Chauncey & Me

In the mid 1970's my parents took me to Piasa Lincoln-Mercury dealership in downtown Alton, IL to see a real live Cougar!  Originally the spokescat for the Mercury Cougar in print and television advertising, Chauncey the Cougar became the spokescat for all Lincoln-Mercury dealers products not just the Mercury Cougar. The Cougar was so recognizable in advertisement that the Lincoln-Mercury slogan became "At The Sign Of The Cat." The Cougars from the advertising campaign would tour the country and visit dealers to promote Lincoln-Mercury. In 1975, Chauncey died and his replacement became Christopher. At Piasa Lincoln-Mercury my parents dealt with a salesman named Harold Sackalarus and he likely told them about this special event at his dealership.  How often would a real live Cougar visit a car dealership?!?  This visit by Christopher made such an impression on me that I started to refer to the dealership as "Harold's Cat House."

To learn more about the Lincoln-Mercury spokescats see the following articles from The Classic Cougar Network site

For an overall history see this article

These next three links are from a speech done by the Cougar's handler Pat Derby on July 14, 2001 at an event for the Stray Cats Cougar Club of Northern CA

Part One: Tanya

Part Two: Chauncey & Christopher

Part Three: Q & A

Here's a video I found of a similar event from a Lincoln Mercury dealer in the early 1980's

In 1976, my mom was driving a 1973 Buick Riviera and my dad was driving a 1972 GMC Sprint (read: GMC version of the El Camino).  That year my parents traded their 1973 Buick Riviera and bought a Lincoln Continental Mark IV as a third car.  At the time this was the most expensive American made vehicle.  As you can see from the picture above the vehicle was dove gray with a matching dove gray landau vinyl roof, and light gray leather interior. Lincoln-Mercury sold this as a Cartier edition, a part of their line designer editions which also included Bill Blass, Givenchy, and Pucci. My name for this car was the "Foo Foo Car." I remember riding around in this car as a toddler on summer evenings in the late 1970's making my parents drive around to find the source of spotlights flooding the night sky. The spotlights with their bright light would be advertising a car dealership, a movie, or some other promotion. My parents also remember my devastation after losing a balloon through the sunroof one evening while riding in that car.

In 1976, my mom's office had moved from downtown St. Louis to a renovated IGA grocery store located in a parking lot at a suburban mall.  At the time she was driving a 1975 MGB roadster. She felt nervous driving this little British sports car on the interstate with all of the 18 wheel tractor trailers.  However, they let me ride in the area where the top folded up when it was down or on my mom's lap when the top was up. Go figure.

Since they had just bought the Lincoln, my parents decided to stick with Lincoln-Mercury to replace this car. They put the MGB on consignment with Piasa Lincoln Mercury and they bought a 1977 Mercury Cougar. This was the newly redesigned fourth generation Cougar. The classic Cougar era ended with the 1973 model year and in 1974 the Cougar began an association with the Ford Torino.  This ended the Cougar's seven year association with the Ford Mustang platform. Then in 1977 the Cougar began a long run of being based on the Ford Thunderbird chassis. These changes made the car longer, less sporty, and even more luxurious than before. Here's a description from the wikipedia article on Mercury Cougars:

Customers to Lincoln-Mercury showrooms were surprised by the all-new Cougar this year [1977]. New sharper and straighter styling that mimicked the Ford Thunderbird and Lincoln Continental Mark V replaced the "fuselage look" of earlier Cougars. The Cougar now shared its body with the Thunderbird, which was downsized to the intermediate bodyshell this year from that of the Continental Mark IV and shared the Cougar's 114-inch (2,896 mm) wheelbase, putting the T-Bird squarely in the intermediate personal-luxury car market as opposed to its previous higher-priced segment of that market shared with the Buick Riviera and Oldsmobile Toronado.

My hunch is that my dad probably just remembered this advertisement with the late Farrah Fawcett (pre-Charlie's Angels) from a couple of years earlier and wanted to get one.

Since my mom was driving a lot farther to work she noticed that the V-8 engine in the Cougar was a lot less fuel efficient that the four cylinder in the MGB.  She figured that she would just drive the Lincoln to work and my parents got rid of the Cougar.  They had the car for such a short time that I have yet to find a picture of the car. The Cougar would be the last Blue Oval product they would ever buy.

My parents kept the Lincoln Continental car as a third car for a few more years and ended up selling it in December 1983 to a daughter of one of my dad's friends.  I have always wondered what happened to that car.

If you look closely you can see my dad's 1972 GMC Sprint in the background.

In this picture you can barely see the end of the Orange MGB parked in the garage.