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Digitally Modernized Mercury Cougar Eliminator Sends Dodge Challenger Vibes

Back in the day, Mercury – the car company, not the planet, Roman god, or the programming language – was an American division neatly tucked in between the Ford and Lincoln brands.
Mercury Cougar Eliminator CGI modernization by adry53customs for HotCars 16 photos
Photo: hotcars.official / Instagram
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The Blue Oval subsidiary, founded by Edsel Ford in late 1938, competed for most of its life against Buick and Oldsmobile from GM and DeSoto or the namesake Chrysler brand. It was closed in 2010 due to dwindling sales and the need to cut expenses following the then-recent financial crisis, but not before sending out into the world an entire series of memorable automobiles.

Chief among them was also the Cougar nameplate that was applied to a pony car model (1967 to 1973), a personal luxury car (1974 to 1997), some mid-size cars (1977-1979 and 1981-1982), plus a forgettable sport compact model between 1999 and 2002. Naturally, classic Blue Oval fans only have eyes for the traditional counterparts of the Ford Mustang (first and second generation) or Ford Torino/Thunderbird (third through seventh gens).

As such, they have an ample choice between their respective pony car and personal luxury car iterations – and we can see that people could easily lean heavily toward one or the other, depending on their POV. And that is valid both in the real world as well as across the vastness of the imaginative realm of digital car content creators. Such is the latter case with Timothy Adry Emmanuel, the virtual artist better known as adry53customs on social media, and as far as we can tell it pony-happened twice.

As he continues his commissioned dream ride periplus alongside HotCars, the pixel master has recently dreamt about the “return of the Mercury Cougar Eliminator,” which was a special 1969 and 1970 version introduced alongside the Boss 302 Mustang. It replaced the performance-oriented Cougar GT as an exclusive hardtop Cougar (no Convertible or XR-7 goodies), and the Eliminator featured all standard engines along with the exclusive use of the Boss 302 mill.

The CGI expert’s restomod was cooked up as a quintessentially extreme Hot Rod, complete with a thoroughly slammed attitude and an ‘extra’ widebody aerodynamic treatment, plus a massive old-school blower protruding through the hood and making all supercharged fans get giddy at the sight of it. Interestingly, the author also has a second version for Mercury enthusiasts, as he later imagined an orange, modernized version of the original dwelling on a quarter-mile dragstrip alongside its ancestor.

Unfortunately, although it is dreamt of as a hypothetical competitor for the big and brawny Dodge Challenger, this slightly toned-down variant of the Mercury Cougar Eliminator lacks a definitive personality. Especially from the sides, where it looks just like any other body kit placed on top of an unsuspecting Mopar two-door coupe if you get my drift. So, does it get our CGI hall pass, or is that a hard pass, actually?


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About the author: Aurel Niculescu
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Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution.
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