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Junkyard Gem: 1981 Mercury Cougar XR-7

The story of the Mercury Cougar involves more plot twists and unexpected digressions than that of just about any other Detroit car, with successive Cougar generations based on the Ford Mustang (1967-1973), the Ford Torino and/or Thunderbird (1974-1979), various Fox Fords including the Thunderbird (1980-1988), the MN12 Thunderbird/Lincoln Mark VIII (1989-1997), and the Ford Mondeo (1999-2002). There were wagon and sedan Cougars for brief periods, just to confuse everybody, and the rakish XR-7 Cougars sometimes lived on different platforms from their ordinary non-XR-7 counterparts. I think the Late Malaise Era Fox XR-7s are among the most interesting of the bunch, so I was quite excited to spot this tan-over-gold '81 in a Denver yard. I tried to count the number of screaming-cat badges on and in this car and gave up once I hit a dozen. The steering wheel, door panels, C pillars, center console, and — of course — the hood ornament all boast snarling felines. Earlier Cougars had emblems showing full side views of stalking catamounts, but the Cougar logo for the 1980s showed just the head. This car got the optional center console, which I hear is quite a rarity. You had to pay $174 extra (that's around $513 in 2020 dollars) for an AM/FM/cassette audio system in the '81 Cougar, but at least the air conditioning was standard equipment. Believe it or not, thieves used to steal these radios. Kumpf Lincoln-Mercury still exists in Englewood (as Landmark Lincoln), and the yard that now houses this car can be found just 15 miles up Broadway on the north side of Denver.  The padded landau roof hasn't fared so well beneath the fierce Colorado sun, but overall this car seems very solid. Sadly, only the Mustangs and (once in a long while) Fairmonts get much love from the Fox Ford crowd these days. Three Mercury "wire wheel" hubcaps and one from a Lincoln. The base engine in the 1981 XR-7 was the "Thriftmaster" 200-cubic-inch (3.3-liter) straight-six, but very few XR-7 buyers would have refrained from checking the box for one of the two optional Windsor V8s. I can't tell if we're looking at the 255-cubic-inch (4.2-liter) version or the 302-cubic-inch (5.0-liter) one here, but real-world drivers might not have noticed the difference between the 120-horse 255 and the 130-horse 302, anyway. The non-XR-7 Fox Cougars had five-speed manual transmissions as base equipment (which nobody wanted), but all 1981 XR-7s had automatics.

Ford recalling 370,000 Crown Vic, Grand Marquis and Town Car models

The Detroit News is reporting that Ford will recall some 370,000 Crown Victoria (pictured), Mercury Grand Marquis and Lincoln Town Car vehicles from model years 2005 through 2011, for an issue regarding the lower intermediate steering shaft. 355,000 of the vehicles in question were sold in the US, with the other 15,000 sold in Canada.
The report indicates that corrosion of the lower intermediate steering shaft could cause a "loss of steering," presumably because of a partial or complete failure of the part. The report points out the dealers will inspect and replace the offending steering component for recalled cars, and may also secure a lower steering column bearing and replace the upper intermediate steering shaft as needed. The company is unaware of any reports of the faulty part causing any accidents or injuries.
Ford helpfully lists states in which corrosion is more likely to have taken place, mostly in the Snow Belt, as you might guess. Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia are listed.

Junkyard Gem: 1993 Mercury Topaz GS Sedan

As long as the Mercury brand existed — a period spanning the 1939 through 2011 model years — nearly every Mercury sold in the United States was more or less a redecorated Ford model. The Torino had its Montego sibling, the Crown Victoria had the Grand Marquis, the Cougar was based on everything from the Mustang to the Mondeo, and so on. Naturally, when the folks in Dearborn developed the Ford Tempo compact, a Mercury version had to be created. This was the Topaz, with the official launch of both cars taking place on the deck of the aircraft carrier often referred to as the USS Decrepit. You can't make this stuff up! The Tempo/Topaz, also known as the Tempaz, has largely faded from our collective automotive memory by now, since it broke no significant new engineering or styling ground (this story would be much different if Ford had only put the amazing straight-eight "T-Drive" Tempaz powertrain into production) and didn't have any endearing features other than being a cheap domestic competitor to the Toyota Corolla and Nissan Sentra. Still, close to 3 million Tempazes left North American Ford and Lincoln-Mercury showrooms during the 1984-1994 period. As you'd expect, most of these disposable cars disappeared from both the street and the car graveyard long ago. It takes a very special Tempaz for me to break out my camera while I'm patrolling my local wrecking yards; generally, this means an ultra-rare all-wheel-drive version or at least a very early model in super-clean condition. Today's Junkyard Gem is neither, but I took one look at this spectacular Bordello Red crypto-velour-and-slippery-plastic interior and recognized that this was no ordinary junkyard Mercury. It appears that Mercury had dropped the idea of clever names for base-grade seat fabrics by the time of the Topaz, referring to this stuff as just "cloth" in all the brochures I could find. That's too bad, because Mercurys had cool names for upholstery (e.g., Chromatex) in the old days. The interior is in very good condition but the steering wheel shows substantial wear, so I think this is a high-mile Topaz that got meticulous care from its owner or owners. Ford used five-digit odometers on these cars until the end of production, however, so we'll never know if this reading indicates 65,404 miles or 365,404 miles. The body is very straight, but there's some nasty corrosion behind the right front wheelwell.