Ford Cougar (Europe)

Not to be confused with the Ford Kuga

The Ford Cougar was a large coupé car sold in the European market between 1998 and 2002. The car was named after a famous American muscle car from the Ford stable, the Mercury Cougar. It was originally intended to be the third generation Probe, but after a rationalisation of the three coupés available in the United States, the Probe name was dropped in favour of the Cougar.

History

The Cougar was Ford's second attempt to reintroduce a sports coupé in Europe, in the same vein as the successful but long-absent Capri – the first attempt having been the Mazda MX-6-based Probe. Just as the Capri had been based on the Cortina, the Cougar was based on the large family car available at the time, the Mondeo. It premiered in December 1998 to mixed reviews, partly due to the then-new and controversial New Edge styling[1] - a crisp style which was subsequently applied to most of the Ford range. Unlike its famous forebear the Capri, Cougar sales were never brisk, despite good reports of the model as a "driver's car".

Like its (indirect) predecessor, the Ford Probe, the 1998 Cougar was sold and built in the United States, Although cars destined to be sold in Europe and the UK were finished in Ford's Koln plant in Germany where the cars had european spec lighting installed, Ford badges applied and in the case of UK cars, converted to Right Hand Drive, in the US it had different branding; in this case being branded as the Mercury Cougar while in Europe it was known as the Ford Cougar.

In the United Kingdom, Ford unveiled the car at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in 1998.

The television advertisements featured the silver model driven by Dennis Hopper.[2]

Technical

Mechanical

The Cougar came equipped with the 2.0 litre (16v) Zetec and 2.5 litre (24v) Duratec V6 engines with two specification levels, largely equivalent to a Mondeo Ghia (standard) and Ghia X (simply X).[3] Manual and automatic transmissions were available for the 2.5 model. All variants came with 16" alloy wheels as standard.