A half vinyl roof with simulated louvers at the front edge of the rear opera windows was an XR7-only feature that only the most fanatical car spotters would have noticed. Mercury gave the Cougar XR7 some unique styling details to separate it from the ordinary Cougar coupe, but unlike the Thunderbird’s distinctive basket handle B-pillar, the Cougar XR7’s were barely noticeable from most angles and seem to highlight Mercury’s muddled position among Ford’s divisions more than they identify the car as a distinct product. The Cougar XR7, like the Thunderbird, was the higher positioned personal luxury car version of the Cougar/LTD II. They were Mercury’s version of the Ford LTD II, which similarly took a formerly upmarket name and applied it to a full lineup of ordinary intermediates on the old Torino chassis. Thus in 1977-79 the sedans, coupes, and station wagons formerly badged as Montegos became the Cougar sedan, Cougar coupe, and Cougar Villager. In 1977 Mercury changed the Cougar’s purpose in its model lineup, applying the name to its entire lineup of intermediates and creating a Cougar XR7 with some distinguishing styling features to fill the personal luxury car role of the Thunderbird and the previous generation Cougar.

This sighting of a well preserved example, which I believe is the same car that I saw regularly in the same parking lot over 30 years ago, prompted this look back at a largely forgotten Mercury. The 1977-79 Cougar XR7 shared the chassis, body and most of the styling of the contemporary Thunderbird, differing mostly in lacking the Thunderbird’s most distinctive details, its hidden headlights and basket handle B-pillar with inset opera window.įar removed from the Cougar’s luxury pony car origins in 1967, this mid-size offering of Ford’s middle division suffered from classic middle-child syndrome, which continues to afflict it today, starved for attention among Ford personal luxury cars between the Thunderbird and the top-of-the-line Lincoln Mark V.

(first posted ) After a recent week of Ford Thunderbirds with a healthy dose of the intermediate-sized 1977-79 generation, a profile of the Mercury Cougar XR7 of the same years will create feelings of déjà vu.

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