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Topic: $9.99 cougar on ebay ending June29 (Read 2138 times) previous topic - next topic

Re: $9.99 cougar on ebay ending June29

Reply #15
Yeah I didnt see much wrong with it. If it was closer I would use it to convert my cat to efi instead of the stupid cfi.
Quote from: jcassity
I honestly dont think you could exceed the cost of a new car buy installing new *stock* parts everywhere in your coug our tbird. Its just plain impossible. You could revamp the entire drivetrain/engine/suspenstion and still come out ahead.
Hooligans! 
1988 Crown Vic wagon. 120K California car. Wifes grocery getter. (junked)
1987 Ford Thunderbird LX. 5.0. s.o., sn-95 t-5 and an f-150 clutch. Driven daily and going strong.
1986 cougar.
lilsammywasapunkrocker@yahoo.com

Re: $9.99 cougar on ebay ending June29

Reply #16
hell you could sell it to the s yard for 75$ or take it to the Crusher and make $100 bucks..

If he wasn't 3000 miles from me i would pick it up in a heartbeat just for the quick money.

Re: $9.99 cougar on ebay ending June29

Reply #17
Quote from: honkeyboss
I think I'm going to bid on it. I'm wondering what kind of gas mileage the v-6 got. I could probably fix that thing up for pretty cheap and have it as a daily driver.


http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/4438.shtml

EPA rated 21 city/27 highway.

As a general note for the rest of the thread: I don't object to the car.. I object to needlessly inserting a religious message in a place like an Ebay auction. I have my reasons.

Hey, if you're in the area and can get it, go for it.

Re: $9.99 cougar on ebay ending June29

Reply #18
SVOPaul, I couldn't have put it better myself, and I have tried. People will not build parts for these cars because, for the most part, owners are too cheap to buy 'em. A large part of this problem is that a lot of the cars owned by this site's members are $500 beaters (I've owned a few myself). Likewise, a good deal of the members of this board are not true enthusiasts for these cars - some post once to sell something, some post a few times for help with a problem, and very few post regularly and are big fans of these cars. You can usually tell the ones that are not fans when they say "I've had it, I'm gettin' rid of it and buying a Honda" or something like that. A true fan, after a major problem or several little ones, would say "I've had it, I'm selling it and getting another one." I've done that several times myself.

Adding to the problem is the fact that these cars, rare as they are, are still far too popular. You can buy 'em for under $500 all day in some areas. Like it or not, nobody is going to invest a great amount of money into resto parts for these cars when they are so cheap to buy whole. Eventually the beaters will disappear, either as parts cars or into the crusher, and the good ones will become desirable. Same thing happened with the 2nd gen F-bodies. I bought two - a '78 T/A in 1990 for $600 and an '80 Formula Firebird in 1992 for $800. The $800 one was a very nice car with minimal rust and low mileage. To try to buy that same car in that same condition today would cost a fellah over $5000

A problem I can see in the near future is that these cars will look too modern to be taken seriously as classics. My '88 is 17 years old, but if someone didn't know cars was to look at it they might think it was a year or two old.
2015 Mustang GT Premium - 5.0, 6-speed, Guard Green - too much awesome for one car

1988 5.0 Thunderbird :birdsmily: SOLD SEPT 11 2010: TC front clip/hood ♣ Body & paint completed Oct 2007 ♣ 3.55 TC rear end and front brakes ♣ TC interior ♣ CHE rear control arms (adjustable lowers) ♣ 2001 Bullitt springs ♣ Energy suspension poly busings ♣ Kenne Brown subframe connectors ♣ CWE engine mounts ♣ Thundercat sequential turn signals ♣ Explorer overhead console (temp/compass display) ♣ 2.25" off-road dual exhaust ♣ T-5 transmission swap completed Jan 2009 ♣

Re: $9.99 cougar on ebay ending June29

Reply #19
Quote from: 88-pinto turbo

If he wasn't 3000 miles from me i would pick it up in a heartbeat just for the quick money.


Has Indiana been moved off the west coast??? Last time I checked it was approx 700-800 miles from Jersey...

Yea it's still to far, but thought a little geography lesson was in order...

Quote from: svopaul
The general problem is that most people are going to "Cheap these cars to death" meaning that people are being TOO cheap about them. No business is going to consider this a viable Market if people even complain about an entire car for $10...if the market won't pay that for an entire car then what is the incentive for someone to reproduce the obsolete front lights for these cars?...that's right, they won't.


You're absoultly correct, but as Carmen states... As long as cheap examples are out there and untill they become more scarce(my guess when they are 25+ years old), few people are going to be looking for parts to restore these cars.

They'll wind up like my '69 Fairlane Cobra, with few restoration parts available. Luckly like the Birds, most of the drive line and suspension are common to the Stangs of the era, unfortunatly body parts are getting scarce. So anyone who plans to have one one of these cars 6-8 years from now better start ding parts now(I have).

Re: $9.99 cougar on ebay ending June29

Reply #20
bird351 i have one radio out of my 84 cougar and a radio out of my old 88 cougar. 10 bucks plus shipping if you are interested.
2001 Buick Regal LS (DD):hick:

Got that fox rash again!

-Resident smartass! :ies:

- Don't listen to the naysayers. For every person who actually helps with your project there will be 10 who will discourage you all the while thinking that they are helping. 99% of all people have good intentions. That doesn't make them right.- XR7 Dave - SCCOA.Com

Re: $9.99 cougar on ebay ending June29

Reply #21
Thanks for the offer.. but if Tom's right, and I think he is, I can't use that radio. It has to be one of the radios mentioned in the "Stock Stereo Interchange?" thread in the Audio section. (BTW, not even my '86's radio will work.. it has the two blade-type connectors)

Re: $9.99 cougar on ebay ending June29

Reply #22
Quote from: Thunder Chicken
Same thing happened with the 2nd gen F-bodies. I bought two - a '78 T/A in 1990 for $600 and an '80 Formula Firebird in 1992 for $800. The $800 one was a very nice car with minimal rust and low mileage. To try to buy that same car in that same condition today would cost a fellah over $5000



I had an '81 Formula Firebird back in 1992 when I found my first 5.0 Mustang....I couldn't GIVE the car away!!! had all the bells and whistles including the WS6 package...I sold the Snowflake wheels and put some steel wheels on it and dumped it for $1000....I still don't see any market for them but I am sure there is a market for nicer cars for some collectors. I was really discouraged about that car....mine had nothing wrong with it and looked and drove great but nobody wanted it.

Along the same lines, My Turbo Coupe was an engine fire car....the only reason I built it was because nobody wanted ANYTHING from these cars so I figured why bother parting it out and I used other spare parts from parts cars to build it simply because nobody buys the parts no matter how cheap you price them. I really don't care what my car is worth or not....I built it to have fun with and it is similar but different enough from the Mark VII's I have been building.

Sadly I have thrown away many nice parts because of lack of interest....I sent 10 sets of low mileage E7 heads to the syard a month ago with more stock parts to follow. I have doors and bumper covers, header panels etc...but nobody wants to pay anything that would make it worth my time to package and ship so I don't bother offering them.

Re: $9.99 cougar on ebay ending June29

Reply #23
Quote from: Chuck W
Hell, you can't even buy a "bolt-in" performance exhaust for these cars. That is something that should be a no-brainer....but is one available? Nope.

I HATE that... you can get exhaust for just about anything "but" a fox bird/cougar. Dumps are cool and all, but I want tailpipes darnit!
2005 Subaru WRX STi|daily driver

Re: $9.99 cougar on ebay ending June29

Reply #24
Of course, as disappointed as I am that nothing is available for these cars, I also must admit that the fact that if you want to do something different with these cars you have to do it yourself is kind of a good thing in my mind. I mean, I thank God almost every day that nobody makes Altezzas for these cars, and I love what some people have come up with for custom lights (David on Cougarnuts made his LED front lights, Cougars2Go has made his incredible BMW lights, and I'm working on a totally kick-ass LED tail light setup for my own). I also have that much more respect for a lot of really well built cars on this message board (Hawk, Tom, Andrew Beedle, Blown306Cougar, Eric, Blownbirds, and many more) than I would have for an equivalent Mustang because I know these cars didn't come part by part from UPS. We don't have magazines full of suggestions for our cars and tech articles on how to do it. Some ingenuity was required to build those cars.

Granted, my love of ingenuity is far outweighed by my disgust at the lack of even stock parts for these cars, and I do realize that eventually somebody will notice them, but the ingenuity that is bred by owning these cars at least partially makes up for it, and at least we can usually make Mustang parts work...

Paul, if I didn't live in a different country I'd probably have taken a bunch of those parts off your hands long ago. I shudder to think, though, at how much it would cost to ship a door across the border...
2015 Mustang GT Premium - 5.0, 6-speed, Guard Green - too much awesome for one car

1988 5.0 Thunderbird :birdsmily: SOLD SEPT 11 2010: TC front clip/hood ♣ Body & paint completed Oct 2007 ♣ 3.55 TC rear end and front brakes ♣ TC interior ♣ CHE rear control arms (adjustable lowers) ♣ 2001 Bullitt springs ♣ Energy suspension poly busings ♣ Kenne Brown subframe connectors ♣ CWE engine mounts ♣ Thundercat sequential turn signals ♣ Explorer overhead console (temp/compass display) ♣ 2.25" off-road dual exhaust ♣ T-5 transmission swap completed Jan 2009 ♣

Re: $9.99 cougar on ebay ending June29

Reply #25
Quote from: Thunder Chicken
because I know these cars didn't come part by part from UPS. We don't have magazines full of suggestions for our cars and tech articles on how to do it. Some ingenuity was required to build those cars.


That has to be the best 2 sentences I think I have ever heard.
I get the typical mustang talk every day at work. Why don't you just buy a Mustang, Mustnags are faster...

And my favorite "A pig in a tuxed is still a pig"
Obeosuly someone needs to learn a leason the hard way.

Me the reason I drive a Cougar is becasue they are different, I find them more fun to drive, and of course its fun to show the other guys you can run with them too.

I live in a spot where 4 citys meet. Every time you cruise the typical route on the week ends you see Mustang, Camaros, and Firebirds. They all look the same, becasue as Thunder Chicken stated the cars are built via UPS.

I only know of 2 XR7's and 2 TC's in the are mine being one of the XR7s and Whitebeastxr7 being the other. The guys with the TCs arn't on the board yet. Now why would I want to drive some thing that everytime I drive down the street it looks like I am passing my self because and identical car passes me.

Ok, I think I am done with my random rant about why I drive my car. and why I own 1 Cougar 1 T-Bird and 2 Mark VII's.

Re: $9.99 cougar on ebay ending June29

Reply #26
I'm kind of mad at myself. I decided I would be thrifty...(cheap) and wait until near the end of the auction to place a bid. I was away from the house and missed it completely. I sent an email to the owner and I'm hoping he will sell it to me anyway. I already have an 87 XR7 that is slowly turning into an all-out drag car, but I've been talking for the last few weeks about picking up a V-6 model for a daily driver and ditching my Ford Contour.
    I really hope I can get this car. Even if I can't, I will keep looking. I've been a lover of these cars since I first saw one. I was 11 or 12 years old when I first saw an 87-88 Cougar. I was on a school field trip to NYC. There were 4 or 5 of them sitting outside of St. Patrick's Cathedral, where there was what looked like a Mafia wedding going on. My friends and I starting refering to them as "Mafia cars". Even now, over 15 years later I still smile when I see an Italian guy behind the wheel of a Cougar.
    I think, though, that the majority of Cougar owners now only have one because they are a moderately cool car that you can pick up for pretty cheap. I would imagine that 99% of the actual Cougar "enthusiasts" belong to this site. I would also imagine that we make up only a small fraction of all the Cougar owners out there. Unlike Mustangs or Camaros, I really doubt that many people buy a mid eighties Cougar with any intention at all of modifying it. Our cars are really becoming just beaters. In a lot of ways, they are the perfect beater: They are cheap to buy, cheap to fix, and if you break it real bad, get on Ebay and pick up another one for 10 bucks.

Re: $9.99 cougar on ebay ending June29

Reply #27
Sometimes i think that some of you  live in the paradise of the used parts for any car that you want at a cheap price...

Now if it is hard to You to find parts for your cars....
Imagine me searching for a rear left 3 tier tailight.......3 years and until i dont find ONE !

 In my situation ,i will gave 100 dollars for that car in a second without the title.....considering that some body pieces wont fit on my car.

1985 Mercury Cougar V6
1989 F-200 V8
1996 Explorer V6
2001 F-150

Re: $9.99 cougar on ebay ending June29

Reply #28
I have had and still have Mustangs....all of which are ones you don't see everyday. I also have a '69 Cyclone Spoiler II...which you really don't EVER see considering only 47 are dospoogeented to exist so I do appreciate the "different". I bought my first Cougar(an '88) in 1994 to use as my driver for my sales job...it was a 3.8 auto and it wasn't long before I had a Turbo Coupe hood, wheels, full stereo, custom dash gauges and a 5.0, 5 spd for it.....then in 1996 I found a 1987 Mark VII LSC and bought it and dumped the cougar....that created the LSC-R and I have been building Mark VII's since then. I have had a few Turbo Coupes as well.....I always have roughly 14 cars in my collection in one state or another. I found Mark VII parts hard to find so I started offering parts and making things for the car....I came up with the first properly done stainless tipped cat-back system as well and the shop that did it gets people from all over to this day. There has been a growth in the Mark VII area....I spent the first year at the Ford Nationals in Carlisle PA being the ONLY Mark VII...despite others saying they would go....the 2nd year there were TWO of us...me and a guy from New Jersey. The Third year it was 2 maybe 3 again....I gave up at that point. I had 2 cars at the Nationals and it was work to clean up and carry both so I stuck with my SVO and gave up on the Mark VII showings. Aside from that the Mark VIII guys seemed to treat us like red headed step children and I didn't want to be associated with that.

All during that time there was only ever a couple of Fox Tbirds maybe...but you could find 30 plus MN-12 Supercoupes, Tbirds and cougars there. Those guys have gone out in force and they have some aftermarket support as a result. I also own 2 Super Coupes and it's much easier to get parts for those than it is the early Tbirds.

Cheap or not, if people don't get out there and make a showing that there is a market for these cars other than "beaters" then nobody will ever take notice and make parts. Being cheap is a necessity at some point in everyones life and although I haven't seen it here(haven't looked either) don't bash anyone who brings a product to your market regardless of the price...just be glad they did...IF they choose to do so. It doesn't matter if your cousin Eddie can make it for less, at least someone would be making an attempt.

I've been around this stuff a long time and each market goes through it to some extent. Just don't run off anyone who might choose to help your car's survival and pick your battles and choose the right time to be cheap.

Re: $9.99 cougar on ebay ending June29

Reply #29
I would have c00ched that Cougar right up, if it wasn't so far away from where I live. Body looked good, except the one corner, lot's of spare parts. :D
95 Ranger Splash 2.3
88 Tbird Sport :ies::ies:
5.0 SO, stainless shorty headers, w/ Magnaflow lers. KYB struts, KYB shocks. 5lug conversion from sn95 Mustang, subframe connectors, drilled and slotted rotors, 03 Mach 1 wheels. sequential taillights.140 speedo