Junkyard Crawl

Back on September 4th, I went to lunch with my friend Tim.  I was driving my Cougar and along the way I thought I spotted a Cougar at an auto sales place between my work and the restaurant.  I didn't have enough time that day to stop and so I told myself that I should stop and check it out when I had time. I belong to a Classic Cougars group on yahoo.com

Today, over lunch, I went down to see if the car was still sitting there. As I pulled up to Wilson Towing 2605 South Old Highway 141, Fenton, MO - (636) 349-3228 corner of Route 21 (Tesson Ferry Rd) and Hwy 141 in St. Louis County I didn't see the car, but as I pulled into the lot I finally saw it. A 1969 Cougar convertible.

This is an auto sales/salvage yard place and I talked to the owner. I asked him how he was and he told me terrible. He said he had been robbed. I thought he was joking, but then he went into a story about how his lot had been broken into and thieves had stolen some parts from some cars.  Then, he mistook me for someone that had called earlier and was coming to look at a car. I advised that was not me and I proceeded to explain my intentions of looking at this 1969 Mercury Cougar and just getting the VIN, but he said that he got the car from a school and should have been scrapped years ago. He didn't want to get into any trouble.

The Cougar was in pretty sad shape, but still had some salvagable parts. This auto sales place was really "down by the river" and the owner told me the lot had been flooded in the spring. The convertible top was almost gone, but I did notice that it had a University of Kansas sticker on the back window. The guy told me he had sold the console & the rear axle. He said that thieves had stolen some XR7 emblems off the car. We raised the hood and the engine and transmission (automatic) was still in the car and looked like a 2 bbl. Door on passenger side was crumpled in. I think this was originally a St. Louis car because there was a sticker from Sunset Ford (Since 1912) on the rear decklid and that dealer is still in business and only a few miles away. Car was painted medium lime metallic and looked like it had a black interior. This one will likely end up as scrap one of these days.

After talking about the Cougar I thought that I would stall after I spotted some late 1960's and early 1970's Chevrolet trucks across the lot. I have a soft spot for these because my first vehicle was a 1971 Chevrolet Cheyenne pick up truck. I went to look at these trucks and he followed me over.  He said that one of the trucks was bought by his father new, but all three trucks were now in pretty bad shape. I was hoping he would leave me alone so I could get the VIN off the Cougar, but he kept talking to me. 

After looking at an old late 1960's Chrysler I told him I had to get back to work. We parted ways and he went back to work on something behind some large trucks he had parked there. I quickly went over to the Cougar and I was able to see the VIN number plate on the partially cracked driver door. I was able to get this VIN off the door, but I could not get the door open to get the data plate info. I also could not see a VIN on the passenger side dash. The VIN on the door was 9F91H585255. I came back to the office and after I looked up what I had on the Classic Cougar Network site, I posted the information that I had to the group.

I received a post in reply from Jim Pinkerton who said, "Something rotten in Denmark here. In May, 2003, from Kansas City, MO someone has reported 9F91H585255 / 65A-S-1A-25F-42-6-X Somehow or other I suspect you may have made a mistake somewhere in the vin number."

I replied that I did write down 9F91H585255 on my piece of paper without thinking about what the 91 meant (Standard Hardtop) until I looked it up back at the office. When I got back I questioned myself and thought I had made a mistake and it was 9F94H585255. The code was hard to see through the crack in the door, I checked it a couple of times, but didn't want the guy to see me and left. However,  the car was with out a doubt a convertible. Now it has me thinking that the door has been changed sometime over the years. The data plate should read 76A or 76B if the car was a convertible instead of 65A.

Damn!