On this day in 1966, the Ford Motor Company revealed the Mercury Cougar, an upscale muscle car based on the Mustang but with a higher-end buyer in mind. Only available with a V8 and offered with option packages that gave the Cougar a distinctly European interior feel, the Cougar earned the moniker of the “gentleman’s muscle car”.
But there’s nothing gentlemanly about this next video wherein a 1969 Mercury Cougar nicknamed “Eileen” goes off-road at the Okemo Rallycross event, where the competition is more often made up of all-wheel drive imports.
The action starts right around the 25-second mark, and as you can see this old cat can get-up-and-go pretty well for an old hunk of American iron. Rallycross, like autocross, is a racing event centered around navigating a short course outlined by cones, but rather than take place in a parking lot it takes place in an unpaved field instead.
As such, the Cougar was modified to assault the dirt track with an aluminum skid plate, a radiator stone guard, tucked and hidden wiring, a reinforced battery tray, and beefy General Grabber tAT2 off-road tires. Despite these modifications though, the Cougar can be returned back to stock in an afternoon. Under the hood is a mildly-modified 351W V8 backed by a T5 5-speed manual transmission, for that extra feeling of control.
In a world increasingly populated by high-dollar builds and valuable trailer queens, it’s nice to see this old gentleman getting sideways in the dirt. What better place for a Cougar to strut its stuff than a mountaintop?
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