Cougar II Concept

The Cobra based Cougar II concept car will be on display at this years Amelia Island Concours D’Elegance.

Here is short film clip that Ford produced of it back in 1963.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSYU5_JqnnA

I don’t get it. Cougar II, years before the Cougar was in production?

Man that is a sleek looking car. The downturned grille is pretty interesting. Looks cool, but not nearly as cool as the 67/68 Cougar I. :slight_smile:

Tmh here is a link that explains more about what the Cougar II was. It was a styling exercise based on the AC Cobra.
Steven
http://www.rokemneedlearts.com/carsindepth/wordpressblog/?p=1308

I think the very first Cougar concept was a better looking car.

I really like this one, but I must admit COUGAR1 (not J. Pinkertons) is a beast of it’s own.

I did a web search of concept Cougar I. I just found one picture. It was titled Ford Cougar. Is this the concept car you were speaking of? Do you know a site with more info on it?
Steven
http://m.flickr.com/#/photos/auto-clasico-mallorca/6247166172/in/photostream/

Steven, I don’t want to rob propayne of his thread. But to a search for cougar 406 and you’ll be surprised what pops up!

^^^ no, no, post away!

Things got busy here all-of-a-sudden at the home office of “Pro Payne Graphics”!

I know that Ford/Mercury first used the Cougar name on at least one show car. I wanna say it was in the late '50s?

So I guess that by the time this show car based on the 260 Cobra chassis came about they decided to go with “Cougar II”

O.K. the little bit I know about the cougar 406 was it was a 55 T-bird chassie that Ford used for a test mule. I think I was told for disc brake projects,fuel injection and probably other things. When Ford was pretty much done with things they turned it over to Dean Jeffries. In 1962 it was at the Chicago Auto Show as the Ford Cougar concept. (alias cougar 1) Alot of this was told to me probably in less then 5 minutes, so I’m trying to go from memory. I was also told they had a lot of problems with the electric gull wing doors. If you look up Dean Jefferies he turned out to be a big West coast car customizer. Just to add to this, I was also told this car never took off because of the of the price. It would have competed with the already expensive T-bird, so Fords bean counters nixed it real quick.

Thanks I will do a search of Cougar 406. I love concept and prototype cars form the golden era. Styling was awesome!
Steven

I’m a big Dean Jeffries fan. He did the Mantaray (engine was a 289 Cobra motor that Shelby gave to Jeffries for painting and re-painting the first Cobra), the Monkee Mobile and the Black Beauty ('60s Green Hornet TV show).

Jeffries had a close relationship with Ford. One day while he was at their wind-tunnel facility helping A. J. Foyt set up his Indy car (Dean painted many cars for Foyt) Dean explored some of Fords warehouses and found one that housed a bunch of prototype vehicles and retired race cars. An open top GT40 (not a coupe) caught his eye and later that day while talking to Jacques Passino (head of Ford’s racing program) Jeffries inquired about maybe buying it. Passino’s response was “No, don’t worry about it, just take it. And take whatever parts you need for it”. Dean says, along with the GT40 he drove his truck over to Kar Kraft and loaded up on extra parts!

He still has the GT40 and undoubtably it will eventually fund his retirement.

Only four open roadsters were built and a couple of those were converted by Ford back into closed coupes.

Beautiful car.
JeffriesGT.jpg

I knew about some of the other Jefferies cars, but I didn’t know about the GT 40 roadster… Cool

Very cool. I like the roadster version of the GT40. It must be nice to be given something like that and part to boot. :thumbup: I looked up the Cougar 406 and that is a good looking car. It even had hide away headlights.
Steven

http://www.carstyling.ru/en/car/1962_ford_cougar_406/images/9994/

Cougar 406 with the headlight covers open.

I have the original Hot Rod ad from 1962 on the Cougar 406. I need to get it in a frame and on the wall in the man cave. Here is some of what it says.
Jalousie windows
Electric gull winged doors
Exhaust thru bumper ends
aircraft type control panel
406 high performance rated at 405 hp @5800 rpm and 448 lbs/torque
long oval air cleaner with three 2 barrel carbs
swing up head lights
tinted glass panel above the windshield

It was also in the movie “Under the yum yum tree” with Jack Lemmon.

http://www.kustomrama.com/images/thumb/5/5c/Ford-cougar2.jpg/800px-Ford-cougar2.jpg

You can find some cool stuff on Flickr… here’s a color photo of the Cougar I. Cool!

Also just found this page ad for Cougar II

The Cougar 406 looks like it came out of the 50’s, not 1962. I can imagine some one in top management at Ford looking at that and at the new for '63 Stingray, and kicking the stylists in the butt, telling them to get to work doing something that looks more like next year, than last year.

[quote=“propayne”]I’m a big Dean Jeffries fan. He did the Mantaray (engine was a 289 Cobra motor that Shelby gave to Jeffries for painting and re-painting the first Cobra), the Monkee Mobile and the Black Beauty ('60s Green Hornet TV show).

Jeffries had a close relationship with Ford. One day while he was at their wind-tunnel facility helping A. J. Foyt set up his Indy car (Dean painted many cars for Foyt) Dean explored some of Fords warehouses and found one that housed a bunch of prototype vehicles and retired race cars. An open top GT40 (not a coupe) caught his eye and later that day while talking to Jacques Passino (head of Ford’s racing program) Jeffries inquired about maybe buying it. Passino’s response was “No, don’t worry about it, just take it. And take whatever parts you need for it”. Dean says, along with the GT40 he drove his truck over to Kar Kraft and loaded up on extra parts!

He still has the GT40 and undoubtably it will eventually fund his retirement.

Only four open roadsters were built and a couple of those were converted by Ford back into closed coupes.

Beautiful car.

Just wondering if anyone is going to the Detroit Autorama? (Feb 24-26) Since propayne brought up the Mantaray by Dean Jeffries, it’s going to be on display there.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/?p=3698 http://autorama.com/shows/attend/detroit-2012

not a fan of either!!

Maybe I like the Cougar II just because it reminds me of a Sting Ray.

I agree it has a lot of the same styling ques, just better. It’s a Ford after all :slight_smile:. I wonder if it had made it to production would Cougar II have had the same identy crisis that the Thunderbird had? Corvette competitor/family sports car/ land yacht. It kind of happened to our beloved Cougars.
Steven