When Ford unleashed the Mustang in 1964 it proved to be an absolute sales juggernaut, and the company would go on to build more than a million of them over the next 18 months. The Mustang would almost single-handedly create the pony car segment, typified by coupes with long hoods, short decks, performance and affordability. The unprecedented success of the Mustang was not lost of Ford Motor Company’s other divisions.

Established in 1938, the Mercury brand was designed to bridge the gap between the Ford models and the company’s premium offerings sold under the Lincoln nameplate. As such, Ford sought to further capitalize on the Mustang’s success with an upscale version of the car – a gentleman’s pony car, if you will.

Though it shared much of its underpinnings with the Mustang, the Cougar had a three-inch longer wheelbase and shared none of its sheet metal with the Ford. Image: Hemmings

By late 1966, the first Cougar landed in Mercury showrooms. Based on the 1967 Mustang, the Cougar rode on a three inch longer wheelbase versus the Ford, and boasted a feature set that was deliberately designed to give the Cougar some European flair and an added sense of luxury.

With America’s love affair with horsepower already in full swing, the Cougar came out of the gate with its high performance GT package to sit alongside the base model Cougar and the luxury-focused XR-7 offering.

Like many of the muscle cars of the era, the Cougar nameplate would see significant shifts in its design and purpose throughout its nearly three and a half decades in production, but there’s no denying that the Mustang-based first and second generation Cougars have earned their rightful spot in the muscle car pantheon.

Luxury Melds With Muscle

Sharing its underpinnings with the updated ’67 Mustang, the initial high performance offering in the Cougar roster came in the form of the 390ci big block V8-powered GT. Along with the 335 horsepower motor, the GT benefited from more aggressive suspension tuning, bigger brakes, high performance tires, and a low-restriction exhaust system.

While the Cougar was originally intended to be more a of luxury cruiser than a muscle car, packages like the GT seen here sought to capitalize on the public’s hunger for performance. Image: Hemmings

Available with three transmission options – a three speed manual, a four-speed manual or Mercury’s Merc-O-Matic three-speed automatic transmission – the GT came standard with a 3.00:1 rear axle, while a 3.25:1 ratio axle was also available.

The formula proved to be an effective one, with the inaugural Cougar achieving not only sales success but critical acclaim as well. Motor Trend would go on to name the ’67 Mercury Cougar its Car of the Year, and the Cougar would account for 40% of Mercury’s total sales that year with over 150,000 examples sold.

The Cat Goes Racing

Like other automakers at the time, Mercury was keen to capitalize on the “Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday” phenomenon. For the Cougar, this meant getting the model into the SCCA’s new Trans Am series. Ford had already proven the prowess of the Mustang platform in road racing previously, taking the championship win in Trans Am’s opening season.

For the 1967 Trans Am season, Ford was no longer shy about their renewed direct involvement in motorsport. For the Cougar effort they enlisted the expertise of racing champion Dan Gurney to oversee operations, and he brought world-class talent to the team with Parnelli Jones, Dave Pearson, Ed Leslie, and Peter Revson in Mercury’s new roster of pro drivers.

Though Gurney was still actively involved in Formula One racing at the time, he led the team to a successful initial outing in Trans Am, with the Cougar team taking four wins throughout the year and a second place spot overall for the season.

In a bizarre twist of fate, this success was seen as a mixed message by Mercury’s executives, who wanted to promote the Cougar as a luxurious alternative to the Mustang rather than an outright performance car. As a result, Mercury pulled factory support not only for the Cougar’s Trans Am efforts, but motorsport as whole after 1967.

XR7-G

Despite Mercury’s decision to opt out of direct involvement in racing, they still wanted to leverage the Cougar’s performance prowess in some way. To that end, Mercury sought to connect the Cougar with Dan Gurney much the way Ford had fused the Mustang name with Carroll Shelby. Initially this resulted in the Dan Gurney Special, which didn’t amount to much more than an appearance package for 1967.

Dan Gurney poses with the Cougar XR7-G. Image: Ford

But for the following year, the company decided to take a more earnest approach to a Gurney-associated model, one which would more closely correlate with Ford’s Shelby Mustang offerings. As such, the new high performance Cougar would be built alongside the Shelby Mustangs at the A.O. Smith facility in Detroit.

Along with a number of appearance upgrades like unique aluminum wheels, a fiberglass hood scoop, badging and additional interior content, the XR7-G (G as in Gurney) was available with three high performance engines – the GT’s 390ci big block, the high-winding Boss 302 V8, or the 428 Cobra Jet V8.

The 428CJ also featured a ram air system piped through the hood scoop, which was non-functional on XR7-G models that weren’t equipped with that top-spec motor. Only 619 XR7-Gs were produced in total, and among those, just 14 of them were equipped with the 428 CJ.

Eliminator

By late 1968 muscle car mania had reached its pinnacle, and despite Mercury’s brass hoping to position the Cougar as a statelier alternative to the Mustang, demand for extroverted high performance models dictated a need for a Cougar that wore its performance aspirations on its sleeve.

The result was the Cougar Eliminator for the 1969 model year. Unlike previous efforts, the Cougar Eliminator abandoned any sense of pretense and took the fight directly to rivals like the Chevy Camaro SS396, Pontiac Firebird Ram Air 400, and Ford’s own Mustang Mach I.

Available in high impact paint hues with bold graphics, the Cougar Eliminator made its intentions clear upon first sight, and the roster of available power plants pulled from XR7-G backed up the image (a 351 Windsor V8 making 290hp served as the base motor).

1970 would see Mercury expand upon the concept of the Cougar Eliminator, adding more performance and performance-oriented options.

But Mercury’s confused efforts to market the Cougar had already done their damage, and the high performance Cougar simply didn’t not enjoy the same level of visibility to enthusiast buyers as cars like the Firebird, Camaro, and Mustang did. Mercury would sell less than 2,300 examples of the Cougar Eliminator that year, despite the fact that instrumented testing indicated that the hopped up Cougar could go toe to toe with the most potent street machines coming out of Detroit.

Changing With The Times

Since the Cougar shared its underpinnings with the Mustang, when Ford’s pony car saw a significant change, so did the Cougar. Accordingly, the ’71 model year saw substantial tweaks for the Cougar. The Eliminator model was dropped from the lineup, though its Ram Air option remained, and the engine options now stood at a 240 horsepower 351ci Windsor V8, a 285hp 351ci Cleveland V8, and a 370 horsepower 429ci Cobra Jet V8, the latter of which would only be available for a single year.

By 1972 the muscle car era was rapidly coming to close, and Mercury began to develop the Cougar into a personal luxury coupe in turn. As performance dropped the luxury content increased, and with Ford’s transition to the Pinto platform for the Mustang II in 1974, the Cougar parted ways with Ford’s pony car to share its platform with the larger Ford Torino before joining the Thunderbird platform for the fourth, fifth, and sixth generation Cougars starting in 1977.

After sitting out the 1998 model year, the Cougar would return as a front wheel drive sport compact, sharing a platform with the Ford Contour sedan. This transgression would prove to be short lived however, and the Cougar would go out of production after the 2002 model year.

While the Cougar never enjoyed as much visibility in the hearts and minds of enthusiasts as the Mustang did, its relative rarity – especially in XR7-G and Eliminator guise – has had collectors turning their focus toward these pony cars in recent years, and with the shuttering of the Mercury brand in 2011, the chances of a new Cougar being developed in the near future that might eclipse the originals are pretty slim.