By LongRoofian
So recently, this olelongrooffan was out and about checking on various things going on in my life these days and up in front of one of Bennett’s Auto Parts locations, I spotted something that hits two buttons in the life of this olelongrooffan. Longroofs and Cougars.
Yeah this is a Mercury Cougar longroof dating from around 1977, complete with a bright red vinyl interior, a skinny steering wheel, a bunch of aftermarket dash mounted goodies and a
needing to be adjusted Holley carburator under its bonnet. Yeah, the guy who was working on it mentioned he had owned it about four weeks after having found it in a barn out in the “Acreage,” an area round these here parts of which this olelongrooffan had not previously known.
It sported a multitude of colors the most consistent of which was the plastic wood grain siding. Yeah, that wood was nearly perfect and reflected the 78,000 miles on the clock of this longroof rather well.
Although there were a few trim bits and pieces missing, overall this longroof looked to be in fairly decent shape. The front and back porches on it were somewhat amusing to this olelongrooffan as was the air deflector on the rear of the luggage rack out back.
But the Holman Moody power under the hood of it was one of the cooler aspects of this olelongrooffan and I thought my fellow Hoons might feel the same way.
Jeff Glucker
Not as rare as you might think – a lot of Cougars have a little extra weight in the back.
<img src="http://www.best-of-web.com/_images/Vintage_Drummer_Musician_Playing_Drums_100609-024814-623042.jpg">
Buh-dump-TISH!
Columbus: [pregnant pause] "We going out on that joke?"
Native: "No, we do reprise of song. That help …"
Columbus and Native together: "But not much, no!"
Thanks to you, I spent 20 minutes listening to Stan Freberg recordings.
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/tL57IJR.jpg">
Useless Trivia of The Day- Mercury produced the Cougar Villager wagon for only 2 years. Non-consecutive years. 1977 and 1982. Go figure…
You saved me some googling, because I was completely confused when I saw that this wasn't a fox body wagon. Glorious!
Had to go to the library and check out the Standard Catalog of American Cars 1976-99 to get these figures. Internet failed me. SO- 8569 built in '77, 19,294 built in '82.
I'm guessing that the Holley was installed as a replacement for one of those awful variable venturi carbs. And, how much horsepower do the Holman & Moody decals add?
13hp
Iirc the air deflector was to keep the exhaust fumes out of the cabbin when the rear window is down.
You are correct. It also helped keep the rear glass clean in bad weather.
They are very effective.
As a kid, they were useful handholds for sitting on the top of the tailgate at speed.
So you had the cool parents.
That's a great-looking wagon. Excellent choice.
OLRF, you may recall there was another one of these at Bellair Plaza during the Turkey Run last fall. The Torino/Montego/Cougar/T-Bird/LTD II dash (whew!) does look nice when equipped with a full component of gauges. However — in stock trim these poor beasts needed a lot of help in the go-fast and handling departments. Personally, I'd pick a better starting point to build my sport wagon. Like, say, a late 60's Buick Sport Wagon.
Parents had one of these when I was a tot. Somehow we transitioned from this and a '78 Formula Firebird to a Mercury Lynx. Luckily, I was too young to know how disappointed I should have been.
Another great car… Some of the best things about the much maligned "malaise" era is they have better suspension and brakes than the older, the initial cost is far less and the engines are already set-up to run on unleaded. Depending on where you are they should be emission exempt so you can do what you want to them or replace them with engines from a different time, an older big-block or a newer fuel injected engine. It would definitely stand out though.