I wanted to write about this car mostly so I could say this: the formal, vertical backlight makes the rear wheels look somehow disconnected from the rest of the car’s body. Market research apparently showed that Cougar buyers preferred the upright roof. Or at least that’s what I remember reading when these were new.
Ahh, that’s better. The Cougar rode the same MN12 platform as the Thunderbird, which is so pretty in profile. The sloping roof integrates so nicely with the entire rear of the car, as if it’s taking great care to reach for that distant rear wheel. The pinched nose doesn’t work so well, at least in my opinion; I liked the more square front end of 1989-1992 better. The Cougar got a similarly pinched front end starting in 1996.
I think it’s not much of a coincidence that I found an MN12 Thunderbird and Cougar in the same color – I remember this being a very popular color for these cars. Teal was in during the 1990s, especially at Ford. The ’96 Mercury Sable I owned was this color.
I knew someone with a Cougar of this generation. He made a daily hour-long commute in it, reserving his shiny new Mercedes for less punishing duty close to home. I don’t know which Mercedes he had, but he always said he liked driving the Cougar better. Perhaps the grunt from the 5.0 Windsor V8 charmed him.
How different is the MN12 platform compared to its predecessor the Fox platform? Great deal of differences underneath?
Totally different platform – it’s wider the cowl height is lower, fuel tank is mounted in the middle, front suspension is SLA, rear is independant. Only commonality is the engines used.
It’s so high tech that the rear suspension from Tbird is available as a display for graduate lessons in the university here.
also 800 lbs heavier…
A 5.0 1988 weighs 3,485 lbs, a 5.0 1991 is 3753 lbs. Hardly an 800 lb difference
FWIW, the registration sticker for my dearly departed ’88 T-Bird Sport says 3312.
A lot of times that’s a base weight without options and not necessarily with a full tank of fuel (the difference between a full and empty 20-gallon tank is around 130 lb, so…).
totally different. the MN12 has independent rear suspension, and was a pretty hi tech platform. The target was BMW 6-series, which they achieved pretty well, the problem was, it came in over budget, and I think the resulting project leader lost his job over it.
I remember reading that as well. The team missed both the weight and cost targets and FoMoCo made some heads roll as a warning to future product development teams.
I always wished FoMoCo had used the MN12 as the basis for the Lincoln Continental sedan instead of the FWD Taurus underpinnings. It could have offered a V8 (the V6 was a lethal weakness of the actual FWD Continental of this era), and would have been a great American RWD alternative to the high end Germans and Japanese sedans. Big luxury coupes were a dying breed, so the MKVIII on the platform was never destined to be a volume model–FoMoCo could have gotten so much more out of the pretty sophisticated platform by adding 2 more doors.
Probably they knew the body flex would be even worse than H-Body LeSabre, and it’s improper for such an expensive car. The body flex still shows on later thunderbird though. And they tried on Lincoln LS as an alternative to Japanese and German rear wheel drive sedan, and it’s as disgraceful in the exactly the same way as BMW 3 series ( but still much better than Infiniti G35 though ) and they probably figured it was silly to be German afterall.
On the other hand, Taurus really handles well for its size, but it’s a Taurus afterall.
I find the thunderbird and cougar both very attractive. But that bodykit/ground affects ruin the look of that cougar.
Agree, & moreover, I don’t know how the punters deal with driveways & humps which endanger all that useless dress. Even factory chin spoilers are easy to damage on curbs & parking dividers; I’m glad mine is of flex material, maybe rubber (thanks, Honda!).
That riced-out monstrosity is a very poor example of what was a very nice car in its day.
Strange for me because while I liked the Fox T-Birds better than the Cougars, with the MN12s it’s precisely the opposite, I like the MN12 Cougar’s front end treatment better than the T-Bird and it doesn’t have the funky upswept quarter window that the Fox Cougar does.
I can practically hear the Nirvana cassette tape playing from inside the Cougar. Or maybe some Pearl Jam or even Milli Vanilli. That’s how 90s it its. I had a teal Acura Integra GS-R back in the 90s, so I’m not judging. And Nirvana cassettes.
can you believe that 24 years have passed since Nevermind and Ten came out?
Yeah it blows my mind.
I prefer the Cougar, but I’m super biased. To me the heavily raked windshield and back glass make the roof look a tad tall and pinched on the Thunderbird, whereas the long roof on the Cougar gave it a bit more of a longer lower looking profile. Plus I much prefer the Cougar’s details, the chrome around the windows, a traditional electric shaver grille instead of the grilleless look, the strobe striped taillights all made the Mercury more appealing to me.
I totally disagree about the rear wheel placement. I think these and the 83-86 Cougars were the only formal roofline cars since the downsized 79 E bodies that got it right, with the pillar ending roughly midway between the opening. The later formal roof GMs often ended the pillar before the opening and looked REALLY disconnected and the 87-88 Cougars had the pillar end at the end of the wheel opening, which gave it a sort of an altered profile altered like 60s super stock Coronets had.
BTW this is a 1993, 91 XR7s only came in red white or black and had larger 7 spoke wheels
+1, I agree with your comments about the roof, grille and taillights.
I much prefer the Cougar. The T-bird front and rear windows have about the same angle, giving it a “Coming or going?” look.
Exactly, XR7Matt. It’s what made the Ns and Seville and Eldorado look like mini pickups in proportion
Agreed. I’ve always thought the Cougar’s roofline didn’t mesh with the otherwise sleek body. In any event, it still was an attractive enough car.
Always loved these Cougars. I prefer the roofline on the Cougar to the T-Bird, but then again that’s why they make different models and designs for different tastes.
This generation of Cougar has always left me cold. After the lighter, distinctively stylish ’87-’88 version, it felt like a letdown…the ’89 just seemed to be a luxury barge on wheels; a direct descendant of the overbroughamed Torino of ’79, not the sports coupe of ’67. The wing and ground effects on this one are downright ludicrous: No matter what you did to them, these cars were about as stylish or sporting as a Plymouth Acclaim.
I was overjoyed when these were discontinued and the name was “rebooted” on a front-drive Integra fighter. For about a year, I felt that Mercury was on the verge of a new lease on life, building good-quality cars that my demographic wanted to own…but alas, none of that was to be.
The Archetypal 90s Coupe? This is The Archetypal 80s Coupe. The very best of the breed of the type of midsize family coupes that were so popular in the 80s- Monte Carlo, Cutlass Supreme, Regal, Thunderbird, and Cougar. Ford built these out to the late 90s, so this is your chance to get the very newest, most powerful, airbag-equipped, floor-shifted and fuel injected version of that. It’s the nicest version of what the Malaise Era saw as a nice car.
Spot on. A car stuck in time trying to sell style that had gone out of fashion 1-2 development cycles earlier.
Yep. My uncle drove Cougars. He was buddies with the local Mercury dealer, but he was also the type of guy who hadn’t changed his hairstyle since about 1983.
Is that a problem??
I always liked the formal roof better on this generation. The fwd Cougar that followed this – not so much. Maybe it was a last gasp, but there should have been a Cougar developed when the new Mustang came out in ’05. More luxurious interior with styled exterior…that would have been sweet. Perhaps Mercury was too far gone by that time…
I never had a problem with my Uncle’s choice in cars, I thought the Cougar fit their style. (My aunt still dresses fairly “hippie” as well.) Now he drives a 70s Corvette in the summer and a F-950 or something country cadillac the rest of the time.
The “Archetypal 90s Coupe” to me is the Civic Si [non hatch versions].
The pic of the Cougar definitely evokes memories of c. 2000 college parking lots. Back then these were everywhere, and it wasn’t uncommon to find MN-12’s riced out with obnoxious spoilers and tacky body kits, usually driven by douchey guys. But then you saw others that were meticulously loved and maintained by students on a budget who clearly appreciated what they had. It’s rather sad how these cars at that time epitomized the end of an era, as we’ll never see anything similar come to market ever again, at least not in this price bracket.
I will be honest with you folks,
I loved the 83-88 Aero Bird and Cougar when they were being sold new and I still love them some 27 years after the last ones came off the line at the factory.
I also like the MN12(89-97) T-Bird
By contrast I hated the way the 89-97 Couger looked. Car for the 1990’s my back end
It looks like somebody at Ford decided to simply stretch a 1984-1991 2 door Oldsmobile Calais and slap a Mercury badge on it. It was a step backwards in the looks department from the 83-88.
Look alike; Olds Trofeo
Really, almost any coupe from GM in the ’80s looked too much like its sister vehicles.
Good call, Leon.
That Olds is the perfect EPA compliant, soul less car CAFE regulations called for in the 80’s. Lame.
I totally disagree about the Cougar comment on the 89- 97.
I should be more biased as I owned an ’89 MN12 T-Bird, but I like both the T-Bird and Cougar. Kudos to Ford for providing some meaningful differentiation between the two cars.
If you liked the popular and decent riding and handling GM A body coupes of the ’70s and ’80s, this was your car for the ’90s. It felt like an updated version of those cars, generally a lot nicer than the GM FWD coupes of the ’90s.
The ground effects and spoiler on the subject Cougar reek of being dealer add-ons, probably done before the car even hit the lot, along with a handwritten scrawl on an added window sticker showing the price for these “accessories”. I had quite a battle with a Chrysler dealer in 1995 over a spoiler that showed up on a car I had him locate on another dealer lot. When the car showed up with the spoiler, I told him the spoiler was free or the deal was dead. He let the deal die, and I ended up getting a better deal on a spoiler free car at another dealer. In addition to the cost of the spoiler, I objected to the spoiler messing with the counter balance on the deck lid, making it too easy to have it fall closed while working in the trunk.
I had a fox body ’86 Cougar and later a ’91 MN12 Cougar XR7 with the 5.0. Let me tell you…what a sweet car that was. I thought it was way nicer than my Dad’s Deville that was 10 years newer.
IMO these were some of the last “muscle cars” with the V8-powered coupe, rear wheel drive, dual exhaust and discs all around.
Agreed…I had an ’86 Thunderbird elan with the 5.0 and my mom had a ’91 Cougar LS with the V-6 — both very nice cars but for different reasons. I would say that the Thunderbird handled better, but the Cougar was a much more pleasant freeway cruiser — especially since it seemed to have about zero rolling resistance.
And, BTW, those ground effects ruin the looks of the car, IMHO. As they always do.
These nineties coupes don’t do it for me. The nascar Montes, body kits on Cougars, Lebarons looking more like Daytonas every year and the magic marker colors they all shared. It is like they were designing the cars to be in some nineties production of Dukes of Hazard.
I prefer coupes like the 68 Cougar, 68 Tbird, or even dare I say the 82 versions to this. The sporting pretentions should be left to nice turbine wheels, bucket/console interior, and V8 burble. These are personal luxury cars, the purpose being to calmly and effortlessly bring an executive to work. Going to work in this Cougar would question your judgement.
Not a huge fan of these. Nowadays I see one or two every few months, usually parked underneath a shady tree on the side of someones house in disrepair.
That is 90s only in US. Here across the pond, that roof would have been considered very strange in any decade.
In profile it almost looks like strangely proportioned very short bed Australian ute.
In 1995 we were finally in a position to buy a brand new car. The Thunderbird was our choice, the Cougar wasn’t even on our radar, it looked like a geezer car to us. That Thunderbird was a pretty solid car, the only issue was the torque converter chattered, of course out of warranty, and we had to pay to have it fixed at an independent shop. Ford’s brilliant solution was to just change the fluid, which lasted long enough to get it out of warranty. But overall it was a really decent car. I can’t say I was a fan of the 96-97 facelift, but the one pictured here looks pretty nice.
I definitely prefer the Thunderbird, though the Cougar’s take on the “formal” roofline isn’t nearly as bad as its GM and Chrysler contemporaries’. Way too many of these had horrible vinyl roofs – in New England, they were, of course, badged “Bostonian”. So any toupee-less MN-12 is a win!
Not bad cars, but I may be the only one who feels the proportions of both are a bit awkward.
I always thought the roof needed to be about two inches lower. Might have made for terrible headroom, but they would’ve looked much sleeker…especially the T-bird.
I really like this gen Cougar and Thunderbird. I bought a new ’84, trading in my ’77 Coupe De Ville. I originally wanted the T bird, but my wife really liked the formal roof and wire wheel hubcaps. We had considered buying a used ’79 or ’80 Eldorado so i guess my wife felt that the Cougar had a little of that Eldo swag. Our Cougar was a nice metallic grey with a matching plush grey cloth interior. The V6 power was adequate and this car was a great quiet, comfortable cruiser. We did a lot of running back and forth between the LA area where we had relocated and the Bay Area where my family was and the Central Valley where my wife’s family lived. Nothing wrong with a plush quiet cruiser with a big trunk and a comfortable back seat for the kids for road trips.
It would seem that the mismatch between the upright window and the aero front would be unattractive, but for some reason it worked. And it was popular, Do you remember the” I’ll be seeing you commercials”? The next two generations continued this successful look while offering an improved drivetrain and chassis. I like the grill and tail lights of the featured car and I even like the body kit. There’s a maroon one I sometimes pass on the way to work just like it. I bet I could be pretty happy with a MN12 Cougar with the 4.6 V8. It would be similar to my ’96 Mustang GT, but would be a better road trip car. It would be more spacious, with a bigger trunk and a smoother and quieter ride, These are qualities that I especially appreciate now.
This may come as surprising news to younger CC’ers or non-Californians, but there was a year or two in the eighties or early nineties where the Thunderbird, even without adding in Cougars, was the best selling passenger car in California. Today that title seems to bounce between the Prius, Civic and maybe CRV or Camry. Which just goes to show that people buy what they want, not really need (nothing wrong with that). Though I think even 25+ years ago, the F150 was pretty high up on that list, but not above all cars like it is today. Unlike back then, however, I suspect theTaurus isn’t even in the top ten now.
I do remember the surprisingly high number of Tbird in California, but seems Ford never figured out why they sold so well.
Putting the rear roof pressing from a 3 window Model A on a 80s design lower half sold how many extra of these cars that where this style of design harks back to.
Not as many as a four-door sedan would’ve…
There’s a burned out one of these in the woods here that’s probably been there for years and appears to have been used as a dirt bike ramp.
I’ve owned many MN12 vehicles in my day… I only had one Cougar though… an 89 XR7 5-speed… it had a dealer installed body kit. I didn’t care for it, but I got it for a really good price… I kind of miss it..
The Thunderbird was an exceptionally beautiful and restrained design, particularly in LX trim (i.e. sans lower your body trim kit), and early its run. It looked expensive, and I think it holds up over time. The Cougar’s design was OK, but the roofline was gimmicky and a throwback to the 80s.
There you go: the TL;DR version of this post! I should hire you to summarize all of them! 🙂
Interesting. I’ve got a soft spot for the MN12 Thunderbird, but the Cougar not so much. That upright rear window does not work for me.
This, on the other hand, was the archetypal 90’s coupe in Europe, the Opel/Vauxhall Calibra. An Opel Vectra/Vauxhall Cavalier in a pretty frock.
Those were nice. The roofline and other details were used on the 1988 refresh of the USA Cavalier, it really helped the 2 door, not so much the 4 door or wagon.
These Cougars were certainly polarizing. I’m a Thunderbird guy, myself. These Cougars looked like a knockoff of those GM coupes of the late 80s that had become so generic by the early 90s.
“grunt from the 5.0 Windsor V8” Really? It just so happen that one of these (same color too) pulled onto the freeway (610 Loop in Houston) in front of me this morning and was chugging along at about 50 mph – a good 20 mph less than the majority of traffic. I had to follow for about a 1/2 mile until I could get into the left lane and pass so I got to contemplate the vertical rear window for almost a full minute. 🙂
To be fair, who knows what condition the drive train is in after 25 years on the road. In 1986 my wife and I took a week-long vacation in the Poconos. We landed at La Guardia and picked up a brand new Cougar from the rental agency. I remember it being a very comfortable car and not too big for the mountainous terrain we drove in that week. it was really suited for the interstate though.
We drove to Philadelphia one day that week and got stuck in a big traffic jam on the way back to the resort on Lake Wallenpaupack. A tractor-trailer had dumped a pile of crushed cars onto the highway shutting it down completely. We were at an absolute stand-still for more than an hour but had a gorgeous view of the Lehigh Valley and were sitting on the very comfortable bucket seats of the Mercury. We rolled down the windows, turned on the radio, and enjoyed the sunset.
I draw no inferences about a car’s basic performance from how they’re driven; very often I see late-model BMWs & Corvettes driving in Granny mode, while just this morning, I saw a “boring” Camry doing a very brave & assertive left-turn. Most modern cars are overdesigned for street-legal American driving; few people care to take cars anywhere near their physical limits.
I`m not defending it, but why do so many people think that Camrys are boring? A friend has a fairly late model Camry . Shes not a car enthusiast, but even she says that its boring.
I think it’s because they’re common, period. Our XV10 Camry Wagon attracted attention from passerby simply because it was rare, not because it was any more exciting than the sedan, which it certainly wasn’t.
I was impressed by a recent rental of an XV50 4-cyl Camry, it’s well-balanced, accelerates well, & is comfortable. Maybe it’s no Autobahn Kruiser, but it isn’t boring.
50 isn’t bad, my volare only goes for 25 on ramp, and it always make many people behind me panic a lot. And 90hp doesn’t help for acceleration and combined with mountain, 45 is the best I can do on the interstate. Well, it’s not really that bad compared to a 1910s Rolls Royce around Flint on the interstate though.
For some reason, these Cougars were quite popular with late 30-40 ish women, at least in Brooklyn, NY anyway. Popular colors were white and blue, and many of them had a vinyl roof or a simulated fabric “convertible” top.Maybe this is where the term “cougar” for an attractive middle aged woman began? As far as I`m concerned, I can take it or leave it. Not too high on my “want it” list.
Always hated the roofline on these. Instead of formal it’s more like business casual, it just looks dorky. The wheel design is a patronizing effort to make them look upscale. The color and cladding send mixed messages about the car’s purpose. Park an 80’s Caprice Landau next to it and tell me which looks better.
I liked these Cougars – without the spoilers and ground effects – and thought that Ford did a very good job of differentiating them from the contemporary Thunderbird. The same could be said about the prior generation of Cougar and Thunderbird. People who liked the one tended not to like the other.
This Cougar was an effective adaptation of the formal look to a more modern package. These cars, unfortunately, debuted as the market for coupes began dwindling. By the late 1990s, coupes of all types were well on their way to niche status in the U.S. market.
Those are some of the deepest ground effects this side of the ones on wheelchair vans that disguise a lowered floor. Not a typical Cougar mod, either. A few T-birds got ground effects (in addition to the more tasteful ones Super Coupes had stock) but Cougars were more likely to get those canvas padded roofs.
Formal roofline?
— OR —
Ground effects and spoilers?
Pick one only, cuz you can’t have both.
I always liked the exterior styling of these and they rode and handled well too. But the weight increase hurt what power the weak 3.8 had making the 4.6 mandatory but those could have there issues too. The early 90’s 302 equipped cars had nicer interiors but were a bit weaker than the 4.6 cars due to the altered intake design. It’s a shame that most of the newer 4.6 cars seem to have nasty light gray or tan interiors that are falling apart, rattly or have baked in grime that just doesn’t seem to come out even after hours of cleaning. Did they even offer a blue or maroon interior in the 94-96 model years? If so I have yet to come across one.
Blue, red and green. Believe it or not it was Black that was dropped from the docket, green was actually introduced. Red was dropped for 1996 though.
blue…
green…