July 2012 Ride of the Month is: Cougar 1

Cougar Community Ride of the Month
1

In the summer of 1966 big things were happening at the Mercury Division of Ford Motor Company. Starting on April 1st the advance PR campaign had begun to introduce a new car in the Mercury line, the Cougar. As early as May 2nd, select long lead time magazines were seeing pictures of the new car. But the big event did not happen until July 4th 1966, the official build date for the very first production Cougar, VIN Number 7F91S500001.

Cougar 1 came well equipped. It is powered by the Marauder 390 4V engine which was part of the GT Performance Option Group (the GT badge was not approved so it was badged as a 6.5 litre!) The big 390 is connected to the C6 automatic transmission. Luxury was a part of the Cougar idea form the begging and Cougar 1 have the options to prove it: Tilt-Away Steering column, Speed Control, Sports Console with Visual Check Panel, Styled Steel wheels, and AM FM radio.

The first 8 production Cougars got received special attention to detail worthy of their future use as show vehicles. Overlapping body seams were smoothed out and filled the paint was perfected to eliminate any trace of orange peel and blemish. IF there was a perfect Cougar, it would have to be one of the first 8 built.

For a little more back ground you might want to check out this article; http://www.classiccougarcommunity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=58&Itemid=2

As perfect as Cougar 1 might be, there are number of unusual details that make this a unique cat. For example the design of the trunk lock cover had not been finalized, and Cougar 1 has a unique design not seen on later production… and you thought finding parts for your car was difficult?

Exactly how Cougar 1 managed to find its way to the present day is a whole story unto itself, hopefully Jim will share that with us.

Can you imagine what it must be like to walk out to the garage, and see the very first Cougar ever built sitting right in front of you? WOW! Our hats are off to you Jim and Elaine!

Congratulations to Jim and Elaine Pinkerton and Cougar 1!

2

A very worthy car. I’ve read a few articles on the car but wouldn’t mind reading again. What an adventure it was for Jim. It truly fell into the right hands.

3

Congratulations Jim. Cougar 1 is well worthy of ROTM.
Steven

4

Thanks to all who are fans of Cougar 1. I’m not sure “ride” of the month applies however, since other than in and out of the trailer, and in and out of the shop, we haven’t driven Cougar 1 on the street since 1996. Elaine and I made the agreement that once we started restoration on the car, way back then, that that was the end of its’ career “on the road”, at least with us as owners. Many of you may know that we’ve been blessed with having cougar lovers from 11 foreign countries come and see Cougar 1 here, so say nothing of those who’ve seen Cougar 1 at Carlisle, Buena Park, Denver, etc. It is a very special member of our family. I hope to find some more articles that have been written about the Cougar 1 and when I do Bill Basore has agreed to help me find a way to share them with the group.

5

Congratulations Jim! Obviously a perfect choice for ROTM or TQOTM (Trailer Queen of the Month). Either way, perfect choice for this month. Give Bill a nice photo showing that awfully beautiful and expertly buffed Cardinal Red paint.

6

Agreed, nothing more suitable for July, than Cougar 1…not only historically, but, aesthetically as well!!! Fabulous car, would love to see it some day. Congrats!

7

Happy 46th birthday, Cougar 1. Congratulations!

8

Boooooo, Hissss. I kid of course. Congrats

9

Bravo Zulu, Jim, Elaine and Cougar 1.

10

JIm has sent me a bunch of stuff to add… stay tuned tomorrow is a good day! Happy Birthday Cougar 1!

11

Guarding the lair of Cougar 1 is the intrepid Cougar historian and his trusty keeper of the database

12

And now the rest of the story…

COUGAR 1
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION
OF SERIAL #00001, THE FIRST PRODUCTION MERCURY COUGAR

by Jim Pinkerton

The restoration process for Cougar 1 began in earnest in April, 1996. After many months
of discussions with Lincoln-Mercury, their decision was finally made NOT to become
involved with the restoration project. This was no doubt based on the corporate decision
to discontinue not only the Cougar line, but also the Thunderbird and the Lincoln Mark
series. As this history of the restoration project is being written (October, 1997), L-M has
already announced the return of the Cougar for model year 1999. The proposed “new
Cougar” is expected to be a front-wheel drive, small-engined vehicle built on either the
Probe platform, or on some other import platform such as Mitsubishi or Mazda.

Back to Cougar 1 – it was entrusted to John Benoit of Cascade Classics in Edgewood,
Washington where the disassembly process took about 1 week, and began with the removal of the
white vinyl top and the interior. This was required for an in-depth view of the sheet metal
damage due to rust and corrosion, the two prime enemies of all classic automobiles.

Cougar 1, having spent years in the Canadian Province of New Brunswick, was expected
to have rust and corrosion as a result of severe winters and salt on the roads in the winter.
While rust was certainly found in the car it was nothing compared with many of the cars
found in the East and the Mid-West sections of the USA. This was probably due to the fact
that while Cougar 1 is now 31 years old, about 19 of those the car spent in storage inside
either the originating dealership, or a Quonset hut building belonging to the first owner.

Some rust was found on the metal roof surface as well as in the rain gutters and around
the rear window frame. All of this damage was correctible with mild bodywork. There
was significant rust and previous damage repair to the left rear quarter panel. And, while
it could have been salvaged with plenty of bondo and elbow-grease, another option was
to cut it out and weld in a new one. Not wanting to make premature decisions, we kept
on disassembling and inspecting.

We found more problems with rust in the trunk lid (under the rear molding lip) as well as
irregular and amateurish holes drilled in the lid to accommodate a dealer-sold luggage rack
assembly. Those holes were not only irregular and ugly, but they came through the panel
sub-structure in such a way as to make repair difficult at best, and costly at worst.

Replacing the trunk lid seemed logical except for one small thing – the trunk lid was
different than the lid on a regular Cougar. By that we mean that again that troublesome
sub-structure, upon further investigation, is unique to early Cougars. It is visually and
structurally different on the underside of the trunk lid. Research shows that no Cougars
built after January 1, 1967 have been found with the early trunk lid type installed from the
factory Oh7 that type will fit any '67 or '68 Cougar, and vice versa, but that would not
work for Cougar 1. So, what to do for an early trunk lid was another concern.

Rust in the floors was also a pain, in that while it could be repaired, again that would
require substantial investments in labor. Also, the inner fender panel between the right
shock-tower and the firewall, where the right hood hinge bolts on was damaged. One of
the hood hinge mounting nuts had been damaged beyond repair. These mounting nuts, an
integral part of the panel itself, are also “different” than later ones used on Cougars. That
meant we couldn’t just put in a reproduction panel (since its style was not correct) nor for
that matter just put in any other used panel. We would at least need such a used panel to
be from an early Cougar, in order to get the correct style.

All of these sheet metal-related restoration issues fostered debate, discussion, and much
consternation. Replacing sheet metal in Cougar 1 with reproduction parts was not
considered a good idea primarily because this restoration was to be museum quality, which
meant that parts needed to be, and all of the sheet metal in a Cougar is date-stamped. One
of the options proposed, although not considered very probable at the time, was locating
a “donor” vehicle (parts car).

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Continued…

Being a Regional Director for the Cougar Club of America, and having access to the
national database on Cougars, I was aware that only a few early Cougars were known to
exist. One of those early Cougars, serial #00079 (with a scheduled build date of July 4,
1966, just like Cougar 1) was in Portland, OR and its owner I knew was in the process of
restoring it. On a fluke I decided to call him to find out how he was doing on his car, and
to compare notes. As luck would have it, he had decided that restoring the car was not
financially feasible, so the car was for sale.

Upon inspection of Cougar #00079, we found that everywhere Cougar 1 had rust, Cougar
#00079 was solid. All the sheet metal panels needed to repair Cougar 1 were date-stamped
the same as the original Cougar 1 panels, including the entire floor. We salvaged as many
parts off of Cougar #00079 as possible, selling the interior, the transmission, disc brakes,
and tilt-column almost immediately. This helped reduce the out-of-pocket expense of the
sheet metal parts for Cougar 1. Our sheet metal problems now solved, at least on the
procurement side, we turned to other needs.

The 390-4V engine was disassembled and inspected. The bottom-end was determined to
be sound, so the only change made was a new oil pump, timing gears and roller bearing
timing chain. The heads were rebuilt with hardened seats for unleaded fuel. The original,
correct carburetor was sent off to Holley for their top-quality refurbishing process. The
distributor was found to be a Motorcraft replacement, and a search was begun to locate
the correct Autolite part with proper date code. The exhaust manifolds were powder coated,
along with the mounting bolts and flange washers.

The transmission had been overhauled previously, and upon inspection was found to be fit.
The rear end was disassembled, inspected, and also found to be in good condition and not
in need of repair. Of course the brake system, the suspension and steering systems would
all need restoration or replacement, and a short in the wiring harness that extends through
the radiator core support at some time in the past made replacing that harness necessary.

The interior was complete, but worn. The seats would need to be recovered, the headliner
and carpets replaced, and of course the white vinyl top would also need to be replaced.
The chrome plastic dash gauge panels would need to be re-plated and painted.

Cougar 1, and other very early production Cougars were put on display at such places at
the Detroit Auto Show by L-M. Like the other major manufacturers, they wanted their
show cars to look their best. It was determined that regular production bodywork and
paint would need to be improved. Cougar l’ s paint was perfected in the sense that none
of the assembly-line “orange-peel” , part of the normal painting process used at that time,
was allowed to remain, and all of the sheet metal lap-over joints exposed when the doors
and trunk are open, were filled-in and smoothed out to provide a seamless look.

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Continued…

John Parkhurst, our upholsterer, found not only the original upholstery material for the
headliner and the seats, but also NOS white vinyl roof material. The seat frames were
derusted, painted and the foam seat bases were replaced. New seat backs were installed.
The door panels were found to be restorable; they were cleaned and re-dyed, and the
chrome trim was replaced with polished stainless steel inserts. The dashpad was also
found to be fit, although stiff and fragile with age. It was re-dyed, along with the horn
bulb, the dash facing pad, the console and the console pads. The original steering wheel
was retained. New kick panels were re-drilled for proper radio system speaker use.

Back to the body. The largest single aspect of preparing the body was the work on the
floors. This required ‘racking’ the car down, aligning it, cutting out the entire rusted floor
section of Cougar I, along the factory seam lines. Then repeating it all with Cougar
#00079. Next the donated floor from #00079 was reattached as a unit using a spot
welding machine that duplicated the factory process. The results were stunning. Cougar
l’ s new floors looked like they’d been there from the beginning – just what we had hoped
– and all sheet metal date stamps matched. Replacing the left rear quarter panel was
difficult but went as expected, as well as the work of preparing the doors, fenders, etc.

In the State of Washington, environmental laws are such that acid-based chemical
stripping is not economically practical, so it isn’t available. We took the car shell, all of
the sheet metal pieces, as well as all the metal parts to the car that would have to be
painted, up to Richmond, British Columbia, to Redi-Strip. However, getting across the
border with the decrepit-looking hulk on a trailer, the backend of a truck full of pans,
proved more difficult than we had anticipated. Canadian officials were somewhat
skeptical as to why anyone would want to restore “the hulk”, and what’s more they
wanted to be sure we wouldn’t just leave it up in Canada. Needless to say, we didn’t tell
them that the car was Cougar 1. So we had to post a bond through a Customs Agent
(who handled regular business for Redi-Strip, but only through their normal freight
shipping process).

Four hours later we were at Redi-Strip, where the owner was still on the phone to the
Customs officials – howling mad over the treatment of his customers. Seems as though in
17 years of business, no one had ever been stopped at the border and a bond required –
that is no one until us troublemakers and “the hulk” showed up. On the return trip we had
to stop at the border and prove that we were in fact bringing back ''the hulk", never more
to darken the Canadian landscape.

At Redi-Strip, the shell was submerged in a tank of acid wash to remove all paint and
seam sealants. Then the solution is electrically charged causing the rust to "leap off’ the
metal work. This removed every bit of rust, corrosion, and filler, leaving it looking like a
newly minted coin. This same process was used on all of the other metal parts to be
repainted, and then the body shell and all of the metal parts were zinc-phosphated.

The phosphating process is part and parcel of a museum quality restoration. Another
process that is as good, or perhaps better, is known as E-coat, but the nearest place to
have that process performed is Michigan (again because of environmental laws), and that
seemed to be out of the question for us. Zinc-phosphate provides a uniformly even
surface preparation for the adherence of primer, and then paint, not to mention a superior
rust inhibiting barrier.

Other than pausing at the border to reclaim our bond, going up to Canada to bring the
body and the parts back was somewhat uneventful. Because of the phosphate coating we
could not handle the body and parts with bare hands. We had to use rubber gloves to load
the enclosed trailer, and we had to hustle back to the Seattle area where the body and
parts needed priming within 3 days. This was necessary to prevent the surfaces from
absorbing moisture (or anything else), and to allow a full 30 days for the primered parts to
“cure”, before painting.

15

Continued…

John applied all of the body sealant, and sound deadening using the chassis assembly
manual for the layout patterns. The car sat primered for 2 months, ready for painting.
until our painter could get to it in his schedule. However, we did not let any grass grow
under our feet while we waited for the car to come back to be assembled. We were busy
cleaning, sorting, and painting parts. We sent out all of the chrome to be redone, and we
searched high and low for various and assundry NOS parts.

The painting on Cougar 1 was two-stage base-coat/clear coat. Final body work and paint
were performed by Brandon Huhtala of Automotive Images in Federal Way, WA who
started the final body work and paint March l st. John got the car back on April 15th.

The underside of the frame and floors on Cougar 1, unlike that of many later Cougars,
was originally black, not red-oxide. Body color (Cardinal Red; color code T) overspray
was applied to the undersides to duplicate the factory overspray …

This brings me to one of the most vexing problem in any restoration project – vendors.
With the exception of Brandon Huhtala, we had problems with nearly every other vendor.
These problems were myriad and varied, but an underlying theme developed – namely,
they had no sense of urgency. And, I’m not talking about doing work or finding parts on
short-notice. No, I’m talking about even having the courtesy to return phone calls, or
faxes, or to answer questions once we did make contact. It took constant follow up.

Now you would think that an inquiry to buy parts that are advertised might elicit a prompt
response. But, no, not on your life. Some vendors said they would have to check “out
back”, “up-stairs”, in “the basement”, the “shop”, the “barn”, the “storage shed”, the
“other building”, etc. I guess that was better than those who said they had it, would ship
it, and then never did. I estimate 60 days were totally wasted in unnecessary parts
chasing, not to mention the many hundreds of dollars in phone and fax charges.

Anyway, back to the restoration work. We found NOS lower control arms for the front
suspension with ball joints in place. They needed to be derusted with Oxysol. The upper
control arms were refurbished with NOS ball joints. We had machine-tools made to
correctly apply the rivets to these control arms, since the only known supplier of these
discontinued the product line. We also located and purchased all the remaining NOS
steering and suspension parts, a process that consumed many hours of ‘search and
beseech’ maneuvers.

We had new rear leaf springs custom made using the original specs, and applied the
correct anti-squeak pads, bushings, U’-bolts and shackles. The entire rear axle assembly
was detailed. The original brake booster was rebuilt, rotors, calipers, hoses, drums,
shoes, kits, and all brake lines were found, purchased and made ready. The styled-steel
wheels were shipped to Specialty Wheel in Portland, OR where they were completely
stripped, centers re-chromed, outer rims powder-coated and re-riveted together.

The exhaust system was another real sticking point. The original H-pipe was still usable,
but pitted from normal wear and tear. The original resonators and transverse muffler had
been replaced, as had the tailpipes. Another stroke of good luck arrived in the form of an
NOS transverse muffler, which while pricey at $450.00 was perfect for the car, as it was
from the first production run of original mufflers with VSSteel’s date stamp of August,
1966 clearly showing at the bottom edge of muffler. Mike Mersman of Dan Fast Muffler
Shops in Lynnwood, WA custom made the rest of the system, including machine-bending
the H-pipe, using the exhaust manifold flanges and the resonator brackets from the old
system to duplicate the original look. While we found 1 NOS resonator, it didn’t do us
much good without a second, so Mike custom-made the resonators.

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Continued…

There are so many small details in the restoration process, it is hard to know which ones
to discuss here and which ones to treat in a more summary fashion. However, one of the
most interesting has to do with the ‘running cat’ emblems, originally planned for the
passenger-side headlight door and the trunk lock. Die Cast Mold Corporation in Michigan
was the designer of the ‘running cat’ trunk lock emblem for the prototype Cougars. When
Jaguar sued L-M claiming trademark infringement because the running cat was too similar
to their logo, an out-of-court settlement was reached wherein L-M was obligated to (1)
destroy all existing stocks and contracted-for supplies of running cat emblems; and (2)
desist from using the running cat emblem unless it also contained the spelled out word,
‘Cougar’, for two full model-years.

So, '67 and '68 Cougars do not use just the plain running cat emblem, but it came back in
‘69, as permitted in the settlement. All emblems were destroyed, except one – the original
trunk lock key door sample used by the sales team to sell L-M on the concept to begin
with. When the Die Cast Mold Corporation went out of business, in the 1980’s, a parts
vendor bought out their supply of emblems for other Ford products. The only piece of
Cougar trim or emblems left was the prototype in the file cabinet, so he bought it. I found
it in Xenia, OH at a swap meet in 1995. It now adorns the only trunk lid in the world that
makes any sense at all, Cougar l’ s. The key lock base is the original from Cougar 1,just
the lock door with the emblem on it has been removed in favor of the, one-of-a-kind,
‘running cat.’

Having made the decision to use the prototype trunk key lock door, we faced the problem
of having a non-match with the emblem on the right headlight door. So, John Benoit used
the chrome base of the original emblem plaque, along with the actual metal ‘running cat’
portion of the emblem (we had them both re-chromed), re-centering the cat on the base and
interleaving a cut-to-fit ribbed black background field from a '69 Cougar grille emblem to
approximate the original prototypes, of which no known examples have survived. The
question was raised with representatives of Die Cast Mold Corporation, but they were not
the suppliers for the headlight door emblems …

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Continued…

Another interesting, time-consuming, frustrating, and costly parts search was launched to
find several of the console-mounted convenience light package warning light sockets and
the correct lenses. Of the four required, Cougar 1 was missing the ones for 'low fuel 'and
the one for ‘door ajar’. Two problems arose that caused this search to be difficult. The
first one was that there is a difference between the lenses and bezels for '67 and for '68.
The '68s have the identifying warning words in white on the outside of the lenses, so you
can really read them even when they are not backlit. The '67s are printed on the inside of
the lenses only, requiring backlight to read. So we couldn’t use '68pieces, even if we
could find them. The second problem was that this same basic convenience light package
was available on Mustangs. Mustang restorers have pilfered Cougar parts cars to obtain
these items to upgrade their restorations, and in the process driven the supply down and
the price up, making these “spendy” (try $400.00, or more, for the group of four with
wiring harness, if you can find it). Nonetheless, we persevered and located what we
needed through the diligent efforts of some fellow Cascade Cougar Club members.

All of the color coding for springs, driveshaft, front struts and sway bar, front and rear
shocks were duplicated based on documented evidence from L-M, or via inspection of
other early original, un-restored Cougars with the same power train and suspension
components. Chalk marks found on Cougar 1 during the disassembly process, were
photographed and duplicated during reassembly.

John began the reassembly process on April 29, 1997 and finished it on Saturday, May
24th. After taking 16 pictures of the car, we loaded it on a VIP Transport enclosed car
carrier and shipped it to Carlisle, Pennsylvania on Monday, May 26th–just in time for the
30th Anniversary of the Cougar, Cougar Club of America East Nationals and the All-Ford
Show and Swap Meet.

The restoration took 14 months. And, I have been asked many times about the cost.
Neither bragging nor complaining, you might be interested to know that the restoration
itself cost a bit more than $43,000 --not counting telephone, fax, mail, etc. etc. However,
looking at the results, I believe that it was well worth it. With luck and perhaps a
re-dawning of the “real car-guys” spirit at L-M, (or even at Ford for that matter), if that’s
possible to imagine, Cougar 1 may one day take up its rightful place next to the first
Mustang in the Henry Ford Museum. We can only wait and hope.

18

Beautiful Car! Congratulations. Happy Birthday Cougar!

19

This has to be one of the better Cougar write-ups i have had the pleasure to read.

Thank you gentlemen.

( i would have posted this earlier, but… i was scared to wind up between posts…)

Jean

20

Leon, for us, in the peanut gallery (i don’t get around much, so… i rarely get to associate a face to a name. … could thou be a tad more specific?

thank you,

Jean