COUGAR LOVE
Alyn Edwards talks with a couple brought together by a classic
Scott Ferguson’s first car as a teenager was a beater of a 1968 Cougar. “The price was $600 and the owner threw in the snow tires for an extra $42,” he recalls.
Scott would graduate to have several more examples of the sporty car from Ford’s Lincoln-Mercury division. He now owns a 1968 Cougar XR–7 GT and a very rare 1968 XR7–G, named for the team captain of the Mercury Cougar Trans Am racing team of that era, Dan Gurney.
Heather Whitaker’s neighbour bought a first-edition Cougar new in 1967 with the sequential rear turn signals.
“It was love at first sight,” she says of the car.
Heather has had her own Cougar — a bright yellow 1969 XR–7 convertible — for 33 years.
Heather and Scott are both long-standing members of the Fordnutz Cougar Club of which Scott is president and Heather is events coordinator.
Heather lost her husband to cancer in 2003. Scott and his fellow club members rallied around her. When her husband was alive, they would convoy to car meets together with Heather’s yellow Cougar flanked by Scott’s Green XR7 (pre-cursor to the G) and a red 1965 Ford Custom owned by another club member.
“We were like a traffic light — green, yellow and red,” Heather recalls.
At her husband’s funeral, Scott drove his green Cougar and a fellow club member brought his red car, leaving a space where the Whitakers’ yellow convertible would normally be.
“That was so special and it touched me deeply,” Heather recalls.
Scott and other club members worked to keep Heather involved in the club after her husband’s death.
“Scott helped me through a very difficult time in my life and we got to know each other well,” Heather says.
Scott’s mother was subsequently diagnosed with terminal cancer. Heather and Scott grew closer and their strong friendship deepened.
Now they have been a couple for about 10 years and they show their classic Cougars together, side by side.
Heather’s first-year Cougar convertible looks like it just left the factory in its Maverick Grabber Yellow colour (changed from its original medium metallic green by a previous owner), with options such as console, tilt-away steering, power ventilation and tinted glass.
Alongside Heather’s convertible, displayed with 150 other collector Ford products at the Ford, Shelby, Cobra show at Surrey’s Hallmark Ford, is Scott’s ultrarare Cougar XR7–G.
The XR7–G was an option package introduced in the spring of 1968. The first 198 cars off the assembly line bearing the XR7–G insignia were destined for the Hertz Rent-ARacer program.
All these cars were equipped with 390-cubic-inch engines and offered Hertz rental car customers a high-performance driving experience.
Scott’s Dan Gurney signature Cougar rolled off the assembly line sometime after the Hertz cars.
It was delivered to the E.A. Mock and Sons Lincoln Mercury dealership in Eugene, Oregon, where the first owner took it off the lot for $5,657.82.
This was a well-optioned Cougar with the XR7-G package, which included air conditioning, leather bucket seats, a unique centre console with switches to operate Lucas fog lamps, and the optional electric sun roof.
Other special features included “running cat” engine valve covers, a unique fibreglass hood scoop and hood locking pins, special badging, unique exhaust extensions exiting through the rear valance and special “spider web” Radir wheels.
Although Scott’s car was originally white with a red interior, the third owner had it restored, clad in striking Madras Blue paint with a parchment vinyl roof and interior.
The XR7–G program was assigned to Shelby Automotive of Los Angeles, with 3,000 cars to be built during the latter part of the 1968 model year and into 1969.
Inexplicably, Lincoln-Mercury cancelled the program for 1969 after only 619 special-order XR7-G Cougars were built.
Scott first saw his car at a show in Seattle 15 years ago. He was already a Cougar XR7–G devotee and had purchased one that had originally been sold in the B.C. interior city of Trail. But it needed restoration.
He kept in touch with the Seattle owner of the beautifully restored XR7–G. Then the car popped up for sale on the Cougar Registry without any contact information. Scott knew who the owner was and unhesitatingly paid his $34,000 asking price.
If you encounter a rare pair of Cougars on display, chances are you will meet Scott and Heather, a couple who were brought together by friendship and shared passion for their cars.