00:00 Start
00:05 Night Drive
00:26 Startup and Headlights
01:08 Startup and Taillights
01:50 Intro - Weather, Fog, Animals, Loaded with Cars
04:45 Start of Review - Overview
11:20 1973 in Review
15:18 Review Continues - Exterior
20:29 Back End and Trunk
22:26 Underhood, Tranny, Mechanicals
27:02 Interior
31:20 Startup and Test Drive
38:17 Highway Drive
1973 wasn't quite the end of large and powerful cars, but the end was nigh. Emissions laws, safety laws, and gas prices were all conspiring to usher out the no-holds-barred horsepower wars of years past, and usher in a new era of federal regulations, lower power ratings, and decreased emissions. Ready or not, the car world was changing.
That's why this 1973 Cougar XR7 is as hot as it got for Mercury - the 429 Cobra Jet was no more, and people were looking for cars that sipped gas rather than gulped it down. This is probably why so few of these cars were ordered with the Cobra Jet engine - and because performance was beginning to take a back seat to luxury, the 4-speed option was even more rare than the hot engine. Gone was street racing, and in was disco.
This is a review of a 1973 Mercury Cougar XR7 Hardtop with the 351 C CJ engine and 4-speed manual gearbox a setup rare enough to account for only about 250 out of 60,000 Cougars made that year. Nifty stuff.
Review and test drive by Bill. Vehicle will be for sale at Autohaus of Naples, on the web at www.AutohausNaples.com,. or by phone at (239) 263-8500.