By the mid-Seventies, Mercury wasn’t selling much beyond gussied up Fords. Wedged between Ford and Lincoln in FoMoCo’s family album, Mercurys were charged with drawing a customer type that was somewhat more affluent than Ford intenders, yet nowhere conservative enough to commit to a Lincoln.
While the “upgraded Ford” product plan led to some fairly uninteresting products (think Monarch and Montego) sometimes Mercury struck gold. One such time was when the division rolled out the downsized 1977 Cougar.
Like other Mercury products of the day, the Cougar was really just a redecorated Ford model—in this case, the Thunderbird. But despite its relatively humble roots, the 1977-1979 Cougar was a massive sales success.
Though not the fastest, most luxurious, or most practical Cougar ever built, the 1977-1979-generation Cats hit on the magic triumvirate of style, substance, and price.
Though they were downsized (and lost about 300 pounds in the process), the new Cougars looked long, and thus suffered little loss of presence.
Sales went through the roof. Mercury had sold just under 84,000 Cougars for 1976. For 1977, customers snapped up an astounding 149,000 two-door Cougars.
Note that for 1977 Mercury added sedan and wagon variants to the Cougar lineup. Neither of these models did much sales-wise, and remain to this day more of a trivia-question answer than real models.
Shared below is Consumer Guide’s original review of the 1977 Cougar, as seen in the Auto ’77 magazine.
If you remember spending any time with one of these popular Mercurys, please tell us about it. Be sure to mention whether or not the car you experienced was equipped with velour upholstery.
My father worked for FoMoCo, so 2 things were always certain, 1, every back to school in the fall, I’d have a never ending supply of yellow Ford number 2 pencils, and 2, there would always be a Ford in our driveway. For a few years my mother had hinted my dads next new car should be a Cougar. The new model Cougars came out in early fall, and they were head turners. As a surprise for their wedding anniversary, my dad took my mom for and early dinner, and for dessert he surprised her by taking her to the local Mercury dealer. My mom was very happy. They looked at several Cougars at different style packages, and decided on the new 77 4 door sedan. They came home, and to let me part of the surprise, allowed me to pick out the color and wheel covers. My dad went back to the dealership with his discount pin, and to order a chocolate brown, with wire wheel covers, Mercury Cougar Brougham. Then the waiting started. Since my father used his discount, our new car would not be built until the production numbers went down. Ford was filling all the full price orders first. So, we didn’t get our new Cougar until the early spring. It was worth the wait. The car turned out beautiful. It had the velour seats, and was pretty much fully loaded. There were so many positive comments about the car, my folks were glad they bought it. A very reliable car, the only thing we didn’t care for was the rotten egg smell the catalytic converter produced when the car idled. I eventually inherited the car and I kept it shiny as the day it was new. After a few years I needed something newer with less mileage. I wished I’d kept it though. Was always one of the prettiest cars my folks drove.