The Best of Both Worlds

Admittedly, my '86 Cougar convertible is its own beast: it is what it is, no false pretenses, take it or leave it. Aside from being probably one of the most unique Fox-chassis Cougars on the planet (or so I'm told), it now has one feature that wasn't factory, but one that certainly enhances the car's unique status.

It's now more Mustang than Cougar.

You read that right. There are more Mustang performance and other functional parts on the car now than original Cougar parts. A quick rundown of the highlights:

• Brakes (13" Cobra in the front, 11.65" Cobra in the back)
• Struts (Bilstein 2000 Cobra R with slightly modified valving)
• Spindles and hubs (SN95 Mustang)
• Brake lines (Russell braided stainless steel, 1994-up Cobra spec)
• A-arms (FRPP 1979-93 Mustang)
• Bump steer kit (Maximum Motorsports, Mustang spec)
• Rims (2000 Cobra R, to be replaced with 2003 Cobra)
• Rear lower control arms (Saleen/Racecraft)
• Sway bars (stock 1995 Mustang GT)
• Engine (from a 1992 Mustang LX)
• Engine dress-up parts (thank you Steeda!)
• Cold-air intake tubes (1987-93 5.0)
• EEC-IV computer (A9L from same '92 LX)
• Heater panel (1995 Cobra R--no a/c markings)
• Front seats (1995 Mustang GT)

There are other little things here and there that I'm probably forgetting, but you can see my point. There's a veritable Mustang parts haven on my Cat. But don't kid yourself: this was careful planning to make sure that I got the best of both worlds.

People sometimes ask me, "Why didn't you just buy a Mustang?" Well shoot, why didn't I think of that sooner?! I can have a unique Mustang JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE! Yeah, maybe a black LX coupe with a 4" cowl hood and Weld Drag Lites. NOBODY has one of those! I mean, pick up a Mustang magazine and you'll never see one like that! And there are hardly any Mustang convertibles out there too!

Sorry, nothing against the Mustang. I have plenty of friends that have them, and they are a pretty fun car, no doubt. But they're not a rare Cougar convertible that saw production of under 100 for that particular model year. Besides, I find perverse pleasure in knowing that Mustangs are a great source for parts that work beautifully on a Cougar.

I think most people buy a Cougar because it's NOT a Mustang. First of all, they don't want what everyone else has, period. They also want a slightly larger and more stable car than a Mustang. They want more room than a Mustang. They want build quality that isn't nearly as sub-par as Mustangs can sometimes have. They want a quiet cabin that's insulated. They want a nice ride without the rear end of the car hopping all over the place. They want luxury that pampers, but also has enough sport to let you feel the road. For us the Cougar and Thunderbird from the 1980's were pretty much the perfect blend of everything, or at least as perfect as you could get at the time (lack of horsepower aside).

But times change, and what we thought was once cutting-edge has now become nearly forgotten by the wayside. Our measly 150hp 5.0 V8 now gets dusted in the power department by $8K entry-level import four-bangers. Our tiny factory 14" rims are smaller than most spare tires nowadays. Our cumbersome, heavy seats have been replaced by lighter and stronger variants. There are days when I think to myself, "It sure would be nice to have a newer car and get some modern-day features for a change."

Well, you can get modern-day upgrades for your Cat. But you have to play the Mustang game if you want to do so. And that also means abandoning some of the things that make your Cougar a Cougar. It's a fine line that, once crossed, makes it nearly impossible to go back. How far you want to go is up to you though. For some people, the 10"-to-11" front brake upgrade using Mustang parts is a pretty logical step. I can't tell you how many people throw larger factory Mustang rims (15", 16", even 17") on their Cat. And people use full Mustang 5.0 exhaust systems on a Cougar or T-Bird all the time.

Granted, we have some inherent problems to overcome. Our cars are heavier than a Mustang--by a few hundred pounds at least. We have an extra few feet of trunk behind the rear wheels, plus the larger gas tank (at least 20.6 gallons, vs. the Mustang's 15) that adds to the weight total. These also hinder the car's overall balance. We have things like column shifters, digital gauges, non-sporty 20:1 steering racks, non-locking 7.5" rear ends with crappy gears, and non-console interiors. We have column-shifter linkage that interferes with an H-pipe install. Hey, nobody said that souping up a Cougar would be easy. But that's the challenge of it all, isn't it---making Mustang parts that were never intended for your Cougar, work on your Cougar?

Thankfully, used Mustang parts are plentiful because there seems to be a certain air about the Mustang crowd that their factory parts aren't any good at all. I mean, how many Mustangs are out there with aftermarket headers, a different cam, a different intake, a different exhaust system, and so on? At some point the factory parts usually get ditched. What a lot of Mustang owners don't realize is that the parts they want to throw away are so much better than the factory parts we started out with! Most Cougar and T-Bird owners would kill for a set of stock E7TE heads. The stock 60mm HO throttle body is like gold to us. And no exhaust system would be complete without a set of factory Mustang headers, right?! The cool thing is, we can use these stock Mustang HO parts almost verbatim and make our engine bays look as if everything there was stock. All the more stealthy for us.

Or you could choose the route that I (and others) did and just go all-out with performance Mustang parts. It's a pretty expensive game, and you do have to know what the hell you're doing. But the results speak for themselves. You get totally kick-ass modern parts, and what's best, a parts reserve for many, many years to come. And I think that's the allure of it all. With almost all factory Fox Cougar parts being discontinued by now, that we can get ANY new parts to work on our cars is a godsend.

Besides...there is nothing better than seeing the look on a Mustang owner's face when you've just toasted them with a luxury-oriented beast of a Cougar. Using THEIR parts.

Until next time,

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