Hot or Not?

This blue Cougar XR-7 might just look like another 1970 pony car at first glance, but its wood-rimmed wheel and simulated walnut dash tell a different story. Mercury built it to feel like a personal luxury coupe, not a stripped-down performance car, and buyers agreed in far smaller numbers than you’d expect. Before casting a vote, here’s what actually separates this car from its Mustang cousin.

Front view of a classic blue muscle car in a studio.

A blue muscle car sits under studio lighting, front end aimed square at the camera, daring you to make a snap judgment. Before you vote, it’s worth knowing that this exact upscale trim only found 18,565 hardtop buyers in its model year — and if this happens to be the rarer convertible variant, that number drops to under 2,000. The wood-rimmed wheel and simulated walnut dash inside were part of a package built specifically to make Ford’s platform-mate feel like something closer to a personal luxury coupe than a stripped-down pony car. So: hot, or not? The answer might depend on whether you know what you’re actually looking at.

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The Upscale Cougar Nobody Confuses With a Mustang

By 1970, the Mercury Cougar had returned to a vertical grille theme reminiscent of its 1967-68 look, with a more pronounced center divider that added over two inches to its length. The XR-7 package sat at the top of the lineup, adding a wood-rimmed steering wheel, black-face competition-style instrumentation set into a simulated walnut dash, toggle switches, an overhead console, and a leather T-handle shifter on automatic-equipped cars.

Rarer Than It Looks

The 1970 Cougar XR-7 hardtop found 18,565 buyers, while the XR-7 convertible managed just 1,977 — numbers that make surviving examples, especially clean ones like this, considerably harder to find than a same-year Mustang. Buyers could option engines ranging from a 250-horsepower base 351 two-barrel V8 up through the 300-horsepower 351 Cleveland four-barrel and into genuine performance territory with the 428 Cobra Jet, backed by three- or four-speed manuals or Ford’s SelectShift automatic. The range-topping 429 Cobra Jet wasn’t part of the mix yet, either, it wouldn’t join the Cougar lineup until 1971.

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