Nice concepts ! I wish the Mercury Cougar were still around. It was kind of a slightly bigger, somewhat more upscale Ford Mustang.
I do too!! We owned two seventh-generation XR7's, a 1991 and a 1993. Beautiful cars. Much like those year models of the Thunderbirds but with the formal roofline instead of the fastback of the T-Bird. Fun to drive.
@perrone1, I drove several of those COugars as demos back in the day. If you knew how to work the order sheet, you could get them with the 5.0 L and a four-speed. They were plush and fast, a true American GT.
Initially, I thought these were 2024 Mustangs with different front clips & roof treatments, but they're really not. I'll take the Lincoln please, and make it a convertible.
@perrone1, I drove several of those COugars as demos back in the day. If you knew how to work the order sheet, you could get them with the 5.0 L and a four-speed. They were plush and fast, a true American GT.
V- and 4-speed!! Now THAT would have been a blast!
@jack-dodds, that roof harkens back to the Cougar Tony mentioned.
Perfect. That was the color of our '91. The '93 was, I believe, Teal Metallic. Like this one but without the side sills and with a light saddle interior.
@perrone1 Yes, that "square C-pillar" was a Mercury design cue for years. I picked up on that when looking at these modern proposals.
That teal Cougar reminds me of just how hideous all that "body cladding" became. Factory & aftermarket ground effects, rocker fins, deck-spoilers, wale tails, lower front air dams, etc... all became common place on many American cars from about 1982-1996.
My 1984 T/A H.O. looked good (IMO ) but to see all this "boy-racer-crap" on Oldsmobiles, Mercurys, and even some Cadillacs was a bit much!
We bought a new 1997 Ford Thunderbird V8 without any "cladding." By then, I was sick of it!
PS
- We found out, the hard way, that Ford had placed the air intakes so low on these V8s that driving through a rainstorm might cause "water ingestion" and consequently ruin the engine. This happened to my wife. With less than 30K miles, the engine was now toast. Insurance repaired everything and filed class action lawsuits against Ford.... but that's a different story.
