A little update, I was contacted by a person, who believes they owned the car, and imported it from Hong Kong.
Have attached the email sent to me, but its a little small to read. Along with a photo of the car from the 80s,
I believe it 100% to be the car, as there was only ever, 1 ginger 1971, xr7, 429cj rhd with a full black vinyl roof.
So wouldve been converted in the States after it rolled of the production line.
Pretty cool history.
"Hey Ken,
Here is the story of your Cougar as I recall it.
This car was brought in to Australia by myself and my Father in approx. 1984/5 from Hong Kong. At the time we were importing mostly European cars from there and also some Japanese cars from Japan.
My Father called me on one of his trips to say that our contact in Hong Kong ( Who traded cars from places like Hong Kong, Japan, China, Brunei etc) had come across this Mercury Cougar that originally belonged to the Head of Ford Asia until his time was up and was then sold locally to a person. When they found this car it had been stored and unused for many years. The storage of the car was exceptional good as it was in pristine condition other than the paint on the top surfaces due to the car cover. It had been converted RHD in the USA as we understood the story and by evidence of the conversion it looked like it was factory done.
I didn’t know at the time they found it that it was a genuine 429 CJ car. IT ONLY HAD 9,000 miles on it and was absolutely NEW inside.
I had it repainted completely due to the slight blemishes in the bonnet and boot. There was absolutely no rust anywhere and the vinyl roof was never touched or replaced. All of the chrome was taken off the car when it was painted and stripped and redone by one of Victoria’s top chrome platers. Due to it commonality with the same year Mustang, a new windscreen was fitted.
I purchased the Globe wheel with new tyres. The engine was taken out and given to Mick Webb in Heidelberg Victoria ( Mick used to do engines for a lot of race car people including some of the top running super car Ford teams of the day) and it was given a freshen up still retaining the stock components and standard specs. (Re-Hone bores, new rings, new bearings, re-seat valves with new springs, complete new gasket kit, re-build carbie). Car was re-assembled and finished off as you see it in the pictures presenting like new.
Now the sad part.
I’m only about 19/20 years old at the time and don’t understand what I have in my possession. A mate of mine had a Torana SLR 500 4 door which to this day I don’t know if it was an original or mock up and was no-where near as nice a condition as the Cougar, and I do the unthinkable and swap cars with him. I think his Father who was quite a savvy car collector new better than both of us and I sure he sold it some years latter for probably a tidy profit as he was also a small time car dealer.
I lost track of the car for decades until I saw it on the Shannon’s site after Google searching Mercury Cougar as I had done from time to time over the many years.
I’m positive that this is the same car and hope you rego search finds that our because this car would be very rare considering the story.
A beautiful car that I should never have sold/swapped and to this day regard as one of my life’s true mistakes.
I’ve included a picture of my current Mustang along with a couple of my old race cars.
Kind Regards,
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