The Mercury Cougar is a high performance, luxury pony car, marketed by Mercury brand, a part of the Ford Motor Company's Lincoln-Mercury Division. The Mercury Cougar was initially based on the Mustang and later was based on the Thunderbird. The Mercury Cougar used the Ford basic platform. The name, Cougar was introduced by Mercury in 1967 and has been used by a wide range of series in different parts for more than thirty years. The Cougar was assembled at parts of Dearborn Assembly Plant (DAP) in Dearborn.
The noticeable features of the first generation Mercury Cougar include a full-width divided grille, hidden headlamps and vertical bars that were called the electric shaver grille. At the rear part, the Mercury Cougar used a similar treatment saw the license plate surrounded on both sides; vertically slatted grille work was used that concealed the taillights and sequential turn signals. The advanced version of the Cougar used the 300 hp (224 kW) 351 "Cleveland" V8 engine.