Just about the only possible reason to put this poor quality reproduction on your Cougar is that it is a good tool to put out engine fires. No Joke! If you happen to have an engine fire you can carefully open your hood, yank the blanket downward and smother the fire by pushing the blanket tight around the area that is burning. This can at least buy you time until a fire extinguisher is located.
How do I know? I saved a very pristine 1974 XR7 a few years ago this way! This inexpensive product may in fact save your Cougar one day.
Here are a few reasons why you might NOT want this on your Cougar and why nothing at all may in fact be a better option.
1. The only reason these were originally installed on the Mercury Cougar and not the Ford Mustang is that they wanted a quieter cockpit in the Mercury Cougar. This lightweight pad will make little to no difference in lowering the noise level inside your Cougar, the original dense, heavy weight pad did in fact make a very small difference but not one that the average person could easily detect (IMHO).
2. Unlike the originals these are not contoured to clear your factory air cleaner. This being said you will damage the chrome or paint on your air cleaner lid over time on Cougars with tight clearances. We have looked into making a correct reproduction but the process and size of press used to make a correct pad make it impossible to produce one at a reasonable cost. Even if you could produce the correct rigid pad it could not be rolled up and shipped easily.
3. They are not even close to correct looking. I assume one could try using flat black spray paint but no matter what you do they will never look right.
We do not want to insinuate that other companies are being less than straight forward when they list products like this by not going into this kind of detail. The chances are, the people who make some of these reproductions have never owned a Cougar much less tried to restore one. Further, the person selling this item or writing listings for one of the bigger companies, probably is not a Cougar owner. They just do not know... We here at WCCC live and breath these cars. We drive them to work, restore them, tinker on them, build models in the likeness of them, hang posters of them in our garage, schedule our vacations around them, show them and admire them tremendously. This is more than a job, it is a passion, an addiction or maybe even a sickness! How can we not tell you our fellow club members, customers and friends the truth? When we criticize one of these products like this ours sales will instantly drop 50-80% on that particular item. That is just fine by us, we take customer complaints and feedback very seriously, personally if you will... Our thinking is that by potentially driving you away from a product like this we "may" earn your overall trust in the end.
Thanks for taking the time to listen to our opinions,
Don Rush
*NOTE* No returns on this item.
…a valuable lesson: Go to WCCC's first!
I recently got my ’68 repainted. The shop carefully removed the original, torn and discolored hood blanket, painted the underside of the hood a nice cardinal red, and replaced the torn blanket. Now it looks real bad.
I saw a replacement available at XXXX XXXXXX and ordered it. Surprise! Not the same. Then, 20 minutes of browsing your site explains why not (no true replica available), what I might have done (buy used), and what I should do now (lose the blanket and go “Mustang”).
I only lost $29 bucks or so this time. Next time, I’ll check with you first.
-David Williams
Long Beach, CA
‘68 standard
Feel free to quote.