1967 Mercury Cougar XR-7 HardTop Coupe

Bud Moore Engineering built this race car from the prototype Group II Cougar 'mule' developed at Dearborn Steel Tubing in 1966. Fran Hernandez of Lincoln-Mercury decided that Mercury needed to be represented as a high-performance brand, and the Trans-Am Series was the only U.S. racing series that would generate the instant publicity to generate sales to the performance buyer. Bud Moore was a logical choice since he had been racing Mercury products for several years. Parnelli Jones did most of the pre-season testing in this car. At the conclusion of the 1967 Trans-Am season, Ford Motor Company forced Lincoln-Mercury to abandon their factory-backed effort, because they did not want the Mustang to have any 'internal' competition. The three team cars were sold, and eventually cannibalized to build racing Mustangs. This car was reconstructed after much detective work by the current owner. Every part on this car, except for the aluminum radiator, was used on one of the original Bud Moore cars.