A very sweet Mercury Cougar sportsmachine, seen in a car market in Beijing. The good Cougar was in a very good shape, clean and completely original, probably looking better then when it left the factory?.
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The eight generation Mercury Cougar has an extremely short production run, it was only made from 1999 until 2002. Its liftback-coupe Design was a huge departure from all the earlier Cougars, which were far more traditional sedan-based coupes. Sadly, the eight generation was also the last generation Cougar.
The 8th stood on the new CDW27 ‘World Car’ platform, co-developed with Mazda. It underpinned cars like the Mazda 626/Cronos, the Ford Mondeo, the Ford Contour, and the Mercury Mystique.
The Cougar was available with two engines: a 127 hp 2.0 four and a 170 hp 2.5 V6, mated to a five-speed manual or four-speed automatic, sending power to the front wheels. Out red Beijing car is a 2.5 V6 auto.
The interior was in a perfect shape as well, with the original seats and radio. The owner must really like his Cougar. And liking it won’t be easy; the Cougar was never marketed in China so parts and expertise are hard to get.
The seats in the back were actually usable.
The Cougar looks great from the rear, but odd bulbous lights spoil the view. Huge windshield wiper. The license plate area is far too small for the Chinese license plate, indicating this Cougar was originally sold in the United States and somehow ended up in China later in its life.
The Mercury brand was sadly killed in 2011, but Ford retains the rights to the name, so perhaps one day in the future the Cougar will return. Hopefully with something more powerful than that 2.5 V6…
May this old Mercury live long. And yes, that is a Nissan Vanette in the background. More on that car in a later post.
Have you sen a similar Mercury in China? Show us! You can now upload your own images in the comments.