I said it before, and I’ll say it again. The 1970 model year was difficult for the entire automotive space, not just General Motors (which had to deal with a massive strike that eventually impacted the production of several Chevy models).
The muscle car trend was losing ground, with insurance rates going through the roof and making it harder for buyers to remain committed to a concept whose popularity went through the roof during the ’60s.
Mercury’s Cougar is living proof.
Sales of the Cougar dropped to 72,363 units, with the XR-7 also losing ground compared to the previous year. Mercury sold only 18,565 XR-7 hardtops and 1,977 convertibles, with prices also going up significantly. If you wanted an XR-7, you had to spend at least $3,413 for the hardtop and $3,692 for the convertible.
The base engine on the Cougar was the 351 V8 with 300 horsepower, but Mercury offered several options, including the Boss 302, the 428 Cobra Jet with 335 horsepower, and the Super Cobra Jet with 400 horsepower.
The icing on the cake, and the rarest engine on the Cougar, was the Boss 429 with 375 horsepower, albeit it’s believed only two units left the factory with this engine (and it’s unknown where they are today).
The Cougar in these photos is a project whose best part has been altered in the most awful way. It was born with a 428 Cobra Jet engine, but someone swapped it with a 351 Cleveland unit paired with a four-speed transmission. It’s unclear what happened with the Cobra Jet, but the car likely served as a donor – albeit the photos indicate that not too many parts are missing.
This XR-7, whose condition can be observed in the photos shared online by eBay seller scjmustangbob, needs the typical fixes, but before you begin the restoration job, it’s important to understand how rare it is. While an XR-7 hardtop wasn’t very rare, given the production numbers I mentioned earlier, the Marti report indicates that only 274 examples left the factory with the same engine and transmission. It’s also one of 1,549 Cougars with a brown houndstooth vinyl roof.
This Cougar is a fantastic project for someone planning a complete restoration to factory specifications, but I believe that such a job wouldn’t make sense without returning it to the original Cobra Jet engine. The 428 was a fantastic engine for an XR-7, so it’s a shame that it lost the CJ power along the way.
The owner is willing to let the car go to anyone ready to pay $10K, but they also enabled the Make Offer button to keep the door open to negotiations. The car is parked in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.