newer cougars suck ass, they have the same piece of sh*t tranny ford used in the contours and they WILL fail prematurely.
earlier thunderchickens / cougars were nice, i've had an 89 t-bird and a 89 cougar, both with the crappy 3.8 V6's but they were nice comfortable riding cars with IRS. really a perfect platform to build the crap outta a 408 and make a kickass cruiser