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★★★★☆

“The Cougar has been utterly reliable, it's not as...”

written by on 27/01/2010

The Cougar has been utterly reliable, it's not as expensive to run as one would expect from a V6, driven at standard motorway speeds I've seen nearly 40mpg and you really don't need to drive it hard as it has plenty of low and mid-range torque. It will plod along at 30mph in 4th gear, 90 mph is achieved in 5th gear at just below 4,000 rpm, which is only just at the beginning of the main power band.





Running costs are lighter than most equivalent sports/coupe's as the basic car is really a Ford Modeo chassis with a (beautifully) re-styled body.



Mechanically, it shares the engine and some suspension components from the mighty ST24 version of the Mondeo, the engine is the ultra-reliable, under-tuned V6, which is fitted with economical cam-chains instead of the usual toothed belts that require expensive replacement on a regular basis.



Always go for the V6 engine is you can, put simply it's a bulletproof lump. Taxation class isn't the lowest obviously but insurance is reasonable at group 14. One word of warning - avoid the main dealers like the plague, I paid 600 quid out to T.C.Harrison's in Peterborough for an M.O.T and service and the car came back in worse shape than it went in, I use S.K.S now, down Harvester Way. Half the dealer price and they actually fix things.





There are a couple of annoyances. Those long doors make entry and exit difficult in our ridiculously small English parking spaces and access to the rear bucket seats is for the nimble, once they don't seem to want to let you back out...





The ride at city speeds can feel a little harsh, although this more than balances out when you throw it around a bend, this car sticks like glue and steers precisely. I can live with that as a trade-off.





The extras list is huge, A/C, full-leather, on-board computer, warning light system, alarm, 6 CD player in the boot. Some of the later X-Pack models were also fitted with heated windscreens and parking sensors.





The boot is great for this sort of car, the rear seats split and fold leaving enough room to put a large bike in and get the tailgate closed, so long items are no problem, I can also fit my friend's mobility cart in their just by folding down the handlebars and unclipping the seat. Height is the only issue due to the curve of the roof.







One thing to be prepared for is the tyre issue. The wheel size of the Cougar is the US standard (it's an American car - their version is the Mercury Cougar) and the tyres are getting difficult to come by and quite pricey at 90 quid a corner. There is an answer to this though, which is buy a set of 17" alloy wheels, cost about 200 quid and you can chose your own style, then you'll be able to fit the more affordable rubber.



It may be that a lot of Cougar owners out there may have already made that change, although late production models went to 17" alloys as well.



In pure sports/coupe world, you could get better perfomance from the V6 Alpha Romeo, but I don't want to spend my life at the side of the road waiting either for the fire to burn itself out or the tow truck to arrive - then there's the Toyota Celica GT4 - rapid and reliable, good luck finding a decent one for less than 3 grand though - finally. there's the Hyundai Coupe, on paper it's as good as the Cougar, maybe better in some respects but it's already been reincarnated twice. I think the styling is going to date in a way that the Cougar isn't ...who would have ever thought that the Capri would be a future classic?





wooddragon.







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