I assume our audience is at least 97% human, so an awful lot of our content is targeted at that demographic. My apologies, super-intelligent mollusks and crows and the occasional alien. And, as humans, one of the most visually arresting images you can throw at us is a human face. Mercury was clearly going for that here, and then played it safe by throwing in a feline face, too, but what’s notable here is how strange that expression on that woman’s face is. Oh, and then in this brochure I learned something fascinating, too.
First, though, let’s address that top picture. I love the half-ass way the photo compositor tried to imply that oddly-stunned-looking woman has that cougar on a chain. It’s a picture, was it that important to have the chain in there? Unless that’s part of the desired imagery, that a Cougar driver has control of all that pent-up cougar power?
That facial expression just kind of creeps me out; I assume someone told the woman to look sexy, but I’ve rarely seen a more vacant look; the slack jaw, dead eyes – it’s like someone in a trance. It’s creepy.
But! That’s okay, because look at that roof! What do you see? Here’s a close-up of that A-pillar:
See that? Also that woman has a much more engaging expression going on, too. She’s looking at you, and seems to have thoughts happening, about things or ideas, and you could probably get her to react to you without having to clap your hands inches from her face. But back to that roof: it’s houndstooth!
Yes, in 1970, Mercury offered a houndstooth roof, on the cleverly-named Houndstooth Cougar. It’s so cool! If you’re going to cover your roof in vinyl, why not do it in something cooler than a fake leather look? I kind of love this idea.
Also, looks like that cougar is always leashed in these ads. Safety first, I guess?
Legitimately cool. Per Kevin Marti’s book Cougars by the Numbers, Mercury only produced 7,544 Houndstooth Cougars in 1970, 5,066 were Standard Cougars and convertibles, and 2,478 were XR7s and XR7 convertibles.
I had a 1970 Mustang with a houndstooth roof. The next one I ever saw was in a museum about five years ago. I love the look on her face. “It’s good for me? M-kay!”
Actually this campaign was directed at the sentient amoeba community, who are known for their feline fetishes and love of tessellated patterns.
Unfortunately (with the exception of a few wealthy Naegleria), they lack disposable income and cannot be wooed by zombie women, so it’s really a waste of time trying to sell them a car in this manner.
Remember, 1970 in that photo. That face is the look of “mother’s little helper” kicking in.
Not enough drool
A Cougar, (and a second cougar). A chain and collar, and a blank faced woman. And why is her mouth open?
Am I confused here, or are we still talking about cars?
Asking for a friend.
Holy crap, I just had a great idea for a vanity plate for one of these cars: PUMAMAN.
If this ad was produced today, there would be an attorney’s warning:
“Professional cougar trainer. Do not attempt. Do not allow your cougar to be unleashed at any time. Do not transport cougars in your Ford(R) brand product.”
Oh, and a thing about the hide-away headlights on these Cougars, they never lined up correctly when closed. I suppose there was some type of bump stop, but they weren’t set right.
At Ford, Quality is Job… ah, screw it.
Remember, this was in the era of The Stepford Wives. The photo was a secret subtext to those in the know that, if their wife didn’t approve of them buying a Mercury Cougar, they could bring her to the showroom and have her replaced by a mindless, initiative-free automoton who would never disagree with them again. Sure, the movie/documentary didn’t come out until 1972, but the system was in place long before that. What do you think they were really developing in Area 51?
True Fact: Bristol-Myers owned the copyright for the original Stepford Wives for some reason.
It looks like they sedated her instead of the Cougar
I mean, in the 70’s, barbiturates were still the rage..
THERE’S A GOD-DAMNED COUGAR IN THE CAR?!?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYIKdQcqbjI
Send my regards to Lil Sis
“ventless side windows”. How to take away something awesome and make it a feature.
Back then, what did they call the bar between the vent and the main window? The A-and-a-half pillar? The A# pillar?
Often they came to a point so I like A# pillar!
And 1970 was before we had developed the image composition technology necessary to allow background images to show through car windows.
As a matter of fact, I am really into wool houndstooth pants, and have a few pairs at home. However, I think I may have just acquired a new fetish, for Cougars wearing vinyl houndstooth over their sensuous curves. I’m so confused…
So, you could get the houndstooth in two different colors, and you could pair that with a 428 Super Cobra Jet, which is insanely cool.
The look of shock is from the photographer calling her a cougar right before he hit the shutter. He knew he only had so much time before the shock turned to anger. “How old do you think I am, asshole!?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTGouYYCY1M
“I’m barely old enough to be a milf. Stop calling me a cougar young man.”
It looks like the model in the top shot is attempting to mirror the cougar’s expression via instructions from the photographer. Either that, or someone has just asked her a really tough question like ‘what’s your name,’ and she doesn’t have a ready answer.
It also appears from these brochure pictures that Mercury was clearly marketing the Cougar to women, which is mildly interesting because all four of the people I personally knew who drove Cougars were women. I wasn’t aware of this advertising emphasis at the time.
It appears there was some retouching of the photo: note how there seems to be a vertical line between the woman’s right eye and her nose. The face appears be two-tone, which is odd, but it’s especially visible at her chin. The line near the eye is directly above the tone change on the chin, so maybe it’s an artefact of the photo lighting or of the color depth of the scanned image.
And the cat seems to be saying “I CANNOT WORK LIKE THIS!”.
The line continues down through the car as well. I’d suspect the brochure was creased/folded and Torch may have worked some pixel magic to clean it up after scanning.
The way booklets/brochures are printed, the right and left pages would be printed on different areas of the flat paper sheet or on opposite sides of the sheet. Color matching the halves is tricky. Also the grayness one the shadow side of her face is due to the color and printing technology of the day. The lighter the color the lower the percentage of cyan, yellow, magenta and black you’re dealing with, so a fraction of a percent difference can throw things off a lot.
I assumed that this was at one point a magazine ad, and this version is the 2 pages put together.
Alabama Fans on this page are feverishly searching for onw now I imagine. Ricky From Trailer Park Boys should definitely have one as well.
Reminds me of the floral “Mod Tops” available on Barracudas, Darts and a few other Mopar models in ’69 and ’70.
Wasn’t it the default for the Dodge Dart Swinger? I always thought it was a nice counterpoint to the bravado of the Super Bee.
i’m wrong: every photo i just looked at had Swinger’s in either black or white vinyl roofs. I think the daisy emblem dotting the “i” in the Swinger badge messed with my memory.
Can confirm. I had a ’69 Swinger with black vinyl.
Stunning.
My mom bought a 1970 Cougar brand new…white with a houndstooth top. It ended up becoming my dad’s commuter car and we had it until 1982. It was so rusty my brother and I would poke holes in it. I wish I had pictures of it!
I knew a guy in high school who really wanted a Mercury Cougar, and we all teased him about having a thing for Cougars…
But at the same time, I wasted several hours helping him shop for one lol.
One thing we could agree on was that the 67-70 Cougars are some of the prettiest pony cars ever made. I’d personally rather have one without a vinyl roof and brown on brown on browwwnnn, but even with that stuff it succeeds in being elegant. In ’71 they somehow went from having one of the prettiest cars in that segment to having the ugliest, and I’ll never understand why.
Ford really did do a nice job on them, shared the Mustang/Comet/Falcon platform, but they really gave the Cougar its own unique style and a much more upscale interior. Really shows how platform sharing can be done right if you try
The mechanicals and underpinnings of the two cars were mostly the same. The biggest difference between the two platforms was the Cougar was a 3 inch wheelbase stretch.
Yep, and back then it was still considered one of the few “affordable” classic muscle cars you could still find. Nowadays… the word is out, and it costs the same as everything else. There are increasingly few obscure-but-cool cars out there for budget-minded enthusiasts since all the good ones get talked about until they’re no longer obscure enough to be cheap, but at least the search for such vehicles expanded my knowledge of cars and influenced my general taste in things to this day.
Years ago I saw one of these in person and assumed it was the owner who had replaced the vinyl with it and opted for the pattern. TIL it was OEM!
I hate vinyl roofs with a passion, but I have to admit that if you’re going to do something stupid, this is an awesome way to do it!
Yeah it can be a good look, but man they killed so many good cars prematurely.
Agreed on both counts. They suck, but, if you’re gonna do it, lean in on silly & tacky to achieve full awesomenicity
I’d swear we had a shower curtain with the sunflower pattern from the cool Barracuda in the Hagarty article. Ah; nostalgia …