Try this. You are driving a Ford baby blue, top- down, white interior, white-walled tires with chrome disc wheels Cougar with a 351 Cleveland engine. A huge truck pulls along side. It is pitch polished back, somewhat tricked with lots of chrome. Two Hispanic gentlemen about 25 years of age, both position themselves in the passenger window of the truck and with a Cheshire smile and the most exciting of voices say, "Nice ride. Really nice." And they both give you a thumbs up. You put the Cougar is low gear and with the cut-outs open, you pull away up to about 3,000 rpm which is the purr shift point before you go to second at 45 mph. Who ahh.

Then you pull into a gas station, park, and begin to fill the tank. A car with two beautiful black ladies about 20 years old, stare at you while you are filling the tank. Actually they are not staring at you, but the Cougar. One approaches you. She is striking. When she stands beside the Cougar, she says, "You have a fine car. I really like it." as she pets it. She smiles, turns and walks away.

Now, the question is, if you are a female reading this, does it make one ounce of difference to you? Or if you are male, does it matter what is said? It just might if you had rebuilt the Cougar after you had unintentionally set it on fire, totaled it, bought it back from the insurance company, and then spent two years rebuilding it to its present beauty.

Now here is the kicker. You may think that the Cougar is only attractive to young men and pretty women, but you are wrong. You pull into a grocery store parking lot and three 8 to 12 year old boys on their mountain bikes surround the Cougar. Before you can get out, one yells, "Hey Mr. What year is that car and what kind of car is it? That is the coolest car we have every seen?

We all have questions we are asked time and time again. Almost every time I drive the Cougar, someone rolls down a window, honks, walks up to me, and even a cop pulled me over to ask, "What year is that? I am so happy that it is a 1973 Cougar so I can hold up three fingers as they all know it is a 1970s something. The reason I am happy is because if it were a 1971, I would be in deep trouble.