Firing up the ‘67 Mercury Cougar, the gift that keeps giving
POCATELLO, Idaho — It wasn’t my first look at the car that stopped me. I’d seen its beauty many times in photos and video. I’d even lived with it.
It wasn’t the sound of the engine, either. I’d listened to the low rumble of the rebuilt 302-cubic-inch engine in the clips my cousin had been texting me. RUM-BLUM-BLUM-BLUM-BLUM. Christmas carols never sounded so sweet.
No, it was the odor that got me. Just that faint fragrance of spent petroleum. Just a hint of Eau de Chevron, wafting coming from that V8.
“You can smell the gas,” I said to Athan Katsilometes, my car-lovin’ cousin who has a Master’s from Goodwrench A&M.
He just laughed. He opened the driver’s side door of this celebrated pony car, a 1967 Mercury Cougar.
“This isn’t the same car you remember.”
True. This vehicle is something of a Christmas miracle.
We have a reunion ... #Kats67Cougar #66ina67 #RJNow @reviewjournal pic.twitter.com/XTWkBWxwWj
— John Katsilometes (@johnnykats) May 1, 2021
***
That car is a ‘67 Mercury Cougar Dan Gurney Special, the vehicular gift that keeps on giving. First purchased in Chico, California in 1988. Driven to a coma just to the north in Redding five years later. Rescued and rebuilt where I am today, in Pocatello, more than a decade ago. Now residing in Las Vegas. This car has been driven in the four places I’ve lived dating to age 4. We’re practically the same age. I was a year-old baby when she came off the assembly line in Dearborn, Mich. in 1967.
Accelerating through the car’s history, I purchased the Cougar from a woman whose parents were the original owners. A beautiful vehicle with a little more than 89,000 original miles. I bought it mostly because I loved the body style, a feline design, which is why it why it’s called a “cat.”
I also liked the Motor Trend Car of the Year 1967 sticker in the back window. It is gold-colored and looks kind of like a VIP pass.
I drove the Cougar as my day-to-day car for five years, moving from Chico (my second home town, after Pocatello) to Redding in 1993. There were various missteps and wrong turns, including my crashing into a pheasant while roaring past an almond orchard in Durham, and sliding into a snow bank in Mount Shasta City while on my way to a high-school basketball tournament.
There was general neglect, too — I should have named the car General Neglect, actually. Back then, I was more apt to race to Reno than change the oil.
I finally parked the car, by then unnavigable, in a storage garage in Redding. That’s where it remained, dark and dry, for 17 years. A lotta dust, but no rust.
Ready to roll ... #Kats67Cougar #66InA67 @akatsilometes #RJNow @reviewjournal pic.twitter.com/U10jjg0fOJ
— John Katsilometes (@johnnykats) May 2, 2021
The car’s resurrection began when Athan moved to Las Vegas in 2009, running the HR department for the company that laid the concrete for City Center. Athan comes from the branch of the family that loves working on old cars. His father, my late uncle James, was the same way. These guys could disassemble and rebuild any vintage car with a crescent wrench, a screwdriver and a can of WD-40.
I, meanwhile, could not.
Athan bugged me about the Cougar for months, before I finally cratered. “Take the Cougar,” I said. “Spin your magic.” In the summer of 2010, I had the car shipped from Redding to Pocatello. Uncle James then took over. He was more than qualified to accept this task. U.J., as I called him, was once the property manager for Jim Rogers’ estate and car collection when most of that collection was stored in Pocatello (so my family has known the Rogers’ family for a really long time).
I felt that turning the car over would close out my involvement with the Cougar. It would live happily ever after in Idaho, or wherever Athan wound up.
New stereo. And it works. For YOU, @BillyFGibbons ... #Kats67Cougar #66inA67 #RJNow @reviewjournal pic.twitter.com/1i7QzOaNdQ
— John Katsilometes (@johnnykats) May 1, 2021
Not so.
**
Athan did take the Cougar from Pocatello, storing it in his current home in Cincinnati. We lost U.J. in October 2018. When U.J. died, he passed along two more vintage cars to Athan (a 1962 Oldsmobile 585 convertible, and a 1955 Chevy 210). Athan already owns a couple of modern-day vehicles, too. You know, the types with cruise control, safety packages and backup cameras.
“I have too many cars,” he finally said, a couple of months before pandemic. “Why don’t you take the Coug back?”
“Are we going to do this again, with the Cougar?” I said. “I have no use for a ‘67 Cougar in Las Vegas.”
“You could take a photo of it in front of the Welcome to Las Vegas sign,” he said. “It needs to be there just for that reason.”
“You make a persuasive argument,” I said.
I understood Athan’s multiple-vehicle plight. We went around and around the Cougar cul-de-sac, figuring out if and how this car would be returned to my possession. We investigated shipping it on a flatbed from Cincinnati to Vegas, which would cost about $1,700 that I wasn’t eager to spend. I asked Athan, “What kind of condition is this car in, anyway?”
“I’d drive it to Las Vegas tomorrow.”
The car had been totally, cosmetically restored. New transmission, springs, tires, rear-sequential tail lights (the car’s fancy, signature effect), and, most important, a rebuilt 302 V8 to replace the origina 289, which was extremely tired after logging about 100,000 tough miles.
Finally, on May Day, I flew to Cincinnati and met up with Athan, and the Cougar, at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. This was not the same car. It looked like it belonged in a magazine, or maybe in Dan Gurney’s garage in 1967. Athan had installed an after-market stereo, with a Bluetooth link, and had “Tush” by ZZ Top cued up (Billy F. Gibbons, a noted vintage-car aficionado, had taken a special interest in this road trip).
Seeing some similarities w/ @OmegaMartUSA #WorldsLargestGiftStore ... #RJNow #66InA67 #Kats67Cougar @reviewjournal pic.twitter.com/TBnxOaFVlW
— John Katsilometes (@johnnykats) May 3, 2021
We dubbed the upcoming adventure, “66 in a 67,” as I was driving most of the trek on Route 66. Driving west on I-74 from Cincy, I would pick up from the famous highway in St. Louis, stopping in Lebanon, Missouri; Amarillo, Texas and into Flagstaff, Arizona before peeling off at Kingman and into Las Vegas. The entire trip would cover about 2,000 miles in 30 hours, the MPG working out to between 12 and 15.
This was not a scenic, sight-seeing trip, nor was it a parade to show off the Cougar. I pushed this vintage vehicle as if it were a stock car, averaging (and I am not exaggerating) about 85 mph the entire way. I played a lot of classic-rock, fitting the car’s vibe, AC/DC, Rush, Queen, Led Zeppelin and (of course) ZZ Top. And I covered at least half of The Beatles’ catalogue.
I stopped at the Munger Moss Motel in Lebanon, where owner Ramona Lehman told me to take a photo in front of the famous neon sign. The place celebrated its 75th anniversary in June. “Everyone needs to take a picture at the sign,” she said. “It’s the prettiest sign west of the Mississippi.”
I rolled into the Longhorn Hotel Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo, rain falling on the car for the first time in about 30 years. This is home of the 72-ounce steak. Free if you can eat it, with trimmings. Less than six people per year make it. The room was outfitted with swinging saloon doors leading to the bathroom.
Next stop, Hotel Monte Vista in Historic Downtown Flagstaff, was where I experienced my lone mechanical glitch. The brake-light switch (since replaced) had loosened, leaving those lights on. So I disconnected the battery overnight. This was a five-minute fix for Howard DeVore, owner of Flagstaff Auto Repair for 35 years this coming May.
I knew I was in the rigiht place when I saw DeVore’s ‘72 El Camino parked out front.
As Howard syas, “I’m a guy with gray hair who knows old cars.” And those are some good people to know.
**
The Cougar landed at the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign, the final song on the trip being “Red Barchetta” by Rush, blasting from the car’s new four-speaker system. Glorious. A couple of tourists took a quick photo of me at the sign, and I texted that to Athan, immediately, our “Mission Accoplished” moment.
#TheScene ... #SugarCreekCasino #Hinton #Kats67Cougar #RJNow @reviewjournal #66inA67 ... pic.twitter.com/4dNBPq2QlM
— John Katsilometes (@johnnykats) May 4, 2021
Since, I’ve tooled the Cougar all around Vegas. I’ve set it up at The Nevada Room at Commercial Center, Bootlegger Bistro’s Copa Room, and posed with Mark Shunock at The Space and David Perrico at the Italian American Club. The execs at The Strat cleared the main valet/porte cochere for a series of shots after a Sammy Hagar show, including one with SPI Entertainment founder Adam Steck. I’ve had it at the Peppermill and under the lighted dome at Plaza, with Circa in the background.
Brian Newman and I cruised the Strip in the ‘67 just last week. I felt like Dan Tanna in his convertible T-Bird in the old “Vega$” TV show, though Tanna was infinitely cooler than am I.
Passengers usually remark about the technology. There isn’t any. About six gagues, covering the basics. This car has two mirrors, rearview in the middle and one on the driver’s side (a passenger’s-side mirror is optional, folks). My Infinity QX50 has two video screens, and the interior lights up like a Christmas parade every time I start it. Not the Cougar. It’s all metal knobs and levers.
I also took my buddy John Martinez on a cruise one night when we were at Tuscany Suites. He’s a rigger on the “O” show, husband of Vegas entertainment sensation Anne Martinez, and and also an old-car buff (as we finished the drive he was doing a search on his phone for old Corvette Stingrays for sale).
From #Winslow, #Arizona. Standing On The Corner Park ... #Kats67Cougar #66InA67. #RJNow @reviewjournal pic.twitter.com/Ys8CuG5NgR
— John Katsilometes (@johnnykats) May 5, 2021
Johnny asked about the car’s paint job, its beautiful sky-blue hue.
“It’s a stock color,” I said. “It’s called Tiffany Blue.”
Knowing his Vegas entertainment, he said, “That’s a stage name. You should name her Tiffany.”
Home! And it’s fabulous ... #Kats67Cougar #66InA67 #RJNow @reviewjournal pic.twitter.com/m564qBMjvE
— John Katsilometes (@johnnykats) May 5, 2021
Tiffany Blue it is. My Christmas gift for all time, and now Las Vegas headliner. Catch our show in 2022. These two cats are here for the long haul.
John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. His “PodKats!” podcast can be found at reviewjournal.com/podcasts. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.
