Mercury has always been considered the Jan Brady of the car world the dreaded middle child. Created by Edsel Ford in 1938 to bridge the sizable gap between Ford's top model and Lincoln's cheapest, Mercury's mission never really changed until its eventual demise in 2011. Ford still retains the rights to bring the company back someday, but nothing of the sort is in sight. For now, Mercury is no more.

And that's a shame, because some of Ford's coolest products came from this division, most notably the Cougar. Marketed as an upmarket pony car built on the Mustang platform, the Cougar had its own shape, its own equipment, and a loyal fan base. It was a good looking car, somewhat limited by its modest underpinnings, but still an attractive face in the crowd, and it sold well.

But good times were not to last the gas crunch of the 70s, rising emissions and bumper laws, and other such turns of the car world caused the Mustang to be downsized in a way that made no sense for the Cougar so it moved to the larger Torino platform, becoming one of the very few cars to be upsized in the 70s, and finally met its new stablemate, the downsized for 1977 Thunderbird. This fourth generation Cougar was technically a midsized car, but it was still pretty damn big with a wheelbase of 114 inches. It would remain a sister car to the Thunderbird for many years to come, and its influence caused a series of cat names to come out of Mercury, along with giant fake cats sitting atop Lincoln/Mercury dealerships.

The car sold well in the personal luxury coupe heyday of the 1970s, but it was a short term success, all but gone and forgotten in 1980 when the smaller, Foxbased Cougar and TBird emerged. Despite selling a large number of them, few have survived, and only recently have they become noticed by collectors.

Full review and test drive of a 1979 Mercury Cougar XR7 with 14K miles. Vehicle is for sale at Autohaus of Naples. Review by Bill of Curious Cars.

http://www.AutohausNaples.com