Can anybody tell me what a 1971 429 CJ 4spd Cougar coupe in semi-rough condition may be worth? Complete, original drivetrain? Needs some average Georgia rust repair, engine rebuilt probably and new interior. I know that they are rare, but the body style holds down values a bit it seems. Can’t find any for sale to see what they go for. Trying to decide if it is worth a resto.
Most definitely worth restoring.
Get a Marti Report on her , then post a picture of it and pictures of the 71 CJ on here. There’s a special registry on this site as well for 429CJ cougars, so look into that too. They are petty rare and its a 4 speed.
Absolutely! Hagerty has 71 429CJ at $31,000 to $43,500 for #3/#2 cats. I know that Hagerty tends to be optimistic in their pricing and not enough detail as to what is meant by “average Georgia rust repair” but there is a following for the big cats! And I’d have to break out the Cougar by The Numbers book but not many made.
Disclaimer - I’m very fond of the '71s as had a 351v4 XR7 for years so my option might be tainted. That and only the 71-73 drop tops get any love so the coupes are getting more rare by the day.
Like more details on the project. But sounds like it sure would be worth a close look. The motor/4 speed alone makes it worth saving if the Marti confirms.
I hope they’re worth restoring! I’m working on mine (429 cj/auto ) right now!
That car is full of rare and expensive parts… make sure most everything is there or price accordingly.
Besides the obvious stuff (block/heads/trans) there are many smaller hard to find and expensive parts such as… Rochester carb, air cleaner, fan and shroud, throttle cable, fuel pump with return, fuel sender with return line, oil dipstick, oil cap… the list goes on so be careful.
The 429 megasite is a great source of info for the proper parts that should be on the car.
If I remember correctly there were 402 of the 429 cars built in all body styles for 1971… can’t find my CBTN right now.
Jim
Yes of course. Is it C code or J code? Both are a lot of fun to drive. The ram air version even more so. What’s the rear axle code?
I’ve only been able to confirm that it has an “J” code vin and the ram air is all with the car.
I will order the Marti report and see what it says. Was there ever any of these cars sold by Bud Moore or modified by them?
You mean Bud Moore Engineering, the race shop in Spartanburg South Carolina?
Don’t think they modified customer cars for use on the street and I’m not familiar with them ever racing the '71 Cougar body-style.
I’ve heard where BME would sell their old, outdated race cars to teams/drivers further down the pecking order when they were done with them.
- Phillip
71 429CJ 4spd J code std = 14
Same with automatic = 29
Nice find. I look forward to seeing pictures!
Trying to pin down more on its history
Very low # car , awesome find.
If it’s all there , you have a nice investment. Interesting to see if it will be unknown to the 71 CJ cougar registery.
Is this wrong?
No, it is correct. The MEGA Site breaks them down from J code Cougar Standard Hardtop (above numbers) to Standard HT with GT, and Standard HT without GT option.
This car is a standard without the deluxe interior.
Correct numbers for the standard Cougar regardless of what interior.
If it was an XR7 then the numbers would look like this:
4sd = 19
auto = 138
Am I looking at it wrong? It seems to be showing 5 4spds for standard models with either C or J code. 2 for C and 3 for J.
Standard without GT.
skip down to the next section - Standard with GT 4 for C and 11 for J
GT package will have among other things a Competition Handling Package.
That is a fascinating story - I have never heard or read that before. Ford Motor Company announced in 1971 that they were getting out of racing and pulled all of their support from Bud Moore, who the year before had won the Trans-Am championship campaigning the famous school bus yellow Boss 302 Mustangs.
Bud soldiered on without Ford’s support in '71 with those same Mustangs and ran on a shoestring budget. So if this story is true, Bud turned down Mercury’s offer to build and race a team of '71 Cougars?
Stranger things have happened and it would be awesome if that is true. If this Cougar was originally in Bud’s shop and still carries some modifications by BME then not only is it worth restoring it would be one of the most desirable 1971 Cougars on the planet in my estimation.
But, as they say over in the Shelby camp; “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof”, so you would need some original documentation to back it up.
Please let us know what you turn up and good luck!
- Phillip
It’s been a while since I posted about this car. The original owner passed away last week and the family reached out to me to buy the car. The car is currently buried in the garage under everything imaginable, but the family has provided me with some of these photos from when the car was a few years old.
The Bud Moore connection was finally clarified for me before he passed away as follows. Apparently this man who bought this car was wanting a big block Cougar and had heard about the new 429 coming out and wanted one, so he passed on buying a 70 428 car to wait for the new 429CJ. However, his dealer, Burrough Lincoln Mercury in Charlotte NC was unable to get him one because they were rare and supply was limited when they first came out. But he pressed the dealer to try as hard as they could. The dealer had only been allotted ONE 429CJ Cougar and it was already spoken for by someone with more pull than this guy. However, the guy kept hounding them. About a week later, he got a call from the salesman he was working with to come to the dealership, he had an idea. When the guy got there, he brought him out back and showed him a green on green 1971 Cougar GT J-code 429CJ car (the one they had sold) that had been hit hard on the side. Then the dealer showed him three “body in white” 1971 Cougar bodies up on a rack behind the dealership that were supposedly specially prepared for Moore and sent to Moore to use for Stock Car racing. He was told that Bud Moore was not going to use them for some reason and the dealer offered to transfer all of the components and VIN tags from the green car to the race prepared Body in white for the buyer and he supposedly went for it. He said it took about a month for them to “build” the car. He had claimed that there were differences in the body (internal). He also claimed that when he went to pick it up, it had plastic pieces on it in similar to what a 70’s Trans Am has in front and back of the tires. The dealer manager was there and supposedly yelled at the salesman saying he could NOT have those pieces on his car and they took them off. He claims the car still has the holes from those mystery pieces. He also cited that this car had been rear ended after it was about ten years old and the body shop was going to replace the rear body panel, but when they ordered the OEM new one, it was very different from the one that was in his car and nobody knew why. Something about it having three braces instead of two. They wound up fixing the original rear body panel and leaving it in the car. I obtained the Marti-report and it was originally sent to Borough Lincoln Mercury and there is an original dealer emblem from the car that was removed when they replaced the decklid from the rear end damage repair. Boroughs is just a few miles from Bud Moore’s shop and the bodies Bud Moore used were shipped to Boroughs when they first arrived from Ford.
I should be able to do an actual inspection of the car in about 2-3 weeks when the son comes to clean out the garage to excavate the car. I will be there to make sure nothing from the car gets thrown out. As for the condition of the car, it had a vinyl top on it and the worst rust is under the vinyl top. So, there is that.
So, this may be just some tall tale told by a guy who wanted a fast Cougar back in the day, but inspection of the body and other clues that will certainly be there will either prove the story true or false. I’m excited to go digging.
Sounds interesting. Post the Marti Report, it will tell you if the VIN is for a body in white or if it is for a true 429 1971 Cougar.