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The Classic Cougar came along at the height of an era in which American automobile manufacturers saw participation in professional racing as necessary to selling performance oriented cars. Leo Beebe, then General Manager of Ford's Lincoln-Mercury Division indicated the strength of this conviction when he reportedly said, "If you're not involved in automobile racing, you're not in the automobile business." Which type of racing manufacturers chose to support depended on the preferences of their market. For example, Chevrolet and Ford believed that buyers of their cars were most interested in drag and stock car racing, so both manufacturers were heavily involved in sponsoring NHRA, AHRA and NASCAR entries. At the time, however, Lincoln-Mercury Division envisioned quite a different image for their new Cougar. In keeping with the Cat's European styling theme, L-M saw their buyers as being more interested in sports car road racing and chose to sponsor a TransAm team in 1967. Later, as Lincoln-Mercury struggled to find a stronger market for the Cougar, they adopted a muscle car image and provided factory support to drag racing teams. One such effort, the factory-supported Don Nicholson team, was responsible for the name L-M chose for their entry into the muscle car market, the Eliminator. There was one other notably successful Cougar racing effort that received little or no factory help. In 1968, Bud Moore (L-M's partner in the TransAm project) modified one of the 1967 T/A cars to run on the NASCAR circuit and Tiny Lund drove it to a driver's championship. |
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