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| Cat Class, Cat Style: The Mercury Cougar |
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| Written by Aaron Severson |
| Saturday, 20 June 2009 00:00 |
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Even as the Ford Mustang was making its smashing debut in April 1964, Ford's Lincoln-Mercury division began work on its own "pony car," a stylish coupe that sought to bridge the gap between the Mustang and the Thunderbird. MIDDLE CHILDIn a past article, we talked a little about the origins of Ford's Mercury division in the late 1930s. Its original purpose, in brief, was to bridge the sizable price gap between the top of the Ford line and the cheapest Lincoln, in hopes of snaring middle-class buyers who might otherwise defect to other companies' makes. In the late fifties, it was consolidated with the struggling Lincoln brand (and, briefly, the ill-fated Edsel), eventually becoming the Lincoln-Mercury Division. This gave Mercury a dual purpose: it was somehow supposed to be a both a deluxe Ford and a junior Lincoln.
In the 1960s, Mercury was generally more successful in the former role than the latter. In the first part of the decade, it did good business with the compact Comet, while its big-car sales were decidedly modest. Its total sales were not exciting, but the brand helped keep Lincoln dealers solvent in between Continental sales. ENTER THE T-7By 1963, Ford Division general manager Lee Iacocca was readying the new Mustang sporty car. Ford stylists started playing with a fancier, deluxe version of the Mustang, which at that time was code-named T-5. The upscale version, code-named T-7, wasn't yet a Lincoln-Mercury project -- it was just a styling study. L-M general manager Ben Mills originally wanted the T-7 to be ready at the same time as the T-5, but Ford management was still not certain there would be a market for the Mustang, much less a more upscale version.
The T-7 didn't become a production project until a year later, as the Mustang made its public debut. By then, it was clear that the Mustang was going to be a huge commercial success, and Lincoln-Mercury (and its dealers) wanted a piece of the action. Lee Iacocca, who was now Vice President of Cars and Trucks (overseeing both Ford and Lincoln-Mercury) gave the go-ahead to develop the T-7 for production. Until quite late in its development, the Mustang had been known as the Ford Cougar; in fact, Ford had already developed the emblems and badges for that name. Lincoln-Mercury's sales organization initially considered naming the T-7 the Mercury Apollo, but an extensive marketing study (including two complete dummy advertising campaigns) found that the Cougar name was more evocative for the buying public. In due course, the T-7 became the Mercury Cougar. TAKING THE MUSTANG UPTOWNThe cheapest way to build the Cougar would have been to simply add a different front clip and plusher trim to the Mustang. Given the Mustang's popularity, that might have worked, but Lincoln-Mercury general manager Paul Lorenz was evidently wary of that approach. Mercury's compact Comet had been a commercial success because it was both bigger and fancier looking than the Ford Falcon on which it was based. The short-lived Mercury Meteor intermediate, however, had been a straightforward facelift of the Ford Fairlane, and it sold poorly. Lincoln-Mercury advertising called the Cougar a car "for the man on his way to a Thunderbird," but it was really an extension of the Comet concept: a bigger, plusher version of the Mustang, with unique styling.
 The first-generation Cougar shows off its concealed headlamps in the retracted position. (This is actually a 1968 model, but the only significant external difference are the side-marker lights, necessary to comply with new federal regulations.) The Cougar's unibody construction was very similar to the contemporary Mustang's, although the two cars shared no exterior sheet metal. The Cougar's wheelbase was 3.0 inches (76 mm) longer than the Mustang's, and 6.7 inches (170 mm) longer overall. Most of the extra length was ahead of the cowl, exaggerating the Mustang's long-hood, short-deck proportions, but the Cougar did have a bit more rear-seat room. In addition to more upscale trim, the interior of the Cougar benefited from 124 lb (60 kg) of sound insulation, making it noticeably quieter than its Ford cousin. The suspension and brakes were very similar, although the Cougar's standard suspension was tuned for a smoother ride, with soft rubber suspension bushings to absorb harshness. Powertrains were likewise similar, although the Cougar came standard with the 200-hp (149-kW) 289 cu in (4.7 L) V8 that was optional on the Mustang, and the Mustang's 271-hp (202-kW) "K-code" engine wasn't offered. The Cougar's main stylistic distinction was its 'electric shaver' front and rear treatment, a refinement of an idea Ford stylists had been playing with for years. Another gimmick, borrowed from the Thunderbird, was sequential taillights: when the turn signal was activated, the taillights would flash in sequence in the direction of the turn, like a flashing neon sign.  If the standard Cougar's trim wasn't quite posh enough, a few months after its introduction, Mercury introduced the XR-7, which dressed up the cabin with woodgrain dashboard trim, full instrumentation, and leather/vinyl upholstery. Mercury advertising proclaimed it "the car for the man who aspires to an Aston Martin, but doesn't have James Bond's pocketbook." In 1970, an XR-7 hardtop like this one had a base price of $3,413, $299 more than a base Cougar hardtop and $692 more than a six-cylinder Mustang hardtop. With a full load of options, it was possible to spend over $5,000 on a Cougar, a lot of money at the time. Thanks to its greater weight and softer underpinnings, the Cougar was inevitably less sporty than the Mustang, and its luxury orientation was sometimes compromised by its humble origins. Power windows, for example, were not available, because Ford had not developed a motor small enough for the Mustang's slender doors. Nevertheless, the Cougar represented an admirable balance of sporting flair and gentility. Its differences from the Mustang were not cheap (the Cougar's development cost was a not-inconsiderable $40 million), but they gave each car a distinct character and purpose. With a starting price of $2,851, the Cougar cost roughly $200 more than a V8 Mustang, but it offered enough for the money to make it a reasonable value. SPORTY CARS ARE AS SPORTY CARS DOA little before the Cougar made its public debut in September 1966, Ford made some significant changes to Lincoln-Mercury's executive staff. General manager Paul Lorenz was replaced by Ford general sales manager Gar Laux, while Ford marketing manager Leo C. Beebe was moved to the same role at L-M. Finally, Frank Zimmerman, Jr., who had been Ford's special vehicles manager, became general sales manager. The last of these appointments gave away what Ford was planning. "Special vehicles" was Ford corporate-speak for motorsport, and Zimmerman and Beebe had orchestrated Ford's recent all-out assault on the Indy 500 and Le Mans. Their arrival at L-M meant only one thing: Mercury was going racing.
Mercury had had some success in stock car racing before, most recently in the 1963 and 1964 NASCAR seasons, but it had been a long time since the division had formally sponsored a team. (The '63-'64 NASCAR team, run by Bill Stroppe, had nominally been a private effort, although Stroppe had received under-the-table backing from L-M.) This time, it was bound not for the big NASCAR ovals, but for the Sports Car Club of America's recently introduced Group 2 sedan-racing circuit -- more commonly known as Trans Am. The Mustang had won the inaugural Trans-Am season, and now it was Cougar's turn. This time, it was not to be an ersatz private venture, but a proper factory team. Lincoln-Mercury hired racing champion Dan Gurney to run it, for an impressive six-figure salary, with drivers Parnelli Jones, Dave Pearson, Ed Leslie, and Peter Revson. Beebe and Zimmerman made no secret of their intention to use Trans Am as a way to aggressively market the Cougar.  Racing legend Dan Gurney, seen here at the Nürburgring in 1965. Gurney's involvement with Trans-Am didn't prevent him from competing in Formula 1 in 1967-68. He remains active in racing as a builder and the owner of All-American Racers. (Photo © 1965 Lothar Spurzem; used under a CreativeCommons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 Germany license) The Cougar factory team did well in the '67 Trans Am season, winning four races outright, but they ultimately were no match for Roger Penske's (in)famous Sunoco Camaro. Still, in the final standings, Dan Gurney's drivers managed a second-place finish on points, a most respectable effort. Bolstered by this performance, the 1967 Cougar sold over 150,000 units, accounting for around 40% of Mercury's total sales that year. The Cougar won the obligatory Motor Trend Car of the Year award, and it also found favor with the more jaundiced reviewers of Car and Driver and Car Life, which consideredit the most pleasant of the pony cars for real-world driving. In July 1967, Car and Driver actually tested a big-engine Cougar against a Jaguar 420 sedan, a comparison in which the Mercury acquitted itself surprisingly well.  As with the contemporary Mustang, the Cougar's performance depended heavily on what engine was ordered. The basic 289 (4.7 L) engine had either 200 or 225 hp (149 or 168 kW). It was replaced in 1968 by the 302 (4.9 L), shown here, with either 210 or 230 hp (157 or 172 kW), which provided adequate acceleration: 0-60 mph (0-97 kph) in 10-11 seconds. The optional big blocks -- initially the 390 (6.4 L), with 320 hp (239 kW), later the 428 (7.0 L) with 335 hp (250 kW), and the 429 (7.0 L) in 1971 -- offered much stronger straight-line performance, but the extra front-end weight spoiled the handling, and made routine maintenance cumbersome. (Photo © 2006 Stephen Foskett; used under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 license) SECOND YEAR, SECOND THOUGHTSDespite Lincoln-Mercury's public enthusiasm for the Cougar and Trans-Am racing, Ford management was less sanguine. First, the logic of having the Cougar compete directly with the Mustang on the track was questionable to begin with, particularly when the factory was footing the sizable bill for both teams. Second, the Cougar's competition efforts represented a rather mixed message. While racing had undoubtedly been good publicity, it was at odds with the luxury-oriented image Mercury was promoting in Cougar advertising. With its softer underpinnings and greater weight, the street version of the Cougar was never going to be a match for the hotter contemporary Supercars. Third, much of the Cougar's early success was apparently at the expense of Mercury's Comet/Cyclone intermediate line, which meant the Cougar's popularity was not improving Mercury's overall market share.
 Concealed headlamps were retained through 1970. They looked good, but were troublesome -- slow to operate and prone to jam. Many survivors have their lights locked in the open position. The central grille marks this as a 1970 model, which is otherwise similar to the 1969. Reluctantly, Laux, Beebe, and Zimmerman decided to withdraw from Trans-Am. Privateers would still race the Cougar, and Cougar-based funny cars did well in NHRA drag racing, but there would be no more Mercury factory teams. Lincoln-Mercury did try to bolster the Cougar's performance image with hot XR-7S and GT models and a handful of GT-E models with the NASCAR-bred 427 "side-oiler," but future Cougars would be skewed more toward luxury than sport.  The 1970 model was 193.8 inches (4,923 mm) long, 3.5 inches (89 mm) longer than the 1967-68 models. Curb weight was up about 100 pounds (45 kg), model for model, although it was available with more powerful engines than before. The downward sweep of the door sculpting is a great deal like the 1968-1969 Buick Skylark, although the pronounced crease along the beltline echoes the '67-'68 Cougars. BIGGER IS NOT BETTERThe Cougar's structural kinship with the Mustang meant that it was tied to the same redesign schedule as its Ford cousin. Therefore, the '69 Cougar was longer, lower, wider, and heavier, as is Detroit's way. It retained the same styling themes as its predecessor, with heavy-handed side sculpting that evoked some of Buick's less-felicitous efforts. Mechanically, it was more of the same, but the new Cougar was beginning to look a bit bloated. Buyers apparently agreed, for sales sank another 15% for 1969, despite the addition of a convertible model. (All 1967-68 models had been hardtops.) Sales for 1970 dipped a worrying 27%, reflecting the softening demand for all cars in the increasingly crowded sporty-car market.
 The second-generation Cougar was 2.9 inches (74 mm) wider than the first, but the rear tread width was only fractionally bigger, making it look somewhat pigeon-toed. The vinyl roof was a popular option, at $89.40 extra, but it doesn't look very good on the cars of this generation, because it creates a noticeable discontinuity between the roof and the body; on first-generation cars, the high skeg line provides a natural break for the vinyl top. Since the public was apparently unenthusiastic about the idea of bigger pony cars, the Cougar and Mustang's 1971 redesign, planned almost three years earlier, was particularly unfortunate. The Cougar's overall length was now 196.9 inches (5,001 mm), while its wheelbase stretched to 112.1 in (2,847 mm). Curb weight for a well-equipped Cougar with the new 429 cu in (7.0 L) engine ballooned to around two tons (1,800 kg). The Cougar's electric-razor grille and concealed headlamps were abandoned for a greater resemblance to its intermediate Montego/Cyclone siblings, whose overall dimensions it was rapidly approaching. By then, Gar Laux and Leo Beebe had departed -- both left Ford in 1969. New Lincoln-Mercury general manager Matt McLaughlin felt that Mercury had no business in the sporty-car market, and moved to retrench in the middle-class family car segment. The Cougar's performance was further de-emphasized, and Mercury now pitched it at the burgeoning personal luxury market, dominated by the Chevrolet Monte Carlo and Pontiac Grand Prix. Buyers were not convinced; sales fell by almost 10,000 units, and by a similar amount for 1972. Motor Trend's A.B. Shuman remarked that the Cougar seemed to be in the midst of an identity crisis.  The 1971 Cougar was 196.9 inches long (5,001 mm) on a longer, 112.1-inch (2,847-mm) wheelbase, and considerably more massive than before. By 1973, the addition of 5-mph bumpers stretched it to 199.5 inches (5,067 mm), but the former big-block engines were gone; the only engine was the 351 (5.8 L) V8, with 165 or 262 net horsepower (123 or 195 kW). This is a '73, identifiable by the design of its front bumper. AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENTBy that time, the Mustang was about to undergo a transformation of its own. Lee Iacocca, acknowledging that the original pony car had gotten too big for its own good, authorized the radically downsized, Pinto-based Mustang II for the 1974 model year.
That left the question of what to do with the Cougar. Some Ford execs advocated killing it entirely, but William Benton, who'd recently replaced Matt McLaughlin as Lincoln-Mercury general manager, argued that the division needed the Cougar as an image leader. A Pinto-based "Cougar II," however, made no sense, because it would have competed directly with the Capri, the Anglo-German sporty compact L-M had been importing since 1971. Instead, L-M opted to make the Cougar even bigger, switching it to the midsize Torino/Montego platform and completing its transformation into a Continental Mark-style personal luxury car, similar to the Ford Elite. The fatter cat debuted for 1974, and sold almost 50% better than the moribund '73s (although, significantly, not as well as the 1967-68 cars). The big Cougar endured through 1976. In 1977, Lincoln-Mercury decided, for reasons now obscure, to apply the Cougar name to the entire intermediate line, resulting in the curious spectacle of Cougar-badged sedans and even station wagons. This Cougar was essentially a Mercury version of the Ford LTD II, with a similar split-wheelbase strategy (114 inches/2,896 mm for coupes, 118 inches/2,997 mm for four-doors and wagons). The XR-7 was continued, still a hardtop coupe like before, but by that time, its original sporty role had largely been absorbed by the European Capri (and then for the 1979 model year by its Fox Mustang-based successor). Fortunately, this sorry (if lucrative) state of affairs was short lived. The Cougar wagons disappeared in 1978, although the four-door sedan persisted through 1979. For 1980, the Cougar became a cousin of Ford's new, smaller Thunderbird, offering similar performance in a slightly more formal, luxury-oriented package -- very much analogous to the original Cougar's relationship with the Mustang.  The 1983-1988 Cougar, like its Thunderbird sibling and the Lincoln Mark VII, rode the Fox platform. It's as long as the 1973 model, although considerably narrower, on a shorter, 104.2-inch (2,647-mm) wheelbase. From 1983 to 1986, it was available with a turbocharged four-cylinder engine, but by 1987, base Cougars had a 231 cu. in. (3.8 L) V6, while the XR7 had the latest version of Ford's familiar 302 cu. in. (5.0 L) V8, with 150 net horsepower (112 kW). (Photo © 2007 IFCAR; released to the public domain by the photographer) Shrinking demand for big personal-luxury coupes led to the Thunderbird-based Cougar's demise after 1997. In 1999, however, the Cougar was transmogrified again, this time into a compact, front-wheel-drive sports coupe, sold in Europe and Australia, as well as the U.S. Alas, coupe buyers are a fickle lot, and the new Cougar's edgy styling dated quickly. It died in 2002, largely unmourned. NO FUTUREIn the past decade, Mercury has revived the vertical grille bars that were the trademark of the original Cougar, but there has been no move to revive the coupe. Ford's long-term commitment to the Mercury brand appears to be limited, and there's no will to invest that kind of money in a new product.
It's too bad. We are rather fond of the current Mustang, but it's a bit too boy racer for our tastes. The prospect of a crisply tailored new Cougar, sharing its performance, but with greater polish, is appealing. More than that, it would be a useful model for the future of Mercury: unashamedly derived from its Ford sibling, but offering a unique character and value of its own, based on more than cryptic marketing blather. Without that distinction, Mercury itself is not long for this world. # # #
NOTES ON SOURCESInformation on the origins of the Cougar came from "The 9 Lives of Cougar, Motor Trend, February 1967 (Vol. 19, No. 2), pp. 34-41; the Auto Editors of Consumer Guide, "1967-1973 Mercury Cougar" (24 October 2007, HowStuffWorks.com, http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1967-1973-mercury-cougar.htm, accessed 21 May 2009); the Auto Editors of Consumer Guide, Encyclopedia of American Cars: Over 65 Years of Automotive History, (Lincolnwood, IL: Publications International, 1996); and Linda Clark, "1967 Mercury Cougar XR-7: More than a Mustang?" Special Interest Autos #77, September-October 1983, reprinted in Richard A. Lentinello, ed., The Hemmings Book of Mercurys: Drive Reports from Special Interest Autos Magazine (Hemmings Motor News Collector-Car Books) (Bennington, VT: Hemmings Motor News, 2002), pp. 110-117.
We also consulted the following period road tests: "Cougar: The Mercury Catcar's Fascination is Finesse in Fabrication," Car Life, February 1967; "Engineering the Cougar," Car Life, 1968 Special; "Mercury Cougar XR-7 vs. Jaguar 420," Car and Driver, July 1967; and A.B. Shuman, "Two Morsels from the Lap of Luxury," Motor Trend, March 1971, all of which are reprinted in R.M. Clarke, ed., Cougar Muscle Portfolio 1967-1973 (Cobham, Surrey: Brookland Books Ltd., 2001). Additional Information on Cougar's racing efforts came from Bob Ottum, "Here Comes Racing's Cougar" (7 November 1966, Sports Illustrated, http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1079238/index.htm, accessed 22 May 2009). This article's title was suggested by a lyric from the song "Stray Cat Strut," composed by Brian Setzer and performed by the Stray Cats. It originally appeared on the band's eponymous 1981 album.
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Mercury: Without an Identity For Nearly 40 Years!
...might as well be their slogan.
These days, Mercury's left with basically no turf. As best I can tell, today's Lincoln occupies the territory Mercury used to. Meanwhile, they're being usurped from below by the latest batch of high-end Fords (Edge, Flex, Taurus SHO).
They've been without a buyer base for a generation now. I can only imagine Ford hasn't killed the brand off because of the cost associated with placating dealerships (see: Oldsmobile).
All of that said, I do rather like classic Cougars. If for no other reason than to have a Mustang that's not a Mustang.