Old Cars Reader Wheels: 1968 Mercury Cougar

Pete and Sandy Robinson sent us pics of their time capsule survivor Cougar. They added…

This car was special ordered new by the original owner in April of 1968 from Fiore Lincoln Mercury in Altoona, PA. He specified Augusta green exterior color with saddle leather interior. The only options that he requested were an AM radio, console, and four speed manual transmission. According to Kevin Marti, only 2% of Mercury Cougars were built with the 4 speed option.

The car was always garage kept, driven only sparingly, and upon his passing was put into storage and not driven from 1988 until 2007, when the second owner, also from Altoona, purchased the car from his family. At that time, the car was still wearing its PA license plates with an expiration date of March 1988. When resurrecting the car from its nearly 20 years of storage, the second owner saved all of the original maintenance items that he replaced, including the original tires, belts, air filter, thermostat, tune up parts, brake parts, etc.

We were able to purchase the car from the second owner in August of 2016 when he lost his indoor storage for the car. Up until that point the car had never left the Altoona, PA area.

The car to date has less than 20,000 original miles, and retains its original paint and interior, chrome, all of its original numbers matching engine and driveline components ( including the thermactor pump) and even its original exhaust system and FOMOCO script headlight bulbs. We did detail the engine but not the engine compartment or anything else on the car. It truly is a real time capsule.