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Junkyard Gem: 1981 Mercury Cougar XR-7

The story of the Mercury Cougar involves more plot twists and unexpected digressions than that of just about any other Detroit car, with successive Cougar generations based on the Ford Mustang (1967-1973), the Ford Torino and/or Thunderbird (1974-1979), various Fox Fords including the Thunderbird (1980-1988), the MN12 Thunderbird/Lincoln Mark VIII (1989-1997), and the Ford Mondeo (1999-2002). There were wagon and sedan Cougars for brief periods, just to confuse everybody, and the rakish XR-7 Cougars sometimes lived on different platforms from their ordinary non-XR-7 counterparts. I think the Late Malaise Era Fox XR-7s are among the most interesting of the bunch, so I was quite excited to spot this tan-over-gold '81 in a Denver yard. I tried to count the number of screaming-cat badges on and in this car and gave up once I hit a dozen. The steering wheel, door panels, C pillars, center console, and — of course — the hood ornament all boast snarling felines. Earlier Cougars had emblems showing full side views of stalking catamounts, but the Cougar logo for the 1980s showed just the head. This car got the optional center console, which I hear is quite a rarity. You had to pay $174 extra (that's around $513 in 2020 dollars) for an AM/FM/cassette audio system in the '81 Cougar, but at least the air conditioning was standard equipment. Believe it or not, thieves used to steal these radios. Kumpf Lincoln-Mercury still exists in Englewood (as Landmark Lincoln), and the yard that now houses this car can be found just 15 miles up Broadway on the north side of Denver.  The padded landau roof hasn't fared so well beneath the fierce Colorado sun, but overall this car seems very solid. Sadly, only the Mustangs and (once in a long while) Fairmonts get much love from the Fox Ford crowd these days. Three Mercury "wire wheel" hubcaps and one from a Lincoln. The base engine in the 1981 XR-7 was the "Thriftmaster" 200-cubic-inch (3.3-liter) straight-six, but very few XR-7 buyers would have refrained from checking the box for one of the two optional Windsor V8s. I can't tell if we're looking at the 255-cubic-inch (4.2-liter) version or the 302-cubic-inch (5.0-liter) one here, but real-world drivers might not have noticed the difference between the 120-horse 255 and the 130-horse 302, anyway. The non-XR-7 Fox Cougars had five-speed manual transmissions as base equipment (which nobody wanted), but all 1981 XR-7s had automatics.

Junkyard Gem: 1995 Mercury Tracer Trio

With the rise of Radwood, cars with exaggerated characteristics associated with the 1980s and 1990s are cool again. That means some combination of pastel and/or neon colors, squiggly squeezed-from-toothpaste-tube graphics, nonfunctional decklid spoilers, giant TURBO badging, and kicky youth-centric nomenclature are required if you want your wheels to be considered in compliance with the sacred tenets of Radism. I do my best to find rad machinery while crawling around in car graveyards, and since I came of driving age in 1982 I know a bit about the subject. Today's rare Junkyard Gem shows us the Mercury Division's belated attempt to sell fun cars to rad-leaning youngsters: a Tracer Trio, found in a Denver yard a few weeks back. The Trio package added 310 bucks to the cost of the $11,280 base Tracer sedan (that's about $575 on a $20,925 car in 2022 dollars), and it got the hip-and-trendy young buyer a leather-wrapped steering wheel, seven-spoke wheels, a decklid spoiler and these rad fender badges. I'm going to say that the much louder graphics and candy-cane-colored displacement badges on the Pontiac Sunbird W25 out-radded the Tracer Trio by a mile, but then Pontiac generally out-radded everyone in those days. Even Plymouth got into the act with such radness as the Breeze Expresso and Sundance Duster (we'll overlook the anti-rad Horizon Miser here). Perhaps tellingly, Mercury, Pontiac and Plymouth all got the "Old Yeller" treatment not long after the Rad Era ended. The Tracer name always went on Mercuries built on Mazda platforms, starting with the Australia-built, Ford Laser-based 1987-1989 cars and then continuing with Mexico-assembled, Ford Escort-based 1991-1996 cars. That generation of Escort/Tracer was mechanical twins with the Mazda Protege, itself the bridge between the 323 and the Mazda3. Some Tracers got the a 1.8-liter Mazda engine that was related to the Miata's engine, but this one has the pure-Detroit CVH 1.9. You're looking at 88 horsepower right here; the Mazda 1.8 offered 127 horses. At least the original buyer of this car got the base five-speed manual transmission instead of forking over $815 extra (about $1,510 today) for the four-speed slushbox. As a 29-year-old slacker living in San Francisco's Mission District and driving a hooptie '65 Chevy Impala sedan at the time, I would have taken the manual transmission without the Trio package, had I been forced to buy a new Tracer.

Auto Show Notebook: Legendary Continental name inspired Lincoln's designers

What's in a name? A lot for the Continental concept, and it gave Lincoln designers a sense of purpose as they styled the brand's upcoming flagship sedan. "The moment that we told them, it was amazing," Lincoln president Kumar Galhotra said. "They totally got it." "It" is cutting-edge technology wrapped in stately, large-sedan design. It's a nod to Lincoln's storied past, but a signpost for where the brand is heading. Though the Continental name dates to the late 1930s, Lincoln designers avoided making the concept overtly retro. "You can't let it pull yourself back too far in history, but you've got to design a car that lives up to the name," Galhotra said. Speaking to Autoblog on the floor of the New York Auto Show where the Continental formally debuted Wednesday, the Lincoln president reiterated that the car is on track to launch in 2016. It will compete against the Audi A6, Lexus GS, BMW 5 Series and other large luxury sedans. After its debut, the concept in New York will fly to China – another critical market for Lincoln – for display there. It will be replaced in New York by a prototype without an interior. The Continental is the latest high profile play by Lincoln to raise its image with consumers, who have either ignored or forgotten about it amid steep competition in the luxury sector from German and Japanese brands and a potentially resilient Cadillac. Lincoln sales are essentially flat compared with 2014 through the first quarter of this year, with total volume of 21,478 units. The middling start to 2015 comes on the heels of nearly 16-percent sales growth last year spurred by the launch of the MKC and the prominent signing of Matthew McConaughey to star in Lincoln advertisements. Other News, Notes & Quotes Speaking of names, Chevrolet did its homework before deciding to proceed with "Malibu" for its new generation of midsize cars. "We went out and researched it," said Alan Batey, president of General Motors North America. "People actually like the name 'Malibu,'" he said. Admittedly, the current Malibu has struggled in the marketplace against entrenched competitors, Batey said, but he's optimistic its awareness and historical value are assets to the dramatically redesigned sedan."The name's strong," he said. Meanwhile, in other Chevy news, the brand kicked off a new marketing campaign, "Real People, Not Actors" Wednesday. It will show consumers interacting with Chevys and their spontaneous reactions to the vehicles.