Autocar first drive....

R

RossUK

Forum user
Nov 14, 2015
28
28
Eastbourne
Just got the above of the Cougar magazine. Dated April 1998. If anyone interested I could upload the review to read via scans of the pages. Good review, definitely worth a read by enthusiasts.

If this in wrong place feel free to delete or move....
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If anyone wants the jpg's emailed over for clearer reading just let me know....

Enjoy

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Thanks for uploading this made a very interesting read (y)

What confused me is there is no EGR valve on the engine picture of the engine, I thought the only reason we had this on our UK versions was because of the USA ?
 
dandamano said:
Thanks for uploading this made a very interesting read (y)

What confused me is there is no EGR valve on the engine picture of the engine, I thought the only reason we had this on our UK versions was because of the USA ?
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I can see one Dan; the silver disc partly obscuring the view of the IAC valve, behind the throttle and cruise control cables.
 
This is really interesting, and definitely places the Cougar as a product of her time.

With that said, it's truly humbling at how she can almost meet modern expectations. She doesn't have the power of a modern Diesel and can't brake as hard, but she's still relevant.

And her design doesn't quite fit the likes of VAG or modern Ford, but I simply don't see her as an anachronism. People think she's a baby Jaguar. I'm okay with that.
 
Mako said:
This is really interesting, and definitely places the Cougar as a product of her time.

With that said, it's truly humbling at how she can almost meet modern expectations. She doesn't have the power of a modern Diesel and can't brake as hard, but she's still relevant.

And her design doesn't quite fit the likes of VAG or modern Ford, but I simply don't see her as an anachronism. People think she's a baby Jaguar. I'm okay with that.
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I agree. It's a one off in terms of mass car production I think. It's not trying to be the fastest or the best selling. However, I think Ford we're trying desperately to recover ground from the failure (imo) of the Probe.

Though it's nice to see the Cat did a lot better over the pond.

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RossUK said:
I agree. It's a one off in terms of mass car production I think.
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I wish no disrespect, but I think you're wrong. There were plenty of capable coupes at the time, including the Alfa GTV. They just lost their market and Ford might've messed up their timing. I worked for one of the primary Coupe consumers at the time (high street banks!) and frankly, the manufacturers saw the writing on the wall. Everything was 4-door saloons suddenly.

RossUK said:
It's not trying to be the fastest or the best selling. However, I think Ford we're trying desperately to recover ground from the failure (imo) of the Probe.
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You may well have a point here if you're solely talking about the Cougar. But the Probe had a strong buyership and didn't really depend on fleet sales.

What you are seeing is people in a purchasing position who found themselves far more restricted.





Though it's nice to see the Cat did a lot better over the pond.
 
I guess, I don't know the selling figures for the Probe and I know the Cat probably didn't do much better most likely. But you mention the 4 door saloons and you've got a point. It was all BMW 3 series and the like. I hadn't thought of that. Though I think the Cougar being over priced didn't help.

I'm 40 and all my mates think I'm nuts having two Cougars, they like the car when in one but their opinion when they came out very quickly formed the opinion it was an old man's car going through midlife crisis. And in my circles anyway it's never lived that down. Their loss.

The advert probably didn't help [emoji2]

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Courtesy of Wikipedia:

"Ford had been hoping to sell around 20,000 Probes each year in Britain as the car market recovered from the effects of the recession from 1992, but in the three years it was sold there, a total of just over 15,000 were sold - around a quarter of the projected figure for that length of time. By February 2016, just 718 examples of the Probe were still in use in Britain."

If those figures are correct that was about 4000 more than Cougar sales and over a shorter period.
 
Quicksilver said:
Courtesy of Wikipedia:

"Ford had been hoping to sell around 20,000 Probes each year in Britain as the car market recovered from the effects of the recession from 1992, but in the three years it was sold there, a total of just over 15,000 were sold - around a quarter of the projected figure for that length of time. By February 2016, just 718 examples of the Probe were still in use in Britain."

If those figures are correct that was about 4000 more than Cougar sales and over a shorter period.
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Wow I'm amazed it sold less. Guess I just had more confidence in it! I stand corrected though. Be interesting to see how many Cougars still on the road too.

And the Probe was hideous looking compared to its replacement! But beauty is obv the eye of the beholder I suppose.

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RossUK said:
153 C2's. WTF!

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To be fair thats 50% of them still going according to the figures on the site after the peak of 343

Now compare that to the 1.3k V6 c1 that are left to the peak of 7.1k thats nearly 6k of them gone...
 
Basically, Forget Mazda.
Ford had a wave of brainfarts: They had a classic in the Capri (y), but when sales eventually dropped they ceased production and had soddall to replace it so, they brought in a genius board of directors to reincarnate the Capri. Remedy: PROBE :eek: erm........hang about, this is no good, bin the PROBE and introduce PROBE mk2 (y).........erm hang on, PROBE #1 was a brainfart so why will PROBE mk2 be any better? erm.... OK, sod it, give that one to our US Mercury guys and we can wash our hands then when it bombs, it's not our fault, blame Mercury division for producing crap old fashioned out of touch cars and when all the yanks realise it's front wheel drive, they **** themselves laughing, Mercury get a lashing in the press and BINGO, Shut the F****** down (y).

SORTED!

So Mercury take on this crap new car from the Bossman and instead of putting it into the PROBE market they decide to add it to their COUGAR line, yes, the first and the last front wheel drive euro type Mercury Cougar :angel:
but wait! :stop:, hang on a minute :D.... people are buying this thing :LOL:, are they nuts? What? FORD want it back!!! so they can sell it in Europe?...and stick FORD badges on it?....WTF??? Sorry, no debate son. FORD get their MK2 PROBE back with a COUGAR badge stuck on it and I think we pretty much know the rest so...what next?
Hell of a lot of brainfarts in their somewhere ;)
 
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