data that left me, as a 12-18 year, with no doubt that these were easily the best cars one could buy–they might cost 2-3x more, but they were 2-3x better and well worth it. Mission accomplished.
Saab followed a similar approach. As with the cars themselves, it didn’t work as well, IMO.
Volvo–another winner–the reliability and longevity angle
Honda-we make it simple. I like the ads and commercials (and the cars, except Prelude 1.0)
… “positive memorable cars ads IN GENERAL”. My bad. This Cougar ad is both
The lady could’ve been modeled by Farrah Fawcett.
The picture leaves me with mixed feelings. I attended a media event where the 74 Cougar and Mustang were introduced. Being a Mustang fan I was excited to test drive the new model.
I was disappointed Mercury chose to take what had been a landmark model with the first generation which I really liked, into just another mid-size “old man’s car.” Oh sure, it had cushy seats and with whatever V8 was under the hood plenty of power, but to a 20 year old me the car just wasn’t exciting. So decades later, I smirk at the ad and ask Mercury who were you targeting with this ad?
If the ad was done today with the same props; it would be some ubiquitous mid size CUV finished in some boring shade of silver, probably an X5 or a Q5. At least the Couger had style!
It certainly didn’t have anything else.
The 1st Gen hit the mark. The 2nd Gen missed the mark a little when that accent line was put onto the side of the car. The 3rd Gen went off the cliff in 1971. Only took four years for the car to really not be a Cougar. Has any other car strayed so fast from it’s roots in less than four years? As for the pictured 74 all I see is a Montego.
My sister had one of these in black. I thought it was a great looking car but as I recall it drove like any other giant Ford of the era. Very numb and dull.
“Numb and dull.” A very good description and I couldn’t agree more.
These were wildly successful cars. So successful Mercury became the cat division. While the original is still a better car, these sold like crazy throughout this decade.
Women loved them.
Agreed. This gen Cougar was one of FoMoCo’s best product decisions and marketing efforts of the 70s. Incredible how a simple change to the Montego’s front and rear 6 inches and C-pillar, together with excellent marketing, created a new car that sold better than any previous Cougar. Enthusiasts may not have liked it, but the auto industry isn’t a charity operation. When it comes to American, fulsome, conventional and heavy make-up sold well then and still sells now.
Imagine an alternate history where Mercury truly embraced the sign of the cat campaign, and the cars were all well sorted with dare I say fully independent suspensions, lithe and muscular. In the seventies they could have tagged them as cornering like a cat on a shag carpet.
The house is La Dolphine in Hillsborough. Sidebar, the Grateful Dead were pretty noisy at a ’66 deb ball here and the cops were called
Mine was a ’76 XR-7 with different hubcaps. It had the 351’C’, but it wasn’t at all like the the firebreathing Clevelands from just five years earlier. Power everything and cruise control. Slow 0-60 and the only time the tires would chirp would be when the pavement was wet. The shine on the silver paint had already faded by 1982 to where it looked like the stuff covering the numbers on a lottery card. The transmission died on me between my first and second year of school while I was at my summer job. Decent ride and quiet, it was hard to see out of the back. My college roomie had a Torino with a 302, it felt about the same when I rode with him.
I love these Cougars, even without Farrah Faucet sitting on the hood with her leashed cougar. My neighbor in Wichita, KS had two of the pictured body style. They were the last of their his and her cars. His was an ugly ivy green thing with a black top, hers was a nice mellow yellow with a white top and interior .I’ve had 3 of these cat barges, a 77, 78, and 79, for some odd fate, they were all silver with moonroofs and factory cb’s. With Paul’s blessings I’ll tell you about all of them in the near future!
Like the Mustang II, the PLC Cougars sold like hotcakes. At least in ’74, the Q code Cleveland 351 4 bbl was still available, with 250-ish hp, only 40 less than the famous Pontiac SD-455.
One such Q code ’74 Cougar was featured in Hemmings Muscle Machines magazine.
Also, main reason no “1974 Cougar II”, based on M-II, was the Capri already in L-M showrooms, which was a huge seller. Until the higher priced ’76 Capri II, that is.