| Specifications | ||
| Year | : | 1972 |
| Make | : | Mercury |
| Model | : | Cougar XR7 |
| Engine | : | 351 cui Cleveland V8 |
| Modifications | : | 4 Barrel 600cfm Holley, Dual exhaust with Balance pipe, electronic ignition. |
| Country of Origin | : | North America |
| Fate | : | Still our pride and joy. |
| History | ||
|
Our first classic car, saw her advertised for sale at a local car dealer,
at that stage she was painted a bright metallic purple, which really did
not appeal to me, plus she had quite a scary amount of chrome up front.
I had never heard of a ‘cougar’ before and she had no Ford markings on her, so I did an internet search for ‘cougar’, I found the MercuryCougar.net website and did some intensive reading, knowing more about her we drove past the dealer quite a few more times and eventually asked the dealer to start her up, took my Dad to have a look and hear and he was quite impressed. Eventually we made up our minds, we wanted her, having made the decision and with cheque in hand we went to go make the purchase, only to find the dealer had gone out of town for the weekend. We virtually camped outside the dealer to make sure no one else got her first, although’ after having sat there for a month I really don’t think there was much danger of anyone rushing in to buy her. After the deal was done I heard about quite a few other folk who had had their eye on her, luckily we got there first. First thing we did when funds were available was to have her re-sprayed, took us 3 months to finally decide on a colour, BMW Avus Blue. Just before the guy was due to spray I changed my mind, and chose a darker deeper blue in mica pearl, it changed to purple in the sun and to deep blue/black in the shade, it looked amazing. Folks loved the car, and we got lots of positive attention, except for my sisters, who thought she was hideous, but there again, they are not into good old American muscle. A couple of weeks after her new paint job we went up the coast with her, she went like a dream, except for a bit of overheating at speed, which was a bit odd. We went to a couple of car shows with her, without entering and at one of them met the previous owner, he was pretty happy that she had gone to a good home, he had owned her for 9 years and had all badges and the sequential motor for the rear indicators at home, by this time we had got badges from overseas, kindly sent to us, and I had rewired the tail lights to work without the motor. One of these days we are going to go fetch the stuff and I will see if I can reconnect the motor, somehow I doubt it will work though’. I have found a couple of diagrams on the web for sequential lights so maybe I will give that a try. In April 2003 we entered her and my 70 cougar ‘Ruby’ into a car show, the 10th Streetrod Nationals, it was a great experience. Since we have had her we have traveled all over South Africa with her, clocking up about 12 000 kilometres, most common problems were overheating and the headlights that would pack up after being on for about 5 hours, very scary in the middle of the the night on a deserted road. On one trip we had to tie a torch to the front grille, wire it up to the battery and drove about 120 kms using that as a headlight. We overhauled the engine after discovering a blown head gasket, 1500kms from home, long live WondaWeld. She still overheats, but this time due to the distributor slowly putting the timing out, we are in the process of sorting that out. Since writing this we have put in an electronic ignition system (Petronix) and the difference is quite amazing. The lights problem was narrowed down to the fact that someone had put halogen bulbs in, and the circuit breaker in the light switch was unable to cope with the higher amperage, relays have sorted this out. All in all she is in good condition, for a 34 year old car, I notice that there is moisture under the carpets which will have to be sorted out, I suspect the front cowl is blocked and needs to be cleaned out. The radiator shroud is broken and needs to be fixed somehow, and the wiring behind the dash could do with a total overhaul. The sealed beams are no longer sealed and need to be replaced. The heater was disconnected by a previous owner which makes for very cold feet when driving in winter, the air-con never worked so we took it out, gives us more space to work in the engine. Update: 2006 Still going strong, we had to use her as a daily car when our regular vehicle went in for head replacement, apart from the price of petrol she went like a dream, it was actually only when we got our regular vehicle back that we realised she was lighter on petrol than our Prado was on diesel. Signs of rust are appearing at the bottom of the doors, but that will have to wait till our ship comes in, it normally sinks at the harbour entrance.
Update: 2007 |
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| A long rambling story about our 4 500km trip in 2004 | ||
| General Information | ||
| Any Cougars in SA would have been imported from the US, they were not sold locally. | ||
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1972
Cougar Video (768kbs - wmv) My very chuffed son driving it for the first time. |
| Photos of our 27 Cougar XR7 - Click on thumbnail for larger image | |||||
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