What’s that musty, stale smell on the edge of the breeze? Oh dear, somebody left the door to The Carchive open again. Today, it’s time to blow the dust off some FoMoCo literature.
Today’s specimen represents a car which found sales scattered all over the globe. We’re looking at the Mercury version today, but that’s only because the American market brochure seems slightly more interesting than the European one. Slightly.
“This driver’s sport coupe represents a new order of design”
In Europe, the MK2 Ford Mondeo was being praised from all corners for the way it went down the road. Acceleration, braking, handling, roadholding, all were getting reviewed very positively. This car, it was said, would make an excellent basis for a sports coupe.
And here it is. Mechanically, underneath was more or less pure Mondeo. Or Mystique, if you prefer. This meant the same all-round independent suspension, struts up front, quadralink out back. Bizzarely, rear discs were listed as merely optional (with ABS) on the Mercury, I’m pretty sure they were standard on the European ones.
Never mind all that, what it all meant was that the Cougar had a proven mechanical package, with proven 2.0 litre Zetec or 2.5 Duratec V6 engines. 130Hp from the I-4, and 170 from the terrific sounding V6.
“If you don’t like attention, drive something else”
The Cougar was as distinctive as they come, and certainly a lot more attention-grabbing than the let’s-go-to-Publix Contour, Mystique or Mondeo. The brochure sings its praises, of course “truly a sculptor’s masterpiece”, and there is much speak of clean, intersecting lines. Yes, it was new-edge fever for Ford as the year 2000 approached. Ford’s then current design language was bold and confident, and on cars like the Focus and Ka, and especially the Puma, very successful indeed.
With hindsight, it seems that with the Cougar things went just that little too far. The shape was cohesive, the profile was elegant and the overall intent very noble, but somehow edge design was seems to have been more easily marketable on a small, youthful car than what wanted to be a fairly flashy coupe. And there were certain details that should probably have been left on the drawing board; the spurious “V” indentation on the bonnet, for example, added little of value. Overall, perhaps the design just looked a little too much of it’s time?
Doesn’t stop me liking it, though.
“A trip to the mountains or shopping for the weekend, Cougar invites detours”
It was, truly, a practical machine, possibly because it was more hatchback than coupe. The hatch opened broad and tall and the front-wheel-drive layout meant a low loadspace floor due to the regrettable absence of a rear transaxle. The rear seats could fold so that IKEA frenzies could be accommodated, and those seats were, incidentally, big enough to take actual humans with legs and everything.
Up front, the driving position was spot-on and the instruments clear and legible. The dashboard itself, though, and the interior generally, was a little chintzy compared to the Mondeo / Contour hardware buried underneath it. Those swiveling eyeball vents looked more interesting than the plain, boring grilles, but let rather a lot less nice, refreshing air through them. Partial credit.
“An uncommon set of performance characteristics, a great deal of driving excitement and, perhaps, a little boost to your ego”
And sadly, therein lay the problem. The Cougar just didn’t serve up quite enough of an ego boost. In Europe the market for sporty two-door saloon-based coupes was very healthy, as seen by the constantly in-demand BMW 3-Series Coupe and Mercedes CLK. But those cars had the brand names to back them up. Ford, nor Mercury carried quite the same parking-lot prestige.
Of course, the Cougar was healthily less expensive than the others, especially in the US. But somehow telling people that you “drive a Ford Cougar” didn’t really mean anything to anybody, just as the Ford Probe had suffered in the same way.
And in the USA, the last car to carry the Mercury Cougar identity had been rear-wheel-drive and available with a V8, so it at least had a bit of a“real car” persona. The new car, with the wrong wheels connected up, seemed a little lightweight. And that hatchback somehow further added to the Cougars perceptible lack of balls.
And really, even in V6 form with a manual gearbox, it was never quite fast enough. Sixty came up in the mid-eights, a tonne-forty could be had if you wanted it, but that was barely any quicker than the Mondeo from whence it sprung.
Oh, I don’t know. It was a fine enough car, but never really caught the imagination of a global public who still wanted a fun, funky coupe, a bit like that old Capri from years back, and for whom the Probe just hadn’t quite done the job. Today, Cougars can be had for basically scrap value, and I think we should all go and buy one each.
(Disclaimer: All images are of original manufacturer publicity material, photographed by me. Copyright remains property of Ford Motor Company. New Ford Coupe please. Immediately)
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