Some of the simple things in life can be so satisfying….a juicy steak…..finding money in the sock drawer…..a glass of sweet tea on a hot day…..writing about a Mercury.
Despite any possible appearance to the contrary, I’m not contractually obligated to write about Mercuries. However, there is a deep urge within my psyche to root for the underdog, to defend the unjustly impugned, to play Devil’s Advocate, to root for the home team, to challenge the conventional wisdom. That’s why I vociferously defend the infinite virtues of modern pickups.
This is also why I love writing about a Mercury. Well, maybe just the full-sized Mercury through about 1978. The smaller Mercuries appear nastily sarcastic. But this Cougar is a shining exception to that tendency, a car that deserves its moment of glory, basking in internet adulation.
It’s just a shame I didn’t find the Cougar I really, actually, sorely wanted back in 1988. But, as we shall see, beggars cannot be choosers.
Being born during the first third of the 1970s, I am one of those who grew up around cars others have coined as “malaise”. These established a normal of sorts for me despite their now being as archaic as a slide rule.
The period during the 1980s when cars started to re-blossom was truly exciting. When Ford began selling a 200 horsepower Mustang again during the Reagan Administration, and knowing this was net horsepower and not the inflated gross, the performance imagery was enough to blow my teenage mind.
Not that it would have taken much. But this steady increase in performance definitely made for a promising looking future.
Amongst all of this heady excitement was the resurgence of Ford and Chrysler. As people gravitate towards that with which they are most familiar, I was strictly a Ford and Chrysler homey at that time. Of the two I was more entranced by the variety of products springing forth from Ford. It didn’t really matter about the Fox platform being almost the de facto platform for most of their rear-drive lineup; I just knew I liked the rear-drive offerings be it Thunderbird, Cougar, Mustang, or Capri.
Of this bunch the Cougar spoke to me the loudest. It came across as more sophisticated and mature than a Mustang or Capri and it was simply less plentiful than a Thunderbird. It’s that rooting for the underdog thing.
But, like with the Thunderbird, one had to be judicious so as to avoid some semi-brougham travesty. You know the ones; these were what was often seen on the street but not shown in the brochure.
The Cougar XR-7 is what was calling my name at 125 decibels. To borrow a Mercury tag line, it was indeed the shape I wanted to be seen in.
There was just one problem. As someone not quite old enough to even possess a driver’s license, I knew I’d have better luck pissing up a rope while jumping on a trampoline than being able to take possession of a Cougar anytime soon. So I did the next best thing and sweet talked my father until I was blue in the face.
I should have known better but it made sense to my teenaged mind. A person can’t be blamed for trying can they? Aren’t dads bottomless wells of money?
For years my father had a fifty mile commute to work in Carbondale, Illinois, and he’d been grumbling about needing to buy another car. Knowing he put about 25,000 miles per year on his commuter car, a little math told me he’d have about 50,000 miles or so on a new Cougar by the time I needed to be equipped with a car. Sounds like an easy sell, right?
Pop certainly appeared to have taken a shine to the idea, mentioning multiple times how such an arrangement could work out well. While out and about I was even successful in getting him to stop multiple times at Ford Groves in Cape Girardeau to look at new Cougars. My mother even got interested, wanting to know more about them.
Then one fateful day in 1988 mom and pop went car shopping, unbeknownst to me. What did (t)he(y) get?
A damned Ford Tempo. What an utter disappointment. Well, it was more than disappointment. What is a good word that goes a step or two beyond disappointment? Disaster? Washout? Fiasco?
But it was his loss.
Instead of being able to be gleefully whisked around by a standard 3.8 liter V6 or an optional (and far preferable) 302 cubic inch V8, he opted for a Tempo.
Instead of buying something that was a mobile demonstration of the sophistication and elegance that could only be found in a Mercury, both of which reflected well upon the driver, he opted for a Tempo.
Instead of a Cougar that could be obtained in one of fourteen (14!!!) exterior colors, plus three two-tone exterior combinations, he opted for a Tempo.
How does one get excited about a Cougar and end up with a damned Tempo? That’s like expecting to taste a succulent prime rib only to get a mouthful of raw liver. It’s not even comparable. Quickly enough I learned my valiant efforts had been resoundingly ignored. I was p-i-double s’d.
In retrospect I was likely just an unwitting stooge to provide amusement for my father at my expense.
1996 Cougar shown
Some teenage wounds don’t heal quickly. Ever been dumped by a significant other? Ever been turned down for a job that was given to some buffoon? The Cougar wound was an irritant for quite some time. So what did my father finally do in 1995? He bought a red Cougar.
As an aside, upon seeing his 1995 Cougar I inquired about its history to learn it had briefly been a rental car in Florida. Me being my ever so charming self, along with the filter between my brain and mouth being disconnected at that moment plus being one who will stick their finger in the monkey cage, I remember saying something along the lines of…
“Oh, gees, Pop. A Cougar rental car in Florida? I bet that buggy was popular for drug running. You might want to run it by the police station for the dogs to give it the sniff test. I’d imagine there’s been a bunch of cocaine stuffed in the rocker panels and inside the fender liners. You’ll want to get it cleared because your life could go to pot if you get pulled over and the cops find all that nose candy in your Mercury.”
He suddenly got a worried look but not enough to expel any effort to get it checked out. I have a long memory but I digress.
The years 1987 and 1988 were the last of the salad days for the Cougar. Sales were 104,000 and 119,000, respectively; sales tapered off to 75,000 by 1994 with the bottom falling out for 1995. How bad was it? The Cougar sold a mere 16,860 units that year.
For a weird perspective, Mercury sold 19,300 Granada based Cougar wagons in 1982. This should certainly be proof the personal luxury coupe market was rapidly declining.
Remember my crack about semi-broughams? With the wire wheel covers on our featured example, it should qualify as such. Although, with the lack of options inside, could this particular Cougar be a semi-semi-brougham?
That crazy broughamification is what has always frustrated me about these Cougars. With good judgement one could end up with something that looked pretty fantastic, as seen with the XR-7 further up. Exercising poor judgement netted a person a windswept Mercury with those insane wire wheel covers. Even the cheap, chintzy plastic wheel covers in the center look better than those insipid baling wire looking things. Retch.
Frankly, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the wheel cover on the far left. Rarity can inspire curiosity, I suppose.
Crappy wheel covers aside, I still have an affection for this generation of Cougar. But it seems this affection has its limits as I have not been so affected as to have written up this particular Cougar in the six-plus years since I took these pictures.
Conversely, I’ve written up in short order every contemporary General Motors G-Special body I’ve found. That’s just an observation.
These Cougars aren’t perfect – the wheelbase seems a smidgeon too short in the 1980s Ford tradition and visually it appears a little heavy in the tail – but they are so much better than than the Granada based ones, such as the 1982 wagon, that preceded it.
The only real drawback is under the hood with one having the choice of the ornery 3.8 V6 or the defanged 302. Mercury attempted to correct that with the MN-12s that came along in 1989 but that’s a story for another day.
The 1987 and 1988 Cougar has become exceedingly scarce it seems. They were a decent car on a platform that is almost Lego like in its ability to be built up. I’m hoping this one found a good home that gave it good nurturing…and a better set of wheel covers.
Found May 2013 near Winfield, Missouri
The side window shape reminds me of a Ford Consul Classic from the late 50s early 60s, it also reminds me Ive never seen this car before, it has a hint of sporty about it ruined by the squared off roof line which really jars the eyes not as badly as those GM efforts but it simply doesnt flow as a design. And fake wire wheel hubcaps make it look Kmart cheap, they should have killed the Cougar badge off after the first 3 it was downhill rapidly after that.
I was thinking similar, Bryce, though I opted for Anglia, but they were both by Colin Neale around the same time. I wondered if a similar rear pillar (but with wrap round glass) might look OK (plus a bit more wheelbase and different wheel covers) so:
I actually really like that!
Bernard, you should have worked as a stylist at Ford. You’ve improved it greatly!
Thanks guys! Funny thing is that there’s a round badge on that rear pillar and I didn’t need to move it at all to centre it.
I’ll have to disagree on the visuals versus the square Granada-based Cougar wagon. While there never should have been either a Cougar wagon or sedan prior to this one, mixing the jellybean look with the formal roofline is all kinds of wrong. It simply does not work. Perhaps the Sierra XR4i should have just been brought over as a Cougar instead and saved everyone a lot of trouble. The first Cougar was the best Cougar and perhaps should have been the only Cougar.
I thoroughly agree about how the 1982 Cougar wagon should have never seen the light of day. Same for the 1977 wagon, which was just a Torino with a Cougar front clip.
In the trajectory of Cougar, the first ones were indeed the best. The plot was then lost until about 1977, then it was varying degrees of murky for the rest of the run.
You’ve got me curious about an XR4ti based Cougar. But then my mind goes to the front-drive Cougar that appeared around 2000 and I’m not convinced such an offering would have been successful.
XR4i (well, the Sierra) was RWD and the platform spawned AWD versions as well as everything from a 4 to a turbo 4 to a V6 to a V8 (in South Africa). Raced on tracks, in rallies…Cost with Euro production may have been more than just making a T-Bird clone though.
The FWD Cougar’s biggest problem was that it was a Mercury. If that thing was a Ford it would have done better – nobody that was into Cougars was looking for what that one offered and nobody that was looking for what that one offered was looking in a Mercury showroom.
It should be noted that the 1982 Cougar brochure shown (including the Cougar Wagon) is not a direct predecessor of the subject car – rather, it was the counterpart to the Ford Granada, itself based heavily on the Fairmont. Rather, the Cougar XR7, the Mercury counterpart to the Ford Thunderbird, is the earlier version of the featured car. The 80-82 car was also the only non-sedan based Cougar coupe where they didn’t make much of an effort to make it look different than the Ford counterpart.
I do agree that the formal roof line just doesn’t work for me. The funny thing is that they made the formal Mercury roof line work well on the Topaz and the Aero Grand Marquis. (The GM one even worked so well that the Ford adopted it when they consolidated body shells). Meanwhile the Sable went the opposite direction making the Taurus roof line look “formal” in comparison.
I do think that moving the Cougar to the midsize platform was the right way to go at the time with the rise of the PLC into a massive segment. I don’t think it would have made it as the Cougar II. No their shouldn’t have been a wagon, nor a sedan.
Wire-wheel covers and blackwall tires don’t go together (it needs thin, white stripe tires).
I never thought the formal, upright rear window looked right on the aerodynamic Fox chassis Thunderbird and the upswept quarter windows didn’t help. But I guess it sold well enough, especially in Florida, where it was popular for dealers to slap a C-pillar vinyl roof on these.
Stylistically, these were absolutely stunning cars for their time. While not quite so dramatic as the Sable that arrived a few years later, it was easily the most expressive and contemporary looking car in its class. Unfortunately as you mention, these were often ruined with Brougham styling gimmicks in attempt to lure those who bought these in the 1970s. This 1987 I wrote about a few years ago is particularly vulgar, with the landau roof even hiding its distinctive rear quarter windows.
Ick, Brendan, that Cougar is obscene. That poor car is twenty-seven kinds of wrong.
It’s a shame so many of these Cougars (even through the end in 1997) succumbed to such vulgar treatment.
If left along, I agree these were visually stunning. I’d still love to have an XR-7 of this vintage.
Really? Stunning? Come on, guys, I’m just not seeing it. The Thunderbird itself was already better by far. What part specifically is the most stunning part? They were…fine I suppose. A moderately sporty-ish looking car with a vertical rear window on a 2-door body doesn’t equate to “stunning”, in my book at least.
We’re going to have to agree to disagree, I think.
The one Brendan has pictured is admittedly an eye-sore. But look at the brochure picture of the red XR-7 further up. LIke I said, how it’s equipped means a lot. That one has wheels and tires of an appropriate width, it presents a muscular but mature appearance, and it possesses a certain presence that many cars just aren’t able to mimic.
These cars aren’t that large, so the vertical rear window likely helped (some) with passenger head room. And while the windows in the rear pillar could benefit from a few tweaks, it isn’t horrible.
Mentioning the Thunderbird, don’t forget the ’87-’88 had a gaudy chrome grill on the base models and, like a bird, it had a distinct beak. That rather killed it for many of those Birds. The Cougar didn’t suffer from such an affliction and while I’m not saying that makes the Cougar better by default, I am saying the overall treatment is rather fetching.
Alright, I looked again and while I’ll agree the red brochure one is the best of the bunch, I still don’t think “stunning” is the right word. Stunning is the car you see in the parking lot and can’t stop staring at until you trip over a shopping cart or almost get run over by another shopper’s car.
You yourself used the words “it isn’t horrible” in defending the rear side windows/pillar. A car that’s stunning can’t have “it isn’t horrible” in any part of its defense. 🙂 That glove just doesn’t fit.
And yes, I prefer to approach the ’87 T-bird from the rear…
We now have something invigorating to debate enroute to the next meetup! Don’t need to rely on JPC to spill a cooler of icewater all over himself again for amusement… 🙂
Jim, think of it this way….Marilyn Monroe was visually stunning to many. But she had that freckle on her face. Think of that window as a Monroe Freckle.
I agree with Jason on this. In the context of what else was on the road at the time, the Cougar was sleek, modern, and distinctive to my eyes.
This is just like the Regal/Grand National thing. The 88 XR7 with the color keyed trim and Mustang GT sourced turbine wheels is analogous to the Grand National (it’s probably directly aping it in fact). It’s relatively rare to see them though so most remember 80s Cougars looking like the pictured car. In contrast nearly everyone who fondly recalls the styling of the G body regal has the image of the Grand National in their thought bubble, not the chintzy plastichrome brougham with wire wheels the vast majority of Regals were, that as far as I’m concerned were as flawed or more so than these run of the mill Cougars. To suggest G bodies with their formal rooflines were anything better I posit that the reverance and legend of the Turbo Buick’s is clouding your judgement.
It’s a shame the XR-7 used the lopo 5.0/AOD, had these been 5.0 H.O. equipped with the T-5 you must wonder if they’d have a more notable place in history.
No I’m not thinking of the G-body as styling perfection either. Of the bunch I think the W-bodies such as the ’88 Buick LeSabre Coupe did it best. A formal roofline isn’t the best look for any front-engined two-door coupe, no matter how “racey” it’s made to look. And I’ll freely admit that’s my own opinion, everyone is welcome to theirs as well.
That FWD Lesabre coupe, especially in T-Type trim was utter rubbish…All blacked out, but a stock 3800 V6??
The comparable Taurus SHOs, Omni GLHs, Golf GTIs, and Galant VR4s of the era, must’ve been snickering when they say a Lesabre T-Type pull up at the light.
It’s like Darth Vader without the Force or instead of his lethal light sabre, he uses a Fairy wand.
Can you say “Posermobile?”
I guess I should have better put into context what I meant by “stunning”. Just look at this car’s competition when it was restyled in 1987 with a more aerodynamic fascias, composite headlamps, and elongated upswept rear quarter windows.
It’s primary competition came from GM in the form of its gracefully aging yet decidedly elderly G-bodies (Monte Carlo, Grand Prix, Cutlass Supreme, Regal). Despite distinctive styling among the four, they were all boxy and well, old and sedate looking. Their stylistically-improved replacements were arriving for 1988, but they were smaller, front-wheel drive, and lacked a V8 option.
Chrysler also introduced its first fully competitive personal luxury LeBaron coupe/convertible in years for 1987, and although it was sleekly styled, it too was front-wheel drive and lacked a V8.
The T-Bird was just a bit too plain in my eyes when compared to the Cougar, so after that, the only other “good looking” rear-wheel drive personal luxury coupe was the Mark VII, which cost much more.
All I can think of is that they made special edition Cougar named after a shoe.
The Cougar Florsheim?
That was the Tbird
My first car was a yellow 74 XR-7 with a green landau top. One of the first things I did was remove the vinyl and primered that section until I had the money to paint the car amongst a few other things.
That Brougham styling of the late 80’s did not appeal to me at all. I sat in one once and it made me feel at least 20 years older than I was at the time. Decent car but, just too boxy for me.
This was the era when Ford was putting real money in trying to distinguish Fords from Mercuries. These Cougars may have been the only time the effort really stood out.
A friend bought a new 83 or 84. I never liked the roofline, and I liked them less after the 1987 refresh. But there must have been a lot of people who did, because as you say they sold pretty well.
Those wheelcovers look just like the ones on my 86 Marquis Wagon. They looked right (to the extent that such a thing is possible) on a boxy wood-sided wagon, but not right at all on these.
I remember seeing a spy photo of the ’83 Cougar and thinking “What the heck is Ford thinking?” I thought it was horrible.
Until I saw one. I think it was one of the nicest Mercury vehicles of the 80s.
However I was not impressed with the ’87 refresh – I’m not a fan of the elongated side rear window.
Hahaha Jason, loved your write-up, can totally relate to that “what were they thinking” about our parents decisions and the responses of our unfiltered teenage selves.
I always disliked that C pillar though, it was trying waaaaay too hard. You know what I think would’ve really worked well is the 92 Eldo side window treatment, which was pretty tasty.
I always liked these cars growing up. My uncle had a black on black one that looked amazing to my 12 year old eyes. I could never figure out why he traded it in on an older Cutlass. I suspect it was a car payment issue.
From a standpoint of remembering American cars from this era, I agree with the statements in the article. Brochures were full of alloy wheels, bolstered buckets, and blacked out trim, and I wish they’d all been like those. The problem is all of that was extra cost, and the mall parking lot was instead full of the chromed and column shifted ones. Since 3x as many were sold broughamed instead of boy-racer (and those older owners took better care for longer), it’s those which people remember, as the last few that you’ve seen were probably all the brougham ones. You see a lot of 97-04 Centuries these days, not so many Regal GSs. It’s not even that the GS was worse to own, but they aren’t the ones sitting in a carport with 46,000 miles, either.
Hi Jason, I bought a 1988 XR-7, I’m the original owner, Black, red leather interior, 13800 miles on it. Sets undercover in my garage. You made me become more interested in get it going again and possibly selling it. I see you bought one, This is a beautiful car for the time, many complements.
I have a 1988 mercury cougar xr7 inside my garage my first car i bought when i was 19 and i still have after 31 years love that car
I loved the Thunderbird, I hated the Cougar. The formal roofline was a GM invention that was in its death throes by the time Mercury adopted it….Maybe you could make the argument it was a homage to the early 60’s Park Lane but not in an 80’s coupe…I consider the design a caricature
Nice review. Interesting choice of a Tempo by your Dad. Fuel economy may have won the argument inside his head for that commute.
Question – is the plural of a proper name accomplished by just adding an S or does one convert names ending in Y to IES? I propose the former – to wit, Mercurys as opposed to Mercuries. I see spell check doesn’t like the YS ending but what do they know.
I remember those Cougar commercials for the first gen with the cougar emitting that RWWARRR growl. I always thought that was well done.
If I recall correctly, I believe it was the Cougar that was the first on which sequential turn signals were used, across those loooong taillight bars. Very nice.
I wonder if Ford still owns the rights to the Cougar name. It may pop up again on something.
Sequential turn signals first appeared on the 1965 Ford Thunderbird.
Lee, I have done the “y’s”, the “ys”, and now “ies”. Whichever always looks weird and it comes up periodically. I’m not sure if there is a correct way.
Well Ford answered the question of how to do the plural of Taurus with Taurus Vehicles. I may be making it up but I think they may have used Mercury Vehicles in advertising in the 90’s and/or 00’s
Since it’s a name it’s technically not proper to change the ys to an ies. Object yes, name no. Daisy to daisies, Mercury to Mercurys. Taurus to Tauruses. Two ladies named Debby are two Debbys and not two Debbies, they’d only be that if they were each named Debbie.
Sometimes you see Taurus to Tauri and Prius to Prii. If the maker does it then I don’t know but imagine it’s a person, if there are two dudes named Claudius you would refer to them as the two Clausiuses not the two Claudii.
But if you are measuring the radius of a corner on the dashboard and realize that the bottom corner has a different radius than the top corner, then you aren’t describing two radiuses, but rather two radii. It’s a prickly situation, sort of like having a garden filled with cacti.
Apostrophe means possessive and is followed by an s unless it is doing double duty to indicate and replace another s at the end of a word that already ends in s. I’m pretty sure that is correct even if the s is part of a name and not an object.
“The Mercury’s paint was lustrous, however the Taurus’ was drab.”
I make most of the above mistakes periodically, but English is my second language so I’ll use that handy excuse… 🙂 And the above is what I recall, an actual scholar with better credentials may correct me and is welcome to.
Your last paragraph summarized my thoughts – with English being your second language, you are probably better versed in it that those of us who have spoken it all along. It’s not like you were predisposed to some line of speaking or writing when you learned it, unlike me.
I had to stop and think whether it was “Mercury’s”, “Mercurys”, or “Mercuries”. At a point, I said to hell with it and proceeded!
On the matter of the plural, I raised this a year or so back, and Paul corrected my thoughts by pointing out the ‘change the -y to -i and add ‘-es’ rule I learnt in school doesn’t apply to proper nouns (aka names). Funny how you can speak a language for decades and not know all the ins and outs of it. 🙂
I never knew that either. Dang, now I feel me comfortable writing about Mercurys!
Great story, Jason, that brings back memories.
In my case, the dream car was either a 1973 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme or Salon, or a Pontiac Grand Am. (A Hurst Oldsmobile would have been perfect, but even then I knew not to dream THAT much.)
The actual car purchased for commuting purposes was a…1973 AMC Gremlin.
The Cougar roofline worked for me. It was distinctive and original – even with the stiff vertical roofline cribbed from the original Cadillac Seville – thanks to the upswept rear window.
It was one of those things that shouldn’t have worked, but somehow did, particularly the 1983-86 versions. The XR-7 versions are more attractive than the “Brougham” versions.
To this day, I’d be very happy with a 1983-86 XR-7.
I remember reading at the time that these Cougars were more popular with customers than Ford had expected them to be. The first of the Ford aero-personal luxury coupes I saw on the street was a dark metallic gray Cougar – complete with wire wheel covers and whitewall tires – owned by a woman in our neighborhood. She loved that car, and raved about how nice it was.
The Cougar and Thunderbird of these years are an example of body/platform sharing done correctly. It seemed as though everyone who liked one, didn’t like the other. Which was perfect from Ford’s standpoint. Ford didn’t have to worry about one stealing sales from the other.
Yeah, a Gremlin would be worse than a Tempo. Some disappointments remain in the front of the mind.
From the comments, it seems like the Fox Cougar’s styling was ‘polarizing’ before that became a word. People either loved or hated the roof.
The problem I have is similar to the one I had with the eighties’ Riviera with the same formal roof; they just don’t look right when combined with a curvy body. That’s the reason the Eldorado and Toronado were better; their angular lines were more in sync with the vertical rear window. It’s amazing how much better a top-down Riviera convertible looks.
‘It’s amazing how much better a top-down Riviera convertible looks.”
Kind of like popping a pimple, then.
As mentioned before on these pages, I obviously preferred the T-Bird, having had 3 of these Foxes, but no Cougars.
For me, that Aero roofline needed to go all the way back, and not be chopped off.
Having said that though, I liked the MN12 Cougar, even with the more formal roofline. I still preferred the T-Bird however, and had two of those.
I could never warm up to these Cougars… largely on account of That Window. I didn’t particularly like the triangle-shaped window on the ’83-86 Cougar, and then when that one feature was magnified for ’87, the car just lost me. And like others have noted above, any hint of sportiness on account of the daring quarter-window design was obliterated by the vertical rear window.
And all that is somewhat ironic because I consider the ’87-88 Thunderbirds to be the best-looking T-birds of modern times.
But one thing that really strikes me about this car… I wonder what proportion of them had crank-up windows? I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one before.
Until today I thought power windows were standard on these, and I consider myself pretty well versed on these Cougars.
Roofline aside, I vastly prefer the 87-88 Cougar’s front and rear end treatments of the Tbird, which were gimmicky(grilleless) or borderline ugly(chromed beak), not to mention the fussy taillights with the Pontiac blackout and red circles. The Cougar has a real Mark VII look to the front end design and the classic electric razor grille of Cougars of yore, which is repeated in the taillights with the reflector pattern. This continues into the MN12 generation for me up until the 1996 facelift, where the beancounters forced the Tbird and Cougar to share front end designs, which correlates with the big sales drop btw.
The roofline is an acquired taste, I prefer the MN12 execution with the more conventional squared off quarter windows, but it’s very difficult to accuse the 87-88 of being GM imitators with those radical upswept windows. GM largely used bolt upright rooflines in the 80s for space effiency but Mercury really was going for style with it it seems. It should be noted that the back glass is considerably less upright and sharp than the 83-86. In fact it has some interesting and impressive curvature at the roof transition that those of you outright dismissive of the formal roofline would miss.
I think the biggest problem with the roofline on the 87-88 isn’t even the roofline, it’s the short wheelbase and the odd proportions the wheel opening placement creates. Both the 83-86 and the MN12 look far better proportioned in side profile because the C pillars end above the rear wheel openings, not behind them.
Good of you to hold a torch for Mercury, Jason—I’m with you!
Those 1980s-90s Cougars somehow still show up regularly on Craigslist here—some devoted owner who “kept them nice” all these years.
Here’s a clean one, however, you probably won’t like—the added oddball vinyl roof, and a continental kit to boot: https://milwaukee.craigslist.org/cto/d/waupaca-mercury-cougar-1986/7005839119.html
p.s. about your Tempo-disappointment: another sometimes-useful word is “crestfallen.”
I remember when the Cougar was introduced in 1967, I thought it was a great alternative to the Mustang and a really sharp looking car. After the 1970 model, I lost interest and after 1972, lost it entirely.
Talk about wrecking a model’s I.D., the ’82 cheap mass marketing of the name killed it completely. I think this ’87/’88 version did little to resurrect the model’s one-time cachet.
I think I read in C/D when the MN12s were launched that the Thunderbird/Cougar had one of the largest male/female purchase disparity rates of any similar cars. Men overwhelmingly went for the Thunderbird, women overwhelmingly went for the Cougar.
Ford/Mercury did nothing to promote the Cougar, and not a lot to promote the Thunderbird in these years. Nascar fans liked the Thunderbird. I think the customer base for the Cougar was empty nest women/divorcees with middle incomes who wanted something sportier than a Taurus/Sable which didn’t need to have four doors for the kiddies or carpool duty any more. The same demographic for purse dogs, faux art which says “give me the wine and no one gets hurt” and beach mystery novels. The same demographic the Camry Solara and LeBaron Convertible were aimed at.
I looked at the MN12 Cougar in 1997ish as a successor to a much beloved and regretted 1986 Olds Cutlass Supreme Brougham. @ Rodney Westervelt, this car, despite similarites in concept, was NOTHING like the Cutlass. The Cutlass was silent, smooth, creamy, powerful, and luxurious with button tufted seats and felt roomier and with much better materials. The Cougar’s engine made agricultural sounds and felt cheap and plasticky. I definitely can understand why your dad traded it for an older Cutlass.
One surprise for this car was that it was a lame duck from its inception. Fprd dumped a LOT of money into revamping this car for only two years, when the MN 12 was on its way already.
I didn’t know Cougars came with manual windows either.
I had something of a love affair with these cars all of my life. To wit: When I was about 5, my father went to look for a new car. I have no idea how or why I became aware of the original Mercury Cougar in 1967, but I was. I think my dad took me along with him because he knew I liked Cougars, but his heart (and wallet) was set on a new 1968 Mercury Montego instead. That was my first disappointment.
In the mid 1980’s I had a garage full of his and hers Mercury Capri RS’s. The guy who sold me my 1986 saw me at the service intervals and would chat with me. There was one time they had a 20th Anniversary Cougar (which I think is what the red car is in the brochure but don’t trust my memory) but it didn’t sell and they wanted it off of their lot. It was a super nice car, but I didn’t need to re-set the debt meter with that car and I reeeaaalllly liked my Capri…
The predecessor and the successor to this car, were better executed stylistically. The successor was far more athletic too, considering it was heavier. But the revisions of that car got more and more baroque as time went on. At least with this model, the baroque character was baked in.
Jason, I share your love for these Cougars! They are stunning cars and the fact you can install the same go-fast goodies as offered on the boy-racer Mustang is an added bonus. The lines on these cars just work, even the formal roof line. These cars look especially delectable when finished in a monochrome paint finish with color coordinated wheels and the like. They ride smooth but aren’t afraid to bite into a corner. It’s a shame the 1987 and 1988 have become so scarce. When you find a really good one, there is usually some large price tag that accommodates it. But even rough examples are now hard to find.
Late to the party and not much to add except that we had a 1987 20th Anniversary Edition in the family (not the best pic attached) with the glammed up maroon paint, suede seats with red piping, and some gold trim, etc. One thing you could say about this car is that it protected two family members in a truly terrible accident. My cousin fell asleep and lost control of the car, it went off the road and rolled multiple times. One of the two occupants was totally uninjured and my cousin had to be helicoptered to a distant hospital trauma center but had survivable injuries that healed, a testament to the Cougar’s structural integrity for the time.
Never could stand the rear styling of the car – much prefer the Thunderbird of this era. But a somewhat luxurious and decent automobile that served its owner well from beginning to – not tragic – end.
A Cougar for cougars.
How did it end up opposite the T-bird as a sort-of meandering maundering malingering Montego instead of the Mustang class in what, 1973? That was the end, everything after that is something I don’t even acknowledge existing.
The answer would be the Mustang II. Technically speaking the Thunderbird ended up opposite of it, the Cougar moved to the Montego body first, the Tbird was still Mark IV based up to 1976 where in 1977 was “downsized” opposite to it – effectively replacing the Elite.
It’s not an stretch to say these Fox Cougars are essentially Mustang based, longer wheelbase and different interior and sheetmetal is all that separate them, just like the 67-73s. These fairly effectively succeed the 71-73s in fact, the 67-70s are a bar the Cougar never could reach again, but same went for the Mustang for most its existence.
I once had a co-workwer who had an ’83 model, with wire-wheel covers, blackwall tires, AND a hideous 1/2 vinyl top! This combined with that UPRIGHT rear window and upswept side window made itone of the ugliest cars that I’d ever seen. Jason’s hearthrob later models looked smoother and not as truncated.
I’ll chime in with positive comments for this Cougar.
The greenhouse was polarizing from day one, but there was the Thunderbird for those that didn’t approve. Ford was not wrong offering this car, in terms of total sales, the sixth generation Cougar from 1983-1988 was the best-selling Cougar in total numbers and did a very respectable job of approaching the average annual sales of the besting selling 1977-1979 XR-7. In all, Mercury unleashed about 700,000 of these cool cats on America.
As JPC points out, Ford put more real money than average into giving Mercury a somewhat unique product, and the investment paid off.
I’m okay with Ford and Mercury having offered wire wheel covers, whitewalls, an early standup hood ornament, and a discreetly traditional chrome package on the Thunderbird and Cougar. The wires would not have been my choice, but these cars did battle with GM’s still formidable line of G-Specials right through 1988. The GM competition offered plenty of styling cues that dated to 1973 or earlier. Ford was smart to pad sales in a mostly benign way. You can’t blame Ford for almost any of the awful landau and cabriolet vinyl tops, I believe Mercury offered a conservative vinyl skullcap on the 1983 Cougar only, all the rest of the crap was dealer installed.
I liked this Cougar enough that I looked into buying an ’84 as my first new car. Rationality about debt held me back, and I did eventually buy with my then fiancé an ’89 Thunderbird – the cool Cougar roof was gone with the MN-12 version, the Thunderbird was very nicely done and got the nod.
The vinyl below may have been factory, with an illuminated Cougar opera lamp! Don’t blame the Cougar, blame the damn Cutlass! (The chrome wheel lips and wheels are aftermarket).
I remember my mom really wanting one of these Cougars at the time (87/88) she didn’t like the Thunderbird, she specifically wanted a Cougar. She actually went and tested a couple, and was sorely disappointed by the 3.8L version, and thought the 5.0 was “overpriced” (and still too slow). She was currently driving an 84 Chrysler Laser Turbo, which was surprisingly quick (for the era, anyway) and was put off by the Mercury dealer being unwilling to find her a stick shift Cougar. So she ended up in a Quad-4 powered Grand Am, with the formal backlight, and was equally as fast as her Laser. She made a good decision because I bought the GA from her at 100K and put nearly 80k more on it myself.
In 1987 my wife and I took our first real vacation for our third anniversary. We swapped my parents’ time share in Florida for a week in the Poconos (a very nice vacation I might add).
We flew into Newark and went to the rental car counter. Being young, not wealthy, and wanting to save money for things like a nice dinner at the resort, I had booked (you guessed it) a Mercury Topaz or Ford Tempo. For whatever reason we were offered a free upgrade to a Cougar.
Gas was relatively cheap in 1987 – I remember it was about $0.90/gallon in Texas at the time – so we jumped on the offer. The Cougar felt really elegant and sophisticated to me. It handled well for an American car of that time and it was so quiet compared to our 1986 Isuzu P’up or 1979 Subaru DL wagon. Did I mention we were being very frugal in our early years?
We drove to Philly one day during our vacation to visit her cousin. On the way back to Lake Wallenpaupack we got stuck in a terrific traffic jamb at in the Lehigh valley – a tractor trailer carrying crushed automobiles had overturned and lost its load. I just rolled the windows down, turned up the radio, reclined the seatback and enjoyed the scenery for about an hour
A friend had one of these in the early 90s. It was mostly memorable for its digital speedometer which he used to flip to from mph to kph to make it look like we were going faster. By way of contrast, his other vehicle was a Harley Sportster.
I like the 87-88 Couger. I thought the 83-86 ones were a bit to stubby and the front end (especially the headlights) ruined the aero look. After all the T-Bird on steroids(aka the Lincoln Mark VII) had them from day one but it took the T-Bird and the Couger till 87 for them.
If I recall these had an optional alloy wheel with a Couger on the center cap
I totally get why you dig these. The ’87-88 T-Bird and Cougar were such a nice refresh and I like that their front ends were much more visually distinguished from each other with the refresh. You’re right about the wheelbase on these, though. It’s the one thing that detracts from the design.
The ’89 MN-12 Cougar was less visually interesting than these but it was better proportioned, IMO. So I’d much rather an ’89 over any of the Fox cars, but I’d take any of the Fox ones over a GM G-Body no matter how attractive the GMs may be.
All I think about when I see one of these, a silver one in not as good of shape as the first car looks to be, is “Who flipped over the back window?”. More of Ford’s endless weird styling stuff that started in the later 60’s and ended only around 2008 or so.