Over the years, Mercury made lots of very strong street cars, but always had a “luxury car” image - kind of an “upscale ford” persona. Consequently, they were a little late getting into the all-out muscle car wars.

The performance option “XR-7” was a nice car, but somewhat low-key. In ‘69 the “Eliminator” option was available and street guys began to notice. Finally, the performance Mercury had all the right scoops, spoilers, stripes, fat tires, and big engine options to get some respect.

The ‘70 Cougar Eliminator was the “finished” car. With access to the FoMoCo parts bin, the Eliminator came standard with 351 Cleveland engine and optional was the solid lifter Boss 302, the 428 Cobra Jet, and the Boss 429 engines!

All totaled, Mercury only sold 2,411 Eliminators in ‘69 and 2,200 in ‘70. Seeing trouble for muscle cars on the horizon, Mercury got out of the muscle game in ‘71 and let the Cougar balloon into a fat-cat, T-Bird sized car.