Lock up your sons: 1968 Mercury Cougar Dan Gurney Special

You all know about Dan Gurney and his magical year of 1967.  If not, here’s the short form replay:  Dan won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in a GT40 with A.J. Foyt (and started the tradition of spraying Campaign in the winners circle) and a week later won the Belgian Grand Prix in an F1 car of his own design (the Eagle).   But that’s not all.  Also in 1967 he was racing Mercury Cougars in SCCA TransAm, and as part of his driving contract, signed away the use of his name and likeness to Mercury for promotion.  Little did he know… Find this 1968 Mercury Cougar Dan Gurney Special for sale in Burien, WA for $3,000 via craigslist.

The “Dan Gurney Special” Mercury Cougar was introduced as a “sticker package” in 1967.  This trim package is not to be confused with the 1968 XR7-G which was the business.  Our subject car is a Special and not an XR7-G, so it consists of the standard vinyl interior, turbine wheel covers and a Dan Gurney Special window sticker.  According to the internets, the Special gets buy with the standard Cougar 289 V-8, although this car has a 302 air cleaner on it and the ad says it has the stock 302.  XR7-G’s came with the 302 stock, either 2V or 4V and could be ordered with the 428 Cobra Jet.  So bring your serial number loving friend along when you check to see if this car has had an engine transplant or an air cleaner transplant (or maybe the internet is wrong).

Inside you will find you have a little TLC to apply, along with some epoxy to glue the rearview back into place so your dice will stop tumbling.

Meow!  Here’s sum total of the difference to the non-special Cougar.  I wonder if you met Dan in an alley somewhere, he’d autograph the dashboard of this car?

See a better example of reducing a racing hero to a trim package? email us here: tips@dailyturismo.com

Gianni is Daily Turismo’s Pacific Northwest correspondent and would have voted for Dan Gurney for President, if he was old enough to vote (but he wasn’t).