Junkyard Find: 1978 Mercury Cougar
The Cougar name has been slapped on so many different Mercurized (Mercurated?) Fords that it gets hard to keep them straight. I never much cared for the over-gingerbreaded Mustang-based version, but the big Thunderbird-based late-70s Cougar seems properly Mercurial.
I found this one in my local self-service wrecking yard, parked tail-to-tail with the Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas Press Bronco that we saw a while back. Check out that “Quartz Electronic” clock with calendar function! Sure, it probably stopped working by 1980, but I’m still tempted to buy it for my collection of vintage car clocks.
Remember those weird plastic-coated “mag” wheels Ford liked so well during the Malaise Era?
This one has the optional 166-horsepower 400M engine, which made a respectable 318 lb-ft of torque. It was quite thirsty, but got all that luxury moving pretty well.
And hey, Cheryl Tiegs did the ads for it!
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Hagerty and The Truth About Cars.
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I had a '77 T-Bird for a while, which I bought because it was cheap, and cosmetically perfect, and I am a sucker for over the top 70's styling. It is probably one of the most space-inefficient designs ever -- the exterior dimensions are within an inch or so of a '77 Sedan deVille all around but the back seat is useless and the trunk is tiny. The driving position is weird, low and the pedals are very far away, which I guess works if you are long legged but guarantees a visit to the chiropractor after a long trip if you are not. The Cougar lacks the distinctive T-Bird basket handle roof. Sorry, the padded tire deck doesn't make up for that.
My parents bought a '79 model new in 1980, a leftover in green that was probably difficult to sell because of the color. They were happy anyway, as I believe it was the second new car they'd owned. I really liked the car. I remember the truck key cover would remove your fingertips if it slipped or you bumped it while opening the truck! That's a memory I'd lost until now. Thanks for finding this one, Murilee.