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Remember the 1967 Mercury Cougar we saw down on the Alameda street , just a little over a week ago? Well, I was shopping for some race-car pieces at an Oakland self-service junkyard yesterday when I spotted a primer-black Cougar that looked very familiar. Yes, just weeks after this 41-year-old car had been holding the Mercury flag high, that mean ol' tow truck hauled it away (I took the photographs in late July). I suspect the car was bought by the owner of the beater '68 Mustang as a parts car and then scrapped after being picked over like a leftover Thanksgiving turkey. Make the jump to see all the photos, before and after. galleryPost('DOTJDOTSCougar', 3, '1967 Mercury Cougar Pauses En Route From Street To Crusher'); galleryPost('DOTS67CougPrimer', 24, '1967 Mercury Cougar In Happier Times');
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Welcome to Down On The Street , where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. The Cougar wasn't just a rebadged Mustang, Torino, Thunderbird, or Contour- it was a legend! We've seen a few Alameda Cougars, including this '68 (which won the Favorite DOTS Mercury poll ), this '73 , and this '75 , but we're overdue for another one. How about a mean-looking first-year example, complete with primer and missing lug nuts? Speaking of missing lug nuts, the question occurs to me: Why? Even if you're too damned cheap to spend the money- what, $1.99?- for a new lug nut, you can always fill your pockets for free at any junkyard. If that's too much hassle, at least try to fully attach your front wheels, so that you still might be able to steer after a wheel goes flying off. This car has 14 out of a possible 20 lug nuts, which ain't so good. Left-hand-thread Ford nuts are still easy to obtain, so I don't...
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The Mercury Cougar has been reinvented many times, but we've only seen a couple of incarnations in this series. We've seen the lean and mean '68 Cougar and the Bloated Final Year Of The Rebadged Mustang Cougar , but what about the Farrah Fawcett-Approved Cougar? I found this appealingly rough '75 parked across the street from the '82 280ZX Turbo and quite close to one of Alameda's non-Buick Skyhawks . This car definitely runs and drives, but with gas prices closing in on five bucks there's no telling how much longer it will be possible for its owner to quench the thirst of its 351, 400, or 460. Now that's class! A Cougar emblem in the little opera window! See, the Malaise Era wasn't en tire ly about diminished expectations- you could get down and funky with that special someone in the luxurious vinyl comfort of your Cougar's back seat, while the same activities in a cramped 60s Cougar would be more like a game of Twister inside a packing crate. Don't...
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How is it that I've only had one Mercury Cougar in this series so far, and that a Malaisemobile? Even worse, we forgot about all about the 40th anniversary of the Cougar last, in spite of repeated reminders from the Colorado Cougar Club ! Maybe the problem is that the bloat-o-riffic Farrah Fawcett Cougar managed to obscure our mental images of the sleek 60s cats. Anyway, I've photographed several of the sporty Mustang-based Cougars on the island and you'll be sure to see them in this series, starting with this '68. This Cougar lives in the East End, not far from the 1950 Pontiac Chieftan , and it seems to get driven regularly. The 210-horse 302 was the standard Cougar powerplant for '68, but you could get it with a 390 or even a 335-horse 428. Judging by the lack of badging on this car, we can assume it's probably a 302 machine. It's a little bit battered, but it looks to be in good original condition and still getting its owner around in old-school Mercury style...
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