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This is a custom 1968 Mercury Cougar roadster. She started life as a blue hardtop GT XR7 and was originally my high school car.  She was a faithful ride for many years. She went on many a roadtrip, met many great people and saw some wild times. I just couldn't part with her. 

Back in '85, I collapsed a piston in my original 390 while racing . Then it sat for years in the back yard. There she continued to rust and was occasionally keyed, abused or broken into. Despite all that, in 2001 I finally got around to fixing her up.

Mercury never made a convertable Cougar for the 1967-68 body design. I always considered this an oversight on Mercury's part, so the roof has been removed. Since that also destroys the structural integrity of the uni-body chassis, the body is now channeled to a custom ordered CAD designed Art Morrison Racing chassis. We felt this was a better option than going with "torque box" inserts as was done with factory 68 Mustang convertables. The chassis is very rigid. She launches very hard rather than twisting like most convertables. The suspension is Air-Ride with "dual wishbone" in the front and 4-link in the rear. Ride height is fully adjustable from down on the ground to higher than factory. All side markers, emblems, door handles etc... have been cut and filled for a clean look. Paint is House of Kolors "Sunset Pearl".

  The engine is built around an aluminum 427 Side-oiler FE from Carroll Shelby. It features a TWM multiport sequential fuel injection system delivered through simulated Webbers. This gives state of the art performance with a retro look. It's fully balanced and bored out to 468 ci. Dyno tested out of car at 560 Hp and 547 ft lbs @ 6400 rpm. It is bolted to a new aluminum Toploader 4-speed with a classic Hurst shifter. Clutch system and scatter shield are McLeod and the cooling is by Be Cool. For a clean look, all engine bay brake system components and ignition electronics have been hidden. Maybe too clean. At car shows, I will often hear people muttering that they don't think the car even runs!

   Steering is rack and pinion. The wheels were special ordered and machined from solid billet by Boyd Coddington to match the cars suspension. Rubber is Pirelli. The sequential tail lights have been upgraded to a solid state system. The rear-end is a shortened Currie Ford 9-inch 35-spline Detroit Locker with 3:90 Strange gears.

The 4 wheel disk brake system is from Wilwood and features polished calipers and slotted, vented and cross-drilled rotors. The Ultra Leather interior features a custom bird's-eye maple dash with full length maple console.

Here she is at the shop, fresh from my old backyard in Edmonton. I may live in Calgary now, but back then she prowled the streets of Edmonton. The neighbors were all very happy to see her go! On the right, we see that there really was some metal left after all.

 Channeling a new frame to a unibody car is a lot of work. The frame was custom ordered and CAD designed by Art Morrison Chassis. Note the bracing welded in prior to floor removal. Once the body is safely supported, off comes the roof! All of the parts sourcing, prep, assembly, metal work and paint was done at StreetHeat in Calgary.

Here is the engine on the dyno. The engine work was done at both Brad's Automotive Machining and Dale Adams Automotive. On the above right is some of the metalwork needed after roof removal.

Fitting the tranny and the engine.

After so many years of Flintstones floorboards, it was good to see a floor in her again.

As you can see in the above photo, I had a custom bird's-eye maple shifter handle and a black dashpad. Eventually, we opted to match the dashpad to the interior and changed to a classic white Hurst shifter knob. The guages are new as well. Note the stitching on the door panels. I call this car a GT-Ex.  This pays homage to the original 427 equiped 1968 Cougars which were called GT-E's.

The maple console matches the dash and runs full length. Above we see her sitting quite high on the air-ride. I don't normally drive around this high, but it's great for speed bumps (yes that's snow on the tires and no I don't drive her in the winter!).

On the left we are at the 2006 Calgary World of Wheels. She won "BEST RADICAL CUSTOM CAR". She has also had good showings twice in Spokane and once in Edmonton.

 Thanks for stopping by and I hope you like her.