NASCAR COUGAR

Thank you to Madison and Stephen for all their hard work!

Minor update today — car is well on her way to being done. Her first outing will be at this years 2012 Palo Alto Concour d’Elegance June 24th in Palo Alto, CA — you will remember my Impala (http://NASCARImpala.com) won the historic race car division. Lets see if the Cougar can do it this year!

Guys installing the firewall, motor and tranny, and the swaybar installed in original NOS Holman-Moody front clip.  More to come…

I finally found out the complete history of the Cougar – it had quite a life. It was raced continually from 1977 through 1984 in the NASCAR Winston West and Sportsman series. It raced with great success on oval, road courses, and even once on the streets of Las Vegas taking eleven top 10 and two first place finishes.

The car was re-bodied as a Ford Granada around 1979. Being restored today back to its original Mercury Cougar configuration this car has been driven by such west coast NASCAR greats as Harry Jefferson, David Pearson, Derrike Cope, and even Bobby Allison!

NASCAR Winston West Results (I don’t have any for Sportsman, Help?)

Busy day working on the car. Welding up some last minute chassis items and putting the front bumper and grills in place.

Fabricated / beefed up lower control arm from a big 60s era Ford LTD

Big ol’ brakes! – Original NASCAR Grand National brakes and spindles from 1970s

Welp, its been a long time coming but we finally started working on the old girl again. She’s got a new (old) set of clothes! Working towards finishing her by the end of April, wish us luck!

shaun

Photos from 1977 Photo Credit Brent Martin

Videos of Evergreen and Spanaway in Washington State which show my 73′ Cougar. See in Video 1 at 5:18 into the video leading the heat and at 5:48s spinning out (note Harry checking to see if there is any damage) — you’ll see some colorful uh huhm interludes between heats hehhe

Here are some photos of other rare Merc Cougar NASCAR’s

Dave Dion’s 1971 (?) Cougar # 29 and Tiny Lunds #16 Baby Grand National Cougar

More information about Dave Dion’s car – “The car ran mid to late 70s. The Thunder Road win was in 1976 I believe. He switched over to #29 during the years he raced the Cougar. Based on the different graphics he ran it 3-4 years before switching to a Ford Fairmont Futura.

It was primarily a Late Model Sportsman car and ran in the Northeast but he did venture south on occasion and ran it several times in the big end of year Sportsman race at Martinsville.” – Statsman

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“I can provide you with some more information on this car, as I saw race every week in my youth.

The car was a NASCAR Late Model Sportsman, and the Dion team ran it weekly at (at the time) NASCAR sanctioned tracks Catamount Stadium and Thunder Road (both located in VT) from ’75 – ’77, and then in specials only from ’78 thru ’79 as the Dion’s focused primarily on their Cup car.

At the time there was also a Northern NASCAR circuit for Late Model Sportsman that consisted of long distance special events (usually between 100 – 300 laps) at tracks around the Northeast and Canada, although it wasn’t really a touring series, as would later come. But between the weekly racing, and the Northern NASCAR special events, a team could run about 55 races per season if they wanted to (and the Dion team were full-time races, so they hit most of the shows.

They also augmented that schedule with a few open comp shows in Maine (where the NASCAR Late Models usually have an advantage over any else allowed to run) and some of the bigger races at the southern NASCAR tracks such as Martinsville, VA, Beltsville, MD, and Southside (also in VA).

It wasn’t uncommon for that team to race in Barre, VT on Thursday night, Beltsville, MD on Friday night, Milton, VT on Saturday night, and some place in Quebec on Sunday. It was quite a grueling schedule they ran, and by the end of the season, the car (they only had one) looked pretty ragged after 80+ races.

Dave ran the number 27 until he and his brothers took a stab at Cup racing with their own home built car in ‘78. At the time the number 27 was already in use in the Cup series (I think by the M.C. Anderson team), so the Dions simply switched their number to 29 on both their Cup car and LMS.

Their Cougar was home built, however Dave had a very close relationship with Tommy Turner, and besides information, I’m sure some parts & pieces were swapped as well.

Outside of maybe Jody Ridley, I don’t think there was anyone more successful with a Ford on the East Coast short tracks during the mid to late 70′s, than the Dion Cougar. That car won many, many NASCAR Late Model Sportsman races and a few championships as well.” - Rim Rider

Pictures here document the tear down of a 1971 Merc Cougar donor car and also show the super rare Bud Moore mini-plenum intake for our 351 Cleveland

Here are some picts of us removing stuff from the Granada to make into a Cougar. Also included a picture of the car when it raced as a Granada