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let just say it was a maroon 1989 mercury tracer that got me through my freshmen year in commuity college. it was ugly but it was great on gas but I had a 45 minute freeway commute there and back and the 3-speed was terrible because the little 1.6 liter motor was screaming at 65mph.
my ego got the best of me and I traded it for a 1983 ford bronco with a 351 windsor, holly 4bbl and a C4 3-speed auto tranny that got 10 mpg it really cut into my beer budget in college but that was probably a good thing LOL.
I had one of these a few years ago. Only mine had a Mazda badge, a turbocharger, and AWD. And it was heavily modified to crank out about 185 HP. Surprised a few WRXs with that little hunk of rust.
I bought an '03 Grand Marquis last October ('09) with only 45,000 miles on it as an extra car and really appreciate the room, comfort, gas milage and adequate power for a good price.
I added a 21mm rear swaybar from a Mercury Marauder to beef up the handling.
Also ran a 16.7 1/4 mile at Island Dragway. That's with a 2:73 rear axle.
My father was always a Ford or Mercury guy, and he owned two Mercurys; a 68 Cougar XR7, and a 75 Grand Marquis station wagon. Not much in common with those two! I remember that the Cougar had a black leather interior, the first in a car of ours, but what I really remember is the vast bulk of the wagon. That car, in brown (!!) no less, was immense, and you could haul some very large items in it's cavernous rear. I distinctly remember driving it and being amazed how floaty the suspension was, and how the power steering gave virtually no road feel. Not untypical of 70's American cars, in what was probably the nadir for quality and performance, at least after 1971-72.
1962 Comet. 6cyl, 3 on the tree manual trans. Got it in '78 from my grandfather who had driven it daily since new. Sometime late in '78 I started customizing it with my dad, putting '60 Falcon front sheetmatal on it, and new paint. here's me and my dad working on it:
Unfortuantely I don't have any photos of it finished. I'm sure the negatives are around somewhere, but one of my old photo albums vanished in a move back in '96 and a lot of pictures of my older cars are gone. Of course, back in '78, it was simply an old car and not even slightly cool, so I traded it off for a 429 powered Torino GT. Always wanted to revisit it, however, and do it right.
In the '80s, I had a couple of '73 Capris, one stock, the other an ex SCCA road racer that I used for autocross. Very fast little car with a built 2.7 liter V6 and Rokstock suspension parts. My folks had a '76 Capri II that they ended up taking the engine out of and putting into their '73 Pinto wagon along with the 5 speed. Ended up witha pretty quick little car.
Fast forward many years, and I bought a '63 Comet S22 fastback:
which I still have, though after finding my current convertible, I'm going to be giving the S22 to my niece as her first car.
My current '63, and the reason for my username:
And where it's going:
Got the body bits gathered finally, the engine is sitting here waiting for it's 5 speed trans, and the chassis has begun. It's also getting the '60 Falcon sheetmetal in front, full custom interior, and for motive power I have a Lexus 1UZFE 4.0 liter DOHC V8 to replace the stock 260 cid V8.
Got the body bits gathered finally, the engine is sitting here waiting for it's 5 speed trans, and the chassis has begun. It's also getting the '60 Falcon sheetmetal in front, full custom interior, and for motive power I have a Lexus 1UZFE 4.0 liter DOHC V8 to replace the stock 260 cid V8.
Wow! Impressive engine, though I'd probably kept it more "in country" with a nice 289 with, perhaps, three 48 IDA Webers on top. A tuning nightmare of course.
My university pal had an original Cougar "S" (? if it really had an "S". Maybe it was a "GT")), the one with those troublesome fold-down headlight covers. 289 engine with 4bbl. Not sure what year that would be: very late '60s? '70s? It was the model that was used in the Trans Am road race courses (Ah the good old days' Mark Donahue & his Camaro's, the factory AMCs with Bartz-built engines in them.
As far as I know, it's still sitting in his bad yard up in Canada. There's another one here in my town with well over 300,000 miles on it! Regular maintenance, huh?
I also liked the small swoopy/wedge-shaped "Cougars" I think they were called, in the '90s. If you took care of the water pump "issue" and tuned up the suspension with springs, shocks and good tires (which does NOT mean 30 series with 20" rims. That concept's so atrocious and overdone today! Anyone else agree?), you'd have a nice competent road car.
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BTW, is the Fiat for sale? You seem to have some interesting stuff parked around there, incl. the "Q" Ship* Soo-Bee Turbo. Probably not the best car to buy from a young guy, used (it will have been beaten on, over-revved, thrashed and generally worn out.) but new, bought by a senior cit. like me (>62.... "Whazzattyousay sonneee???"). Remove all the badges, buy it in "dirty asphalt" silver and let it accumulate some road haze, and then say to the HP officer...
"Why no, officer, I wasn't going 145 mph! I'm on my way to church, but... you should'a seen that young kid that passed me just a minute ago, in a car that looked a lot like this one. But high speed SCARES me officer... my heart you know! Matter of fact, my chest is tightening up right now...."
*Q Ships: WW-II vessels with the outward appearance of a freighter, but with a load of guns hidden on board to surprise the opposition.
I want them both! I have oh $8k or $10k in my piggy bank. Can I dad? Can I?
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Reminiscing
