By
Mike Bumbeck
—
Updated
in Classics, Hemmings Classic Car, Magazine
Enjoying the old-car experience with a 1979 Mercury XR-7 that’s been driven just 10,000 miles
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Big Three badge engineering was in overdrive in 1979. The lines between American marques continued to blur, and Mercury was no exception. In 1977, there was even a Cougar station wagon, which looked similar to the Ford LTD station wagon. However, all was not lost at the Mercury division when it came to intermediate performance-oriented coupes for the 1979 model year.
The Cougar stood fast in the personal luxury segment amid the mid-size Fox-bodied Zephyr and Maverick-based Monarch, as well as the king-size Marquis.
The Cougar had undergone a redesign for 1977, losing the sweeping fuselage style and gaining sharper lines, including a comparatively straight beltline when viewed in profile. Competitive cars above the Cougar in the corporate umbrella included the Ford Thunderbird, shrunken from its previous Continental size into the intermediate slot to compete directly against the Cougar. Competition from the other automakers included the Buick Regal, which introduced a turbocharger to its V-6 engine for V-8-level horsepower; the over-the-top Dodge Magnum XE; last of the rear-wheel-drive Oldsmobile Cutlass Supremes; and the Pontiac Grand Prix.
Even in its last year, with few changes made, the Cougar XR-7 made up for almost 25 percent of Mercury Division production, and well over 163,000 examples were purchased by those buyers looking to get performance and style in a single package. The XR-7 designation was reserved for the top-shelf Cougar, and only when it was in coupe guise. Standard features put the XR-7 into the “loaded” category. A flight bench front seat with fold-down center armrest, cut pile carpeting, electric clock, deluxe steering wheel and courtesy lamps were punctuated with simulated baby burl walnut trim appliques inside. An XR-7-specific sound package belted out the hits.
The Cougar hood ornament was complemented by a landau vinyl roof with opera windows as part of the C pillar. Rounding out the XR-7’s standard features were body side paint stripes, special XR-7 wheel covers and radial tires, power steering and front disc brakes, and a specially tuned “ride-engineered” suspension, which included front and rear anti-roll bars.
Our feature car is a 1979 Cougar XR-7 finished in Medium Dark Orange Metallic (code 5N) and powered by the optional 151-hp, 351-cu.in. Windsor V-8 engine. Other options on this example include the Select-Shift three-speed automatic transmission, tinted glass and rear-window defroster.
This particular Cougar was sold from Harold Nye Ford-Mercury-Lincoln in Oneida, New York, to its first owner, who lived in nearby Utica. Its second owner just happened to be John Cox, a longtime friend of the Cougar’s current and careful caretaker, Jack Storandt Jr., who took ownership on his birthday in 2013. Jack and the Cougar currently reside in Palm City, Florida.
The Cougar had spent all of its previous existence in upstate New York, but was always carefully stored during winter before any salt hit the roads, not to be taken out until spring and only after the rains had cleansed the highways of steel-eating calcium chloride. After the first owner had died, John bought the all-original Mercury from his estate.
After his wife of over 40 years had passed away, Jack explains: “I wanted to do something that wasn’t what my wife and I had been doing for 42 years. I wanted a different life. I can’t replace her, and I can’t do things that we did. I wanted something different.” So his old friend John sold him the Cougar after vouching for its incredible original condition. Jack says, “I knew if John said the car was in good shape, then it certainly was.” Truth is, this has got to be one of the most authentic, lowest mileage 1979 Cougar XR-7 in existence. Its odometer only recently rolled past the 10,000-mile mark, and everything about it is 99 percent original, including every square inch of the factory-applied paint, upholstery, chrome, etc.
After the Cougar had been shipped to Florida in an enclosed trailer, Jack had his trusted mechanic get it in top-running condition. The carburetor was completely rebuilt, the spark plug wires replaced with an original equipment set, and the power steering pump, tires and battery were also replaced. The spark plugs, however, were perfect. In fact, the car was running so smoothly that these plugs were returned to their spots in the cylinder heads. The dual exhaust system was previously installed, and Jack reports the car performs well above average and sounds great.
Cutting-edge electronics from FoMoCo circa 1979 may have been high-tech then, but are suspect years later, especially when it comes to the ignition module. Finding an NOS replacement was a bit of a challenge. Even when new, these components were prone to malfunctioning, and the first ignition module lived up to that reputation, failing immediately. The second one has so far held up. Any other things that were fixed, such as leaking engine seals, were a result of the car not being driven regularly. The brakes were near perfectly broken in.
Jack gets the car professionally detailed inside and out and keeps the car stored in a garage in between regular cleanings. He uses Mother’s California Gold car wash and Turtle Wax ICE detailing spray for a quick on and off adjustment, as well as another Turtle Wax ICE product for the vinyl top. The top is striking and as original as the rest of the car, so Jack takes extra care to preserve the material. Black Magic Bleche Wite and Armor All keep the tires cleaned and Rain-X works for the windshield. Mud flaps came off after the AACA judges determined that they were not original, which meant a little more cleanup here and there.
Everything is back to original, and Jack has a plan to keep it that way. He runs the engine every week whether or not he’s going anywhere, and drives it at least twice a month to local car shows, events, or just out for fun, all according to a carefully calculated mathematical formula. The Cougar has logged just over 10,000 miles since 1979, so Jack figures that if he drives it about 24 miles per month, he’ll stay within the same range of what it had been driven in its time on earth before he became the proud owner. While Jack may not go far in his travels, every mile delivers a lot of good times per gallon.
The orange hue of the Cougar was listed as a “glamour” color, and Jack reports that the ladies do indeed like the look of the car, but are more impressed by how it rides. Jack recently took his neighbor for a ride, and she said it was so comfortable she could ride in the car all the way to New York. The entire powertrain is as smooth as one would expect with so few miles and with such careful caretaking. Jack says jokingly that the car rides so smooth and runs so strong that he has a bit of a problem on the highway. “I don’t have cruise control. I look down and I’m doing 95. ‘Just because you’re driving on Interstate 95,’ the trooper said, ‘doesn’t mean you can drive 95 miles an hour.’”
Joking aside, Jack drives the car at legal speeds and gets accolades at every location he travels to, even if it’s not a car show. He recently took the Cougar to the Hawaiian island tiki-themed Dolphin Bar & Shrimp House in nearby Jensen Beach, a fine-dining establishment once owned by the late American singer and entertainer Frances Langford. Jack emerged from the Dolphin with pals to see a man driving backward towards where they were standing. The man had been looking at the Cougar XR-7 while Jack was eating, and was returning to the restaurant to tell Jack that the Cougar was in fact the nicest car he had ever seen.
The same phenomenon occurs wherever Jack goes in the Cougar. As a member of the AACA and the Treasure Coast Vintage Car Club, Jack gets out to as many shows as he can. The Cougar took First Junior at the AACA National Winter Meet in Port Saint Lucie, Florida, earlier this year as well as a Best in Class at the Elliott Museum show in Stuart. Jack bought the car to show and have some fun and figures that a few wins and a lot of good times make for a pretty good first year of collector car ownership.
People sometimes confuse the Cougar with a Thunderbird of the same era, which is an honest case of mistaken identity, considering the rampant badge engineering of the time and the somewhat similar lines between the two. Jack’s other car is a 2013 Buick Regal, which he says is hard to compare to the Mercury. “It’s got a turbo. I step on it and go to the back seat!” Yet the Mercury is way out ahead of other classics he has owned like a 1955 and ’59 Ford. “I don’t think I’ve ever had another Ford that can compete with this one. This is exactly what it is; the XR-7 was the top cat. A lot of people will look at this one and think it’s a Thunderbird or a Continental. This is the big boy. I found that out just by handling and driving it,” says Jack.
Longtime-friend John Cox is still involved with the car, and stays in touch with it through his relationship with Jack. Jack is satisfied with the Cougar as the sole and stylish automobile representative of his collector car hobby. “One car is plenty of car, especially when there is as much car as there is in the Mercury Cougar XR-7.” Jack says he plans on keeping the car in original condition, but that there might come a time when he lets the lease run out on his Buick Regal and runs the Mercury Cougar XR-7 as his daily driver–even if that would throw his mathematical formula out a little bit.
