This Cougar was never meant to be a Cougar — it started life as the next Ford Probe, and only got rebadged to Mercury after Ford pulled the plug on the Probe nameplate.
Lead trim: Base · 4-spd auto · 2.0L · FWD · up to 170 hp
Mercury Cougar6th Gen · 1999–2002
- 0spots by members
- Unclaimednobody has spotted one yet
- 0sets it belongs to
Nobody in Burbles has spotted a Mercury Cougar yet. See one on the street, point the app at it, and the first card is yours — with your @handle permanently credited on this page.
FactThis Cougar was never meant to be a Cougar — it started life as the next Ford Probe, and only got rebadged to Mercury after Ford pulled the plug on the Probe nameplate.
Collectors Spotted in the Mercury Cougar Lineage
No member has published a public street spot of the Mercury Cougar yet — the First · Worldwide stamp is wide open.
Trims & Figures
4 published trims in the catalogue. A blank is a figure not recorded, not zero.
| Trim | Years | Engine | Power | Torque | 0–60 | Drive | Gearbox | MSRP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base · 4-spd auto · 2.0L · FWD | 1999–1999 | 2.0 L Inline-4 | 125 hp | 130 lb-ft | — | FWD | Automatic 4-spd | — |
| Base · 4-spd auto · 2.5L · FWD | 1999–2002 | 2.5 L V6 | 170 hp | 165 lb-ft | — | FWD | Automatic 4-spd | — |
| Base · 5-spd manual · 2.0L · FWD | 1999–2002 | 2.0 L Inline-4 | 125 hp | 130 lb-ft | — | FWD | Manual 5-spd | — |
| Base · 5-spd manual · 2.5L · FWD | 1999–2002 | 2.5 L V6 | 170 hp | 165 lb-ft | — | FWD | Manual 5-spd | — |
Owning one
An estimate, for the Base · 4-spd auto · 2.0L · FWD trim: fuel on its EPA figure and a dated national price, upkeep on a per-mile average for the kind of car it is.
Owners’ builds
Nobody has claimed one yet.
Photographs
This Cougar was never meant to be a Cougar — it started life as the next Ford Probe, and only got rebadged to Mercury after Ford pulled the plug on the Probe nameplate.
Redesigned for 1989, the Cougar's wheelbase grew nine inches to 113 — longer than the Mercedes-Benz 560SEC it was secretly benchmarked against.
This Cougar was a genuine milestone for Ford: the first Ford vehicle ever developed using computer-aided design, helping slash its drag coefficient from a boxy 0.50 to a sleek 0.40.
This Cougar XR-7 was so close to its Thunderbird cousin that only the grille, taillamps, trunklid and exposed headlamps told them apart.
The Cougar's signature "cat's head" emblem debuted right here in 1977 — a badge the model line would keep using for the next 25 years.
Moving upmarket for 1974, the Cougar XR-7 abandoned its unibody for a Torino-based body-on-frame chassis — the only time any Cougar was built that way.
The last Cougar convertible from this run, a light blue/white '73 XR-7, was the final convertible Ford Motor Company built for over a decade.
Want a Boss 302 in your Cougar? You had to buy the Eliminator — Mercury made the engine exclusive to that one trim.
Mercury's GT-E launched with a 427 V8 bolted only to an automatic — the 428 Cobra Jet that replaced it mid-year was the only GT-E engine ever offered with a manual, and just 37 of the 394 GT-Es built got that combination.
In its debut year, the Cougar won the 1967 Motor Trend Car of the Year award — the only time any Mercury-badged car would ever take that honor.
For 1968, Mercury handed a Cougar performance package to Carroll Shelby's own shop to build — the XR7-G, just 619 made, the only time Shelby's name touched a Mercury.
Rivals
Same body, same money, other badges — tap any card to flip.
The Celica XX, Japan's name for the A60 Supra, introduced the world's first in-car navigation computer.
The CTR Anniversary looks like a 911 but Ruf built its carbon monocoque from scratch, no Porsche body underneath.
The 228's coupe styling hides a sedan underneath: Maserati stretched it onto the longer four-door Biturbo chassis to make room for its biggest V6, which is literally where the name comes from — 2-door, 2.8 litre.
Switching to fuel injection let this V8 finally shed its trademark bonnet bulge — and only 405 of these flat-hooded Series 5 cars were built before the whole model retired in 1989.
Japanese buyers got a secret weapon in their MX-6 — the JDM-only KL-ZE V6 made about 40 more horsepower than the engine sold in the exact same car in North America.
An American tuner, Callaway Cars, built twin-turbo conversions of the GTV6 that boosted its V6 by fifty percent to 230 hp — turning Alfa's grand tourer into something far quicker than the factory ever intended.
Audi TTS Coupe · TTS Coupe (2016–2023) · 2016–2023.
A product of the DaimlerChrysler merger, the Crossfire shares 80% of its parts with the Mercedes-Benz SLK — German bones under American badges.