I know in the development of the Mustang that some of the prototypes had Cougar script on the fenders and rear of the cars along with a Cougar emblem in the center of the grille.
Here is my question. What Ford product used this emblem?
It sure looks silimar to the type of Cougar in the Mustang Prototype photos.I snapped this picture in a parking lot yesterday. The hood ornamnet was on a early to mid 90’s Ford F-150. I’m sure it was an add on.
Steven
Looks to be from a late 70’s Ford pickup.
Lots of mid-50s Fords had that griffin-like creature in their emblems:
Those lions were Henry Ford’s attempt to add some ancestry to the Ford name- I recall reading that he had someone dig up (or maybe even invent) a family crest using those lions. They show up on hubcaps and emblems on things like LTD’s and other luxury Fords.
Those lions were also on the side marker light side of the front park light/side marker light lens of a mid 70s Monarch or Granada. The hood ornament in the first post is I believe from a mid 70s Torino or Elite.
Randy Goodling
CCOA #95
Some cool information. So I guess it’s more of a Ford “family” crest lion than a Cougar used on the Mustang prototypes. I wonder what emblem was used on the Cougar 406?
Actually, it was more Cougar than that…the Oros studio, participating in a inter-company contest to name the Mustang, was pushing for Cougar as the name…and that center grille emblem was more of a cougar than the lion. It did have that “body shape” from the old Lion days though.
I did extensive research on all this when I bought an aluminum model of the cougar, exactly that size pictured above, many years ago. Legend has it that the guys at Oros boxed up one of these cougars into a wooden box and sent it to Lee Iacocca and included a message that read "Dear Mr. Iacocca, please name this car the “Cougar”!
I am not saying that the cat I have is that one, but then no one has ever proven otherwise, and it did come from Brighton, Michigan 
Thanks Brian thats an interesting read.
Steven
Hey Brian -
Any chance you could post a picture of your aluminum cougar? What a cool treasure!
Iacocca mentions the Cougar emblem incident in his autobiography.
X’s 2 Brian. 
I totally forgot to do that last night…will get on it! I had it saved on my old work pc 
As I recall Brian posted it on the other site in the past. I was bidding on the same item and I know that it was the second, maybe the thrid one I had seen sold on ebay. I haven’t seen one since but haven’t been as active looking either.
Goshdarn it, I forgot…again! Jeff, I had heard the same thing from Royce. I just wonder, for the life of me, how and why a few of these were made. I’d dearly love to know who made them and how many, and why they were made!
I submitted photos of it to the Henry Ford historical society or something like that and they were very very intrigued.
Cool. It looks like it’s yelling “STOP!”
It probably was putting it’s foot up trying to keep from being used on the Mustang. 
Brian thanks for sharing the photo. Very cool.
Steven
My impressions/things I know about it:
It is sand casted aluminum
It is painted black
The old “lion crest” images and emblems had that same foot up with the paw raised…very interesting morph of a Cougar blended with the old Ford logos and crest.
What is really kind of interesting is that the eventual Cougar running cat logo and emblem shares a ton of details with this thing…like the open mouth, the tail curve, the rear leg curve, the 3 lines in the chest (ribs)…it is just longer in proportion and has that goofy raised paw.
There are many many more things we don’t know about it. Like who made it, how many were made, and if it was solely produced by the Oros Studio team or later developed for the Cougar. It does fit perfectly in a 65 Mustang’s rectangular “corral” like in the '63 prototypes. I would dearly love to know someone that would be in-the-know about all this.
I did just type up a letter to Askford@ford.com to see what kind of response I could get…I told them I’d “seen one” and was wondering about it. 
