2008 Mercury Mountaineer Premier Sport Utility 4-door 4.0l on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Junkyard Gem: 1992 Mercury Grand Marquis LS

We've all been seeing the instantly familiar Ford Crown Victoria P71 Police Interceptor on North American roads for what seems like forever, though in fact the very first of the aerodynamic Crown Vics didn't appear until a mere 31 years ago. Yes, after more than a decade of boxy LTD Crown Victorias, Dearborn took the late-1970s-vintage Panther platform and added a brand-new, Taurus-influenced smooth body and modern overhead-cam V8 engine, giving us the 1992 Ford Crown Victoria. The rule was, since 1939, that (nearly) every Ford model needed a corresponding Mercury, and so the Mercury Division applied different grille and taillights and the rejuvenated Grand Marquis was born. Here's one of the first of those cars to be built, now residing in a Denver-area self-service boneyard. The Marquis name goes respectably far back, to the late 1960s and a Mercurized version of the Ford LTD hardtop. The Grand Marquis began life as the name for an interior trim package on the 1974 Marquis Brougham (also LTD-based), eventually becoming a model in its own right for the 1979 model year. Today's Junkyard Gem came off the Ontario assembly line in March 1991, making one of the very first examples built. For 1992 (and through 2011), the Grand Marquis was a Crown Victoria with slightly enhanced bragging rights. This one has the top-grade LS trim, with an MSRP of $20,644 (that's about $44,370 in inflation-adjusted 2022 dollars). The corresponding Ford-badged model (built on the same assembly line by the same workers) would have been the Crown Victoria LX, which actually cost a bit more: $20,987 ($44,910 now). The very cheapest civilian 1992 Crown Vic cost just $19,563 ($42,045 today). There weren't any powertrain differences between the Crown Victoria and Grand Marquis in 1992. The only engine available was this Modular 4.6 SOHC V8, rated at either 190 (single exhaust) or 210 (dual exhaust) horsepower. The transmission was a four-speed automatic with overdrive. How many miles are on this one? Can't say! Based on the worn-out interior, I'm going to guess 221,719 miles passed beneath this car's wheels during its 32-plus years on the road. I've seen some very high-mile Police Interceptors, of course, including one with 412,013 miles, but Ford didn't go to six-digit odometers in the Grand Marquis until a bit deeper into the 1990s. Thanks to flawed speech-to-text applications on smartphones, the Grand Marquis is known as the "Grandma Keith" to many of us today.

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.

Ringbrothers shows off Coyote-powered 1968 Mercury Cougar

We'll openly admit that not every SEMA build is our cup of tea. But this? A tastefully resto-modded 1968 Mercury Cougar with a 460-horsepower Ford Mustang V8? Yeah, this is right in our wheelhouse. Sadly, there was no in-pwerson SEMA show in 2020, so we missed out on gems like this one. SEMA or no SEMA, the aftermarket carries on, and co-owners Jim and Mike Ring of Ringbrothers (get it?) saw no reason to let their time and effort go to waste.  When they're not building wild customs (see: 1,100-horsepower 1972 AMC Javelin AMX) or more subtle showcases (such as this Cougar or their 1971 K5 Chevy Blazer build from 2018), the folks at Ringbrothers crank out factory reproduction parts, whether for old-fashioned restoration or modification purposes. While '60s muscle cars are recurring build subjects for the two, the Cougar was the first of its kind they tackled.  Keeping it in the family, Ringbrothers sourced a Ford 5.0-liter "Coyote" V8 and a 10-Speed Automatic (lifted from an F-150 Raptor, incidentally) for the build. They didn't stop with the driveline, of course. The suspension was overhauled with a little help from DSE and a set of HRE Series C1 C103 Forged 3-Piece wheels were thrown over upgraded brakes.  "We put our heart into each car we build, and this Cougar is no exception," Jim said. "The finished product is mild and classy, yet any enthusiast instantly knows it's not stock. I imagine this is what Mercury designers would have come up with if they were building the Cougar today." "While we couldn't bring the car to the SEMA Show, we hope it can be shown to the public soon," Mike said. "We had never done a Cougar before, so this was a fun build. I love working with new shapes and coming up with new ideas." There's plenty to appreciate about this Cougar apart from the mechanicals, too. The finish is Augusta Green Metallic (courtesy of BASF), which was a factory color in 1968. You may know it by another name: Highland Green. There are a few custom exterior touches, but they're quite subtle and styled to be period-correct. The interior was also restored and updated, and it's where you'll find the only thing we're not fond of: that big, fat truck shifter. Gearbox choices notwithstanding, it's a bit of an eyesore. But considering how gorgeous the rest is, we'll give it a pass.  Related Video: