Every Mercury Sports Car You Should Know
Take a closer look at each Mercury sports car from history.
Written by Ethan Moser
Reviewed by Jessica Barrett
As a middle-priced car brand and an off-shoot of
Ford
Motor Company, Mercury
hasn’t focused on producing sports cars throughout its history. Even their closest examples—the 1964 Mercury Comet Cyclone and 1967 Mercury Cougar
—are technically muscle cars, not sports cars. While the Mercury badge might have conjured up images of speed when it was young, Mercury has since been discontinued by Ford Motor Company. But what would you say if we told you that once upon a time Mercury was making cars that graced the NASCAR track?
Here to tell you more about Mercury’s sports cars and racing history is
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.Does Mercury make sports cars?
Well, Mercury doesn’t make any cars anymore—the badge was discontinued by Ford in 2010. But throughout their lifetime, Mercury manufactured two sports cars—sort of. Technically, even the “sports” cars we’re going to list—the Mercury Comet Cyclone and the Mercury Cougar—would be more appropriately labeled as muscle cars, but given their specs, history, and appearance, we’ll give them a pass.
Want to take a closer look at the specs? Let’s break it down.
1967 Mercury Cougar
The Mercury Cougar was created as a midpoint between the
Ford Mustang
and Ford Thunderbird
—it was meant to be a step above the Mustang. When the Cougar was first introduced in 1967, Ford only expected it to sell approximately 85,000 units nationwide—but the model earned record numbers with more than 150,000 models sold in its first year. Sold from 1967 to 1997 and then again from 1999 to 2002, the Mercury Cougar saw eight generations worth of updates. While the first seven generations look more like your typical muscle car, only the eighth generation Cougar (1999-2002) is actually classified as a “sports” car.
The eighth generation Cougar’s “Sport Package” included a standard 2.5-liter V-6 engine, four-wheel vented disc brakes, 16-inch alloy wheels, and no speed governor. With the speed governor removed, the Cougar topped out at speeds of 135 mph, compared to the 115 mph offered by the 2.0-liter I-4 engine on the non-sport Cougar. Trading out your eighth-gen Cougar’s four-speed automatic transmission for a five-speed manual transmission could turn that 135 mph max speed into 145 mph.
The first Mercury Cougar (1967), offered an array of engine options including a 4.7-liter, 4.9-liter, 5.8-liter, 6.4-liter, and 7.0-liter V-8 engine with the choice between a three-speed manual, four-speed manual, or three-speed automatic transmission.
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1964 Mercury Comet Cyclone
The ‘64 Mercury Comet Cyclone was an off-shoot of Mercury’s established Comet line-up. Adding chrome wheel covers and a standard 4.7-liter V-8 engine, the Cyclone was a two-door hardtop that prioritized performance. The Cyclone’s larger engine produced 210 horsepower and 300 lb-ft of torque. The 1965 Comet Cyclone boosted those numbers to 225 horsepower and 305 lb-ft of torque respectively.
In a Motor Trend comparison test, the ‘64 Cyclone went from zero to 60 mph in 9.7 seconds and completed a quarter-mile run in 16.2 seconds. The ‘65 Cyclone shaved those times down to 8.8 seconds and 11.8 seconds respectively.
Both the ‘64 and ‘65 Cyclone offered the option between a three-speed manual, four-speed manual, and a three-speed automatic transmission.
A history of the Mercury sports car
Mercury’s foray into the racing world was limited to the Cougar—which was campaigned by NASCAR race car builder Bob Moore in 1967 for the Trans-Am Series with factory support from Ford. Drivers like Captain Dan Gurney, Parnelli Jones, Peter Revson, David Pearson, and Ed Leslie all took the wheel of a Mercury Cougar on the racetrack. Cougars have since appeared on NASCAR race tracks in 1974, 1981, 1989, and 1990. The last two years, the car collected championships for Lincoln-Mercury Motorsports.
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How to save money on Mercury insurance
One of the great parts about shopping for Mercury insurance is that it is almost always cheaper to insure a used car than a new one—and with the last Mercury being released in 2010, all of them are used. You can rest assured that you’re getting the best deals on the car insurance you need, no matter what you drive, when you shop using Jerry.
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