Philip I see that your new G has made it to your garage. I really love the white on white on first generation Cougars and an XR7G makes it even better.
Steven
Hey Steven - yes, my “new” G finally made it’s way from Bill’s garage in AZ to mine here in VA.
Thanks again to Bill Basore, Darren Patris at Critter Creak Cougars, Cobra Jet registrar Scott Taylor and his ace mechanic John Jackson. I have never met any of these gentlemen in person, but they were all extremely gracious, patient and unbelievably generous with their time. The classic Cougar community is just incredible 
I’d also like to thank Royce Peterson who purchased my red G and the piles of parts that came with it - and still to come! I am delivering the 390 block, hood and black XR-7 seats to Royce at the upcoming Carlisle Ford Nationals. I was/am more attached to the red G than any Cougar I’ve had. I owned the car for over 12 years and in that time it was the most rock solid and reliable car I had. Several cars I’d bought new, including a Subaru Legacy that threw it’s timing belt and wiped out the top end of the engine fell by the wayside but that X code never missed a beat.
I just didn’t have the skills to take her to the next level and everything fell into place to switch some things around. Obviously, I couldn’t have asked for a better person to pass the red G onto than Royce.
This whole deal had lots of moving parts so I didn’t want to jinx it until the white G was safe in my garage. Along the way there were several humorous events, which I don’t want to bore everyone with but the car arriving here is worth telling, plus I have some photo illustrations.
God bless my wife Robin - she is also my business partner and we slug it out here, side-by-side everyday working out of our house at Pro Payne Graphics. To say she has been patient, all these years, putting up with my Mercury Cougar related shenanigans is the proverbial understatement - Robin is just a saint!
This whole thing was a little outside her comfort zone - “hey honey, I’d really like to buy this Cougar I’ve never seen from a guy I’ve never met, who is in Canada, and the car is in Arizona at a guys house, who, I’ve also never met, and, well… it’s not as bad as it sounds”
So, jump ahead to the car getting here to Mechanicsville, Va. Robin and I are slammed with work. We are in the middle of a huge, 240 page Candy catalog and a big annual report for the Virginia Retirement System and big files are flying back and forth across the inter webs to and from Pro Payne and the truck driver calls and says he is just up the street. It’s a large, inclosed truck (Horseless Carriage is great, btw) but I’ve seen similar sized moving vans come and go before. All our lines are above ground in this neighborhood and the truck comes down the street and easily clears them all, except one. I watch as one back corner of the truck catches a line and just rips it off the pole across the street. I thinking “oh sh!t, wonder what that was” and right on cue my wife comes out of hour home/office and says “our internet, phone and cable just suddenly went out”. LOL! Of all the things I imagined could go wrong, this wasn’t one of them.
My poor wife.
Here are some pictures.
- Phillip
Congratulations! I love that white G and looked it over pretty closely at Bill’s house a few years back. That’s going to be a fun car to own.
Phillip, that is a very nice G. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a white one like that before. I look forward to seeing it in the steel, so to speak, at some point.
Thanks very much Jeff - and Bill, my goal is to get her ready for the big 50th Anniversary show at the 2017 Ford Nationals at Carlisle, so hopefully you’ll see it then
- Phillip