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Junkyard Gem: 1972 Mercury Cougar XR-7

Starting with the 1939 model year and continuing through 2011, the rule in Dearborn was that most Ford models would get a dressed-up sibling wearing Mercury badges (and Canadians even got Mercury F-100s and Econolines). When the Mustang first hit showrooms in 1964, the countdown for a Mercurized version began. That car, the Cougar, debuted as a 1967 model marketed as "the man's car." Today's Junkyard Gem is a much-abused example of the early-1970s Cougar, found in a San Francisco Bay Area car graveyard a while back. Just as the Mustang packed on weight and price as the 1960s became the 1970s, the even more heavily gingerbreaded Cougar did the same. For 1971 through 1973, the Cougar was still based on the Mustang chassis but weighed several hundred additional pounds and was more than seven inches longer. The curb weight for this car was 3,298 pounds, versus 2,941 pounds for the lightest '72 Mustang coupe. Yes, there's a Mustang underneath all that chrome! When the Mustang went to a modified Pinto chassis starting in the 1974 model year, the Cougar moved over to the midsize Torino platform and stayed there until it rejoined the Mustang on the Fox platform for 1980 (though the honor of being the Mustang's near-twin went to the Mercury Capri at that point). For 1989, the Cougar became an MN12 Thunderbird sibling, where it remained through its 30th anniversary … and then the Cougar got the axe. The Cougar story wasn't done at that point, however, because the name got revived in 1999 with a Mondeo-based version that lasted through 2002 and bears the distinction of being one of the few Mercury models with no corresponding Ford-badged counterpart. Along the way, there were Cougar sedans and even station wagons, with the curb weight of the heaviest-ever Cougar bloating to well over two tons (the winner of that honor is the 1977 Cougar Villager wagon, scaling in at an astounding 4,482 pounds). In 1972, though, all new Cougars were coupes or convertibles, and all of them came with factory V8 power. The build tag on this one tells us that it was assembled at the River Rouge compound in Dearborn and sold via the Kansas City sales office. That tells us that someone drove this car to California after buying it in the Midwest; Ford also built 1972 Cougars in San Jose, so California Mercury shoppers would have bought locally-produced ones. It's a top-end XR-7 in Medium Bright Yellow paint, with the interior in Medium Ginger.

The 1965 Ford Mustang could have looked a lot different

The 1965 Ford Mustang is unquestionably an automotive design icon, and nearly every generation of Mustang has some connection to that original car. Because it's such a universally-known vehicle, we were amazed to see all the different designs that were being considered. Head of Ford's archives Ted Ryan recently shared photos of design proposals for the original Mustang on Twitter that he and Jamie Myler found, and we reached out to them to find out more. As Ryan initially noted, the photos were taken on August 19, 1962, and they are proposals for the Ford Mustang. Apparently Ford had committed to doing a Falcon-based youth-oriented car at this point, and it did have plans to launch the car in 1964 for the 1965 model year. But after having little success with early design proposals, the company asked all of its design studios — the Advanced Studio, Lincoln-Mercury Studio and Ford Studio — to submit proposals. With only about two years before the planned launch, Ford was understandably short on time, and it's believed that the studios only had a month to create and present these designs. Lincoln-Mercury design proposal View 8 Photos The majority of the designs, a total of five, came from the Advanced Studio, and part of this was because they already had a couple of concept designs in reserve it could present. Two other models representing three design possibilities came from Lincoln-Mercury, and just one model with two options came from Ford. The Advanced Studio proposals are shown in the gallery at the very top of this article, and the Lincoln-Mercury and Ford proposals are in the gallery directly above this paragraph. The Advanced Studio's most radical design is the one that was clearly related to the Mustang I concept that would be shown later that year with huge wraparound rear glass, turbine-inspired bumpers and enormous side scoops. The other proposals from the studio were more conservative, featuring simple lines, grilles reminiscent of the Falcon, and one even borrowing the jet-thruster-style taillights made famous on the Thunderbird. Lincoln-Mercury had some impressively bold designs, particularly its fastback that had buttresses to extend the shape all the way to the tail. This car had two different side trim possibilities. The other Lincoln-Mercury design was toned down a bit, but had two interesting possibilities for side detailing, as well as some crisp, low-profile tail fins.

Mercury rises around sexy Cougar pack

With a slightly larger body and a more luxurious interior, the Mercury Cougar doesn't carry quite as much cachet among pony car enthusiasts as the venerable Ford Mustang. But don't try to make that argument around Cougar super-fan Mike Brown. Since starting his Cougar collecting in 1988, Brown has become an absolute expert on the model, and he claims to have owned 400 of the Mercury pony cars in that time. Ten of them are in his collection today, not to mention a heap of spare parts in the garage. Check out some of the rarer members of Brown's fleet and allow him to tell you about them in this interesting interview from Electric Federal.