In a time of personal-luxury gingerbread, the 1971 Mercury Cougar 429 still carried the performance-car torch

We all know the rap on the ’71 Mercury Cougar: Embracing its personal-luxury duties like never before, the newly redesigned kitty shared its guts with its Ford Mustang sibling, but its formal exterior treatment became ever more pronounced. Even as high-performance was a dirty term in the new-car industry, its once-raging inferno reduced to flickering like a lighter in the wind, high-performance buyers were fleeing Mercury almost as quickly as the division was putting its hot models to rest. The full-size Marauder was done, and the Cyclone, whose numbers were never that robust, fell an alarming 75 percent year-to-year. The Comet GT got little more than a stripe package, bucket seats, and a hood scoop.

What’s more, for 1971, Mustang seemed to hoard all of the platform’s available adrenaline with models like the Mach 1, Boss 351, and more, while the Cougar was steering away from performance. A GT package—featuring competition suspension, whitewall tires, a tach, a higher axle ratio, performance cooling, a hood scoop, dual racing mirrors, and more—was available, and netted a full two sentences worth of mention (and no picture) in the 1971 Mercury full-line catalog. It was a far cry from just four years earlier, when Dan Gurney was hammering American road courses in a Cougar prepped for SCCA Trans-Am racing.

Yet someone adept with the order sheet could still come up with a Cougar that was as hard-hitting as anything you could order from a Ford-related store. Model year 1971 would be the first year of any 429 in the Cougar, since the previous model’s engine bay was simply too snug for it to fit comfortably. For most, the 10.5:1 Thunder Jet 429, with its 360 advertised horsepower on tap, would have been plenty. But ordering the Cobra Jet in 1971 got you the same basic 385-family 429, featuring four-bolt mains (standard on ’71 CJs), cast pistons, beefier crank and rods, wedge-type heads with canted 2.24/1.72-inch valves, 11.3:1 compression, screw-in rocker studs, a 715-cfm Rochester Q-jet four-barrel, and dual exhaust. The hydraulic cam offered 282-degrees duration on the intake side, and 296 degrees on the exhaust. The result: 370 horsepower at 5400 rpm, and 450 lb-ft of torque at 3,400 rpm. There were no SCJ ’71 Cougars, so this was top of the Cougar food chain for the year.

Photo by Jeff Koch

Granted, that seems like a lot of extra engineering and parts for a 10-horsepower gain and there’s little question now that actual power was closer to 400 horses, but Ford was underplaying things to keep the insurance boffins at bay.

Of course, there were other ways to advertise your presence. For instance, choosing a color that your eye can’t miss—in this case, Competition Yellow. (And put a black vinyl top on it, to boot. It’s a Mercury after all.) Select the legendary Toploader four-speed transmission so you can bang those gears yourself, along with Traction-Lok and the gear of your choice in that 9-inch housing. Opt for styled steel wheels instead of wire hubcaps. Make things jazzier on the inside with rare Upbeat Stripe cloth— probably more comfortable, in many situations, than the leather-and-vinyl seating available in high-zoot XR7 models.

Photo by Jeff Koch

Perhaps this combination of moving upscale, catalog de-emphasis, underreported power numbers, and the general zeitgeist of the time that saw so few built: Just 448 Cougars received Cobra Jet power for 1971. Chop it down further, and just six hardtop Cougars with the 429CJ/four-speed combination were built for the year. This example was an early-production model, the second-earliest 429 Cougar registered, the only yellow 429CJ/four-speed coupe, and it may have appeared in an STP print ad with Andy Granatelli when it was new.

Nothing here beyond the Cougar’s size suggests personal-luxury-anything. With all of Ford’s good stuff combined into a single, unexpected package... it’s enough to change a person’s perspective, and question just what it is we think we know.

SPECIFICATIONS

Photo by Jeff Koch

Engine: OHV V-8, iron block and heads

Displacement: 429-cu.in.

Horsepower @ rpm: 370 @ 5,400

Fuel system: Single Rochester Quadrajet four-barrel carburetor, mechanical pump

Transmission: Ford Toploader four-speed manual

Wheelbase: 112.1 inches

Shipping weight: 3,331 pounds

Base price: $3,289