Car of the Week: 1968 Mercury Cougar

dodgechargerfan

CanadianGary
Administrator
IMG_5351.JPG


Louis Franck waited more than 32 years to relive a bit of his youth behind the wheel of a 1968 Mercury Cougar. He may have waited even longer if it hadn’t been for his wife Roslyn.

“I was actually looking for my old Cougar. I had the VIN number and everything. I kept looking and couldn’t find it,” says Franck, a resident of Baltimore. “Finally my wife says, ‘If you can’t find your car, find a replacement.’ I just about fell out of my chair!”

A while later, after Louis had found a car and was wavering over whether he should finally pull the trigger and buy it, his wife stepped in again. “I had been on the phone with the guy who owned it up in Long Island,” Louis recalls. “I was sitting around now knowing if I was going to buy it, and my wife says, ‘If you don’t get back on the phone and buy that car right now, you’re going to regret it, just like you did with your first car!’ So basically I give my wife full credit for buying this car. It was all because of her.”

Franck’s affection for the handsome Mercury pony cars began back in 1967 when he was in the market for new transportation and wound up getting a 1968 Cougar that he drove until about 1976. “I loved the heck out of that car. It was a base 302 model, Diamond Blue … But I got married, got a mortgage, had kids, had bills … The car had some serious miles on it and needed some serious repairs, so needless to say the car had to go,” Franck recalls. “I always thought about getting another one, and then in about ’07 I told my wife that I wanted my old Cougar back. I looked all around and posted on the internet that I was looking for it, but I never found it.

Read more.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tig
My friend's dad has one,but it is beat to shit.
A 75 year old man that thinks he'll get it restored one day.
:facepalm:
 
My wife had one of those as her first car when she was 16. When she was done with it her younger sister got it when she was 16. She promptly ran it through the front of a 7-11.
 
Back in the late 60's the owner of one of the first boutiques in the city would drive around the neighborhood in a purple Cougar. That car was a head turner.
 
Would love to have a restomod '68 with AC, fuel injection, modern suspension/steering, and either a 5 or 6 speed manual.
 
Love it! When I was in 4th-5th grade and lived in RI (not Quahog), the father of the neighborhood delinquents had a dark blue one with big fat tires. Killer car!
 
My mom had a canary yellow 69 cougar when I was a kid. She loved that car, but the crazy gas prices of the mid 70's led to it being traded in on a Ford Pinto wagon. She still occasionally talks about that car. It had a 428 ram air cobra jet motor and a four speed stick.
 
Back
Top