Happy Thursday Web Riders, Big_Blocker here with another installment of Muscle Car of the Week, and this week I have a brand spanking new big block car for you. For the most part Mercury was not a brand name associated with high performance, however in 1968 they made one hell of a car in the Cougar GT-E. Hit the jump.

The Cougar was introduced for the 1967 model year as the pony car wars were beginning to heat up. Mercury’s parent company Ford was already a step ahead of Chevrolet, who just introduced the Camaro, and Mercury wanted a piece of the proverbial “pony car pie” before there was none left. What came to be was the Cougar, a 2-door stretched Mustang platform with hideaway headlights and a host of V8 engine options. The Cougar presented some things that the budget-friendly Mustang could not, luxury. With the XR-7 interior package, Cougar owners were given a woodgrain steering wheel, overhead console, simulated leather bucket seats, performance gauge cluster and a host of toggle switches for the various power options. Mercury also went further in developing the ride comfort in the new Cougar. They look the Mustang leaf springs and added 6 inches to them as well as reworking the front A-frames to make for one smooth ride. It is no doubt that while the Mustang appealed to the go-fast-cheap demographics, the Cougar was marketed towards those that were a bit older and willing to spend a little more on comfort.

The Cougar also came with plenty of performance options as well, the biggest of which produced 390 horses. For the 1968 model year Mercury introduced the GT-E package that was powered by a mean 427 V8 rated at 390 horsepower and a gut-wrenching 460 pound feet of torque. Although the powerplant made more than ample horsepower and torque, it also weighed a lot…like 675 pounds a lot. This beefy iron lung sitting between the fenders skewed the front to rear weight ratio and hurt overall performance. Zero to sixty still wasn’t bad at 7.1 seconds, and the Cougar galloped down the 1/4 in the low 15’s.

The 427 of the GT-E package was short lived however, as it was replaced mid-year with the newly engineered 428 FE big block. The main difference between the two was that the new 428 had a smaller bore than the 427 but a longer stroke that provided a broader torque range and made the car more streetable and able to conform to tightening emissions standards. Another reason for the change was that the new 428 was brand new and could be rated at 335 horsepower without drawing too much attention from insurance companies (although real output was closer to the 390 rated 427). The new 428 would go on to power some of the baddest Ford’s of the decade and is one of the most highly touted engines of the muscle car era.

Hope you enjoyed a look at some classic Mercury muscle. Big_Blocker out.