General Information:

The 1999-2002 Mercury Cougars are of 7th generation of cars with that particular name; in Europe, they are being sold under the parent company Ford Motor Company's name, thus Ford Cougars. From a business perspective, it was Ford/Mercury's attempt at establishing another model in the sport compact market. They were first revealed in the United Kingdom at the British Grand Prix at the Silverstone Circuit in 1998, and the concept car Mercury MC2 was completed in 1997. The design was based on the Ford CDW27 platform (also shared by the Ford Contour, Ford Mondeo, and Mercury Mystique). Production began in 1998 at Flat Rock, Michigan, United States. The available configurations were as follows:

Engine	2.5-liter dual overhead cam (DOHC), 24-valve, 6-cylinder (V6) Duratec with 170 crank horsepower or 2.0-liter 4-cylinder (I4) Zetec with 130 crank horsepower
Transaxle	5-speed Ford MTX-75 manual or 4-speed Ford CD4E automatic
Layout	Front-engine, front-wheel drive
Suspension	Fully independent multilink
Brakes	4-wheel vented disc brakes (V6 only)
Top Speed	~150 mph or ~240 km/h with manual transaxle, V6 engine, and without electronic speed limiter or ~115 mph or ~185 km/h with electronic speed limiter
Wheelbase	106.4 in or 270 cm
Length	185 in or 470 cm
Width	69.6 in or 177 cm
Height	52.2 in or 133 cm
Curb Weight	2,892 lb or 1,312 kg

The Mercury/Ford Cougar was canceled in 2002 after 4 years of production. The reason was largely attributed to lackluster sales figures, which some blamed on ineffective marketing while others blamed on the relatively high production cost (which translated to a relatively high sticker price for the target market).

Exterior Colors

The available exterior colors for the 1999-2000 Mercury/Ford Cougar vehicles are as follows.

	1999	2000	2001	2002
Ash Gold Clearcoat Metallic	Yes	No	No	No
Black Clearcoat	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Citrus Gold Clearcoat Metallic	No	Yes	No	No
Dark Shadow Grey Clearcoat Metallic	No	No	Yes	Yes
Dark Tourmaline Clearcoat Metallic	Yes	Yes	No	No
Grabber Green Clearcoat Metallic	No	No	No	Yes
Laser Red Tinted Clearcoat	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Light Parchment Gold Clearcoat Metallic	No	No	No	Yes
Light Sapphire Clearcoat Metallic	No	Yes	No	No
Melina Blue Clearcoat Metallic	Yes	No	No	No
Rio Red Clearcoat	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Silver Frost Clearcoat Metallic	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Spruce Green Clearcoat Metallic	Yes	Yes	No	No
Sunburst Gold Clearcoat Metallic	No	No	Yes	No
Tropic Green Clearcoat Metallic	No	No	Yes	No
Vibrant White Clearcoat	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Zinc Yellow Clearcoat	No	Yes	No	No

Forums and Sites with more information:

• NECO Forums (NewCougar.org)
• TeamNECO