1990 Mercury Cougar XR-7 – Revell

I’ve recently built this kit again, this time with substantially better results(and a better article, I’d say): Click here to head to the new article.

Mercury Cougar models are few and far between, from the ever re-released AMT ’69 Cougar that in my books still holds the candle as one of the worst kits I’ve built based on a 2015 re-release(one that has been around since the early 1980s at the very least).

Lord knows wouldn’t be half as awful if it wasn’t re-wrapped over eight times with little to no improvements at all.

However, cue Revell and their annual releases of the Cougar model in 1990 through 1992. Starting off with this one, the ’90 Cougar XR-7 with it’s supercharged 231 cubic inch Essex V6. I mean, engine wise it was still really quick but just knowing the 5.0L V8 was widely available on all things Ford, it’s still interesting to know the 1990 version of the Cougar had at best the supercharged V6. Anyway, I’m rambling! To the kit.

So like a lot of the kits in the nineties from Revell, this one’s also fully molded in the “body color” which in this case is a rather smoked dark gray if not black, which makes it look rather fancy by itself if you ignore the mold injection blots on the sides and whatnot that kind of kill the illusion that the car’s been painted properly. That being said though, it does look really good by itself, hell I even forsake painting the body cause I liked the metallic enough to overlook the blots and scratches and even though the kit’s 26 years old, the sheen on the paint still holds up.

All in all, the only bits I ended up painting were the engine parts, few interior bits and the exhaust system cause the rest looks good enough and proper to pass off as painted. So yeah, call it a lazy job if you will but it turns out this is a nice and complicated build all the meanwhile being light on the painting, very much akin to say the… ’91 GMC Syclone kit from Revell, to name one, and could be a really nice rut breaker while also maintaining a shred of difficulty.

The chassis is really well detailed, complicated front and rear suspension set-ups and all. Engine detail is freakin’ great too, the 3.8L V6 is properly cluttering the engine bay significantly. Some bits are a bit of an awkward fit due to how it all kind of is meant to fall in place like oddly shaped puzzle pieces but once you figure out the fit, it fits well.

Also, on the box it proudly displays a whole different Cougar in a wide bodykit with giant bumpers, alternative wheels and hidden headlights, and boy they don’t kid with the “can be build one of two ways”, the result if you were to slap on the bodykit makes for a drastically different car. Hell, it goes pretty far with this, like it has separate headlights which are located in the bumper for that version, weird little see through hub-caps for the other set of wheels, closed grille, so on. I mean, I build it totally factory stock but I do dig the idea that it’s a totally different result for some folks.

The mold quality is freakin’ amazing too, coming to think of it. The finest little details like the script on the taillights and fenders is easily highlighted with a silver marker and the whole build fits together like a charm, no bending, no snapping, it all goes together like it was made yesterday. There’s always been a supreme layer of quality of the early 1990s Revell kits but holy hell they were and still are great.

And best of all? Cheap! Though of course, granted, there’s not a whole lot of folks jumping for joy at a ’90 Mercury “luxury sports sedan” model kit, I mean, I’m just one of the weird people that likes cars from 1965 all the way through the 1990s. Even the boxy, unimaginative and rather predictable ones such as this one, and Revell has definitely done the model proud by giving it a very, very proper release.

Some day I’ll get the ’92 one, just for the hell of it.