One thing that always baffled me about the American automotive industry is its uncanny ability to sell cars that are built on the same chassis, often share the same engines and most of their sheetmetal, and differ only for small details as separate "models". This tendency seems to also apply, to an extent, to race cars: this, mostly, thanks to the adoption of formulas, like NASCAR, where a body resembling that of a production vehicle was dropped on a purpose-built tube-frame chassis.
Enter the Mercury Cougar XR-7.
Who's the wise guy who thought racing a car with no headlights at night would've been a fun idea, huh?
Originally built by Roush Racing to be powered by an inline-4 turbo engine and clad in a Mustang-esque body, it eventually became Ford's promotional vehicle, first being turned into a faux-Ford Sierra, pardon, Merkur XR4Ti, and then becoming a promotional for the new agggressive attitude over at Mercury, which in 1989 launched a new Cougar which ditched the upswept rear window that made its predecessor aesthetically unsufferable to watch. Funnily enough, while many fans of "Detroit muscle" complained about the lack of V8 options on the road-going models, on select tracks this battle cat ditched the usual turbocharged 4-pot (and latter V6) in favor of a good ol', all-American Cleveland 302 c.i. engine, fitted under a special "raised" hood; it's this particular option that T10 went for.
The car's V8 engine, a 5.5 litre, Roush-tuned SVO Cleveland.
When it was introduced in FM6, the Mercury's performance was a bit lackluster, and well under what I would've expected from a car who won back-to-back IMSA titles in 1989 and 1990. This was mostly to blame on the excessive torque output of the engine which, coupled with the slippy asphalt of the game, made for an explosive combination. Thanks to Forza Motorsport 7's new handling model, the car behaves in a slightly more civilized manner; however, it still somehow manages to be a fair bit more dangerous than many turbocharged IMSA and Group 5 racers (Audi 90 nonwithstanding). Consistency is still a goal this piece of American ingenuity can hardly serve, although in door-to-door racing against its competitors it still performs admirably, easily holding its own against the godly RX-7 and on-rails 300ZX it contested the 1990 IMSA GT title with thanks to the endless pull of the same V8 engine that dooms it to struggle so badly on corner exit.
Plus, every gear shift sends fireballs out of the exhausts. Mercury Cougar XR-7: the official car of the Imps from Doom.
So, what's the verdict? Honestly, I don't think its performace would positively surprise anybody: this is an unapologetic late-80s top-tier tubeframe racer we're talking about. On a single lap, it doesn't outperform its class peers, leave alone exceeding division expectations. But it's still a car worthy of respect; an uncivilized battlecat ready to pounce corners, as soon as you will be respectful on the throttle and won't shy away from shifting early. And it provides thrills an "easier" car won't: hearing the racing V8 rev up to an almost unbelievable 8000 rpm, asking yourself whether or not the tires will hold, is a huge portion of the thrill of racing. And sure, it may be not be a sleeper hit, but its laptimes are still competitive enough to make me inclined to give a
neutral judgment: in the end, it goes exactly as fast as you'd expect it to go - which is to say, a lot!
+ Packs (more than) 675 horses of all-'murican fun under the hood
- For a Cougar, it handles a bit too much like a dog...