I got my first Cougar at 22 and mostly by mistake. I was serving in the Navy and headed home from a Mediterranean deployment right near the end of my enlistment. I would be leaving the ship and the Navy about a week after our return. I sent my older brother a letter (this was long before the Internet and e-mail) asking him to find me a British sports car using the money I’d been saving over the course of my enlistment. What I came home to find was a 1968 Mercury Cougar XR-7 instead. It turned out there wasn’t as much money in my account as I’d thought and the Cougar, with it’s Jaguar-like influences was the closest thing my brother could find to a British sports car that I could afford with the money available. As it turns out, I never should have sold that car. That Cougar is lost to the mists of time, but here are the stories of the ones that came after…
Cheshire Cat |
| After selling my Mustangs, I began to think about another project. I didn’t want to do another Mustang, having already done the 3 Mustangs that were most iconic to me. I also wanted something I knew would be fun to own and drive. At this point, I began thinking back over cars I’d owned and realized that the Cougar I had right after getting out of the Navy was the one car that had stuck out in my mind over all the years. It was one of those I never should have sold. So it seemed like an opportune moment to reconnect, perhaps not with that original car but with something very much like it. And so the hunt began, culminating in one of those elusive “garage finds” one often hears about. Cheshire Cat was about to start a new life… |
CatVert |
| Cheshire Cat had been done for a while when I spotted an ad for another Cougar. The seller was Don Rush of West Coast Classic Cougar, who had been a prime parts supplier for Cheshire Cat. Don is perhaps the best known Cougar parts vendor out there and certainly the most visible and trusted vendor. The Cougar he was advertising was a dead ringer for my original Cougar, but better optioned than that car had been. Here was a chance to feel like I had that Cougar back and the price was absolutely right, so I pounced! Soon, the Augusta Green 1968 J-code XR-7 with the Saddle interior arrived at its new home. It was a solid driver that needed restoration, but that would have to wait until funds became available once more. And that’s when the story took a strange turn… |
BBCat |
| After selling CatVert, I was now Cougarless again. During the Cheshire Cat and CatVert years, I had met and become friends with many other Cougar owners all over the country. Some I’d met in person and others I knew only through Cougar Internet forums such as MC.net and the Classic Cougar Community forums. I knew this was a special group of people, very different in tone and attitude from aficionados of other models I’d owned and shown. I really didn’t want to leave the community, but I also didn’t want to do a reprise of cars I’d already done. Then I thought back to the 1968 Torino GT formal roof I’d had while in the Navy. Why not do another Cougar that would pay homage to that Torino? Now I just needed to find an S-code Cougar with the right options and we’d be ready to go… |
B3Cat |
| My wife and I had decided that it was time to replace her ’65 Mustang convertible. The Mustang had been sold to raise money to capitalize our new business, House of Wheels (soon to become Rock ‘n Road Outfitters). We decided that another Cougar was in order so that we could attend shows together and be in the same part of the show field. I bought a well-optioned small-block 1968 Cougar XR-7 from a club member in Rhode Island and discovered that this clever but fundamentally dishonest seller had carefully positioned the car to conceal severe structural rest problems. At around the same time, a Cougar forum member in Connecticut announced that he had decided to sell his 1968 XR-7 GT. Wow, we could have his ‘n hers XR-7 GT’s! So a deal was struck and B3Cat headed north to Massachusetts much as Cheshire Cat had done before… |
1967-1968 Convertible Conversions |
| The following is an informal registry of known 1967-68 Cougar convertible restorations. They include the very first documented conversion performed by Kevin Marti, CatVert (of course), and a variety of others. For some, the owners are known while for others we just have photographs proving they exist. Periodically, we add new ones as they surface. |