1968 Mercury Cougar GT 500
Many of you will likely be surprised, some will be confused and others dismayed by the title of this post. Obviously, we focus most of our attention on the 69 Ford Talladega and Mercury Cyclone Spoiler/Spoiler II cars with somewhat less attention to the 68 Cyclone GT 500 and 69 Cyclone Color Code cars. We do provide a Registry for all of these cars. However, we are occasionally contacted by individuals wanting assistance in locating other cars or providing information on other rare Fords and Mercs. We also obtain a great deal of our knowledge from our readers. After all, Blue Oval Blood runs deep and finding one rare Ford may lead to another.
Over the past few weeks we have been contacted by two individuals with totally different rare Cougars. Since one of the Cougars is closely related to one of our Registry cars we have decided to bring it to your attention and see if anyone here can help.
The car is a 1968 Mercury Cougar GT 500. As far as we have determined so far this car is quite similar in construction and intent to the 68 Cyclone GT 500. We, and others have done a lot of research on the Cyclone GT 500s and a few examples have been documented and found. There has always been a rumor around Cyclone GT 500s that a similar Cougar program was undertaken at the same time.
At the request of the owner of the car in question I must not release any information that would hint on its location or VIN. What I can tell you is that it is a rather plain 68 Cougar, Polar White with a 428 CJ with Ram Air, PS and automatic transmission.
This car also has the GT 500 option per the emblems on the side and documented by a Marti Report. The most strange part is that the Marti Report states that it has the Cougar 500 option as well as the Cyclone GT 500 option! How can that be? We have seen Cyclones with the Cyclone 500 option and others with the Cyclone GT 500 option. However, how can a Cougar have a Cyclone GT 500 option?
Does anyone out there have more information on the 1968 Cougar GT 500 or the Cyclone GT 500 or any similar specialty Ford product related to NASCAR? If so contact me at Richard@TalladegaSpoilerRegistry.com.
If you would like to know more about the 1968 Cyclone GT 500 and its ties to NASCAR just click here.
I can not release any information on the other rare Cougar at this time but I can tell you it is a 71 Convertible and we will have that story on our other site: LegendaryCollectorCars.com.
I have a 1968 cougar xr7 hard top would like to find more out about the car vin number is 8f93s500385 car also has a t tag or job tag on the rocker pantal tag number is s823/5 306t263 the man I got the car from said dan gurney at one time drove this car at ford when he was at ford if you know how I can go about how to find out about the car I like to know thank you or call me at 1(586) 405-0707 Thank stewart
Stewart, I can’t tell you much more than you already know from the VIN. First off the 8 tells you it is a 1968; the F tell us it was built in Dearborne; the 93 means it is an XR7 and the S tell us it is a 390 GT. If you supplied the information from the Data Plate which is located on the Driver’s side door we could tell you more. The other info you supplied doesn’t mean anything to us but that doesn’t mean someone else might be able to help you. I strongly encourage you to obtain a Marti Report for your Cougar. This is the best place to start and is the industry standard for these cars. Check it out at http://www.martiauto.com/index.cfm