1977 Mercury Cougar Villager Brougham

Starting bid is way high, it's aluminum trim not stainless. It is fixable though. That appears to be dealer installed air conditioning not the factory compressor.

 

Actually, I think it was really just a matter of the fact that the Oakville plant built full-sized cars -- probably for both markets -- and the Ohio plant built the mid-sizers.

As for the Meteor, sometimes it was shown as a Mercury, others it seems to have been considered a separate make, although within the Lincoln-Mercury Division. I think maybe the best way to understand it is to liken it to one of GM's companion makes (LaSalle, Marquette, etc.) only with rationalized mechanicals. As far as I can tell, it seems to have used the Mercury body, the base Merc grille, and Ford interiors of varying trim to match the trim level of the car

Just to confuse the issue, of course, there was a U.S. Meteor in '62 & '63 -- Mercury's counterpart to the mid-sized Ford Fairlane. I haven't been able to determine yet if there was a Canadian Meteor these years and, if so, whether it was a full-sized or mid-sized car.

GM and Chrysler had similar weird Canadian variants. Canadian Pontiacs used Chevy frames and mechanicals with Pontiac bodies; Chrysler offered cars with a mix of Plymouth and Dodge components.

I'd love to see a book covering all these Canadian variations.

 

Bidding has been underwhelming so far - i.e.: too high.

 

Wow, I've been thinking of parting with mine but would be nowhere near that starting bid price.

 

Received a last minute bid of $8500 from someone with decent feedback.

 

Apparently somebody thought it was worth that kind of money. I still don't.
I'm torn; I like seeing cars like these finally getting the appreciation they're due, but I hate seeing cars that used to be great bargains priced out of reach of anyone that works for a living. If this one goes for $8.5K, the next one will be $10K.

 

That's the advantage for the seller of auctioning his stuff, instead selling it for a set price. The mindset of auction participants is entirely different than that of flea market shoppers. For them, the price is less relevant than the sport of beating out all other participants. Subconsciously, he bagged his trophy. I had a set of balanced summer tires on rims for a Skoda, in the e-bay set price non auction section, for just 5€, just to get rid of them. I didn't get even one bite. If I had auctioned them off for a minimum bid of 10€, what'll you bet how long it would have taken to off them? And, forget about 10€. I would have cleaned up on it. I haven't yet been to an auction to where there weren't people there who didn't know what they were doing. Most of the stuff changes hands at rediculously over-valued sums. If things never turned out that way, there wouldn't be auctions

 

I know the seller of this Villager wagon. It was sold to a buyer in Norway. So far, the sale is proceeding with no issues. It would seem European buyers have deep pockets, especially for 70s American wagons. You guys might recall that there was a very nice '77 Cougar Villager wagon that sold within the past couple of years for the $14k price range. It was discussed on here.

 

Norway is a very expensive country to live in. But, wages are very high, in compensation. They have a great economy. So, there you have it

 

Not that many years ago, people in the old car hobby turned up their noses at '70s cars -- especially those from late in the decade (some still do). Now they're accepted at most car shows and they are on the verge of being priced out of range of the average fancier of that era's cars. A discussion in the letters section of the latest edition of Hemmings Motor News speculates that the increasing prices are keeping younger people out of the hobby and that this will eventually result in the hobby's demise.

Just a few years ago I saw Cougar Villagers in the $2500 - $4000 range, which I could have swung with no great hardship if I'd wanted to. $8500 would cut far too deep into my bank account. Another bargain car bites the dust.

Of course, someone -- probably in a magazine article -- will inevitably point out that there are still bargains to be had. Almost immediately after, people will start snapping these up and flipping them at huge markups, thus ruining another bargain. And so on and on.

 

For all we know, it might be mostly these younger buyers with limited savings who are the flippive speculators, seeking to enlarge their savings.
Nevertheless, if this trend keeps up and even pushes average prices even higher, there will be a market opportunity for agents buying up remaining ex-patriot new classics in Latin America and possible elsewhere where the were delivered