In the fall of 1967 John Eilertsen was headed home from work. It had been a very long day, really more than a day since it was after one o’clock in the morning. The streets were empty and John was driving a new Cougar GT-E. Nothing like a quick blast up to 100 miles per hour to clear you head. Still, probably not the safest thing to do on the surface streets. He took his foot out of it, but not soon enough to avoid the notice of one of Detroit’s finest. It took another 3 miles for the police to catch up with John and to pull him over. John thought he just might be going to jail.
“Where are you going in such a hurry?” was the cops first question, and John didn’t know it yet, but this was probably the one thing that kept him from seeing the inside of the gray bar hotel. John told the cop that he was on his way home from work at Product Planning at Ford. After handing over his license and registration, The cop asked him which building he worked in and John replied, and again this seemed to be the right answer. The cop asked him, “What are the secretaries like over there?” Not knowing quite how to answer that one John replied that “they are a great bunch of gals”. "So who is your secretary? asked the cop. John replied, and again the cop asked, “what about her, what’s she like?”. John said she was fantastic, that she handled a ton of work, and always got it right. “Uh huh, well that’s good to hear, because she’s my wife”. Following a short admonition to slow it down, John was on his way with just a warning. You could say that John was lucky. Here he was driving a new GT-E and not going to jail, but the truth is he was really doing his job.
John Eilertsen was personally involved in a the development and introduction of the Cougar XR7, Cyclone, Lynx, Mercury Grand Marquis car lines, the Boss and Mach1 Mustangs and Cougar Eliminator models racing components, the industry’s first production racing mirrors, rear deck spoilers, hood scoops, hood locks and body-side tape stripes; and America’s first production sun roof in a domestic vehicle (Cougar XR7-G). After starting his career in the Chassis Engineering Department, and implementing several new programs there, he joined the Lincoln-Mercury Division as the Accessory Product Planning Manager. Within a matter of months he moved into the L-M Car Product Planning Office just before the Lincoln-Mercury and Ford Division Product Planning offices were merged into the Ford Product Development Office, Car Product Planning Group. In this Division, he became a Chief of Program Evaluation (responsible for budgets, piece costs and tooling costs) for several car lines. He was on the front lines, if it relates to the Cougar, he either knows the answer or knows who has the answer.
Mr. Eilertsen was kind enough to give me over an hour of his time to discuss his work at Ford, and answer a great many questions about our Cougars. And thanks to all of you who submitted questions. I think he was impressed that we were so immersed in the details of these cars.
What is the meaning of XR-7?
This was a question that he could not answer. His involvement with the Cougar XR-7 started in 1965 and by that time the name had already been established. However, he did give me the name of a person that can probably answer the question.
Why no convertible or fastback?
No one knew if the Cougar would sell. The original sales target was 60,000 units, and that low volume would never allow for the amortization of the extreme costs associated with developing different body styles. They put every dollar they could budget into the one body style. The bean counters were opposed to the sequential taillights and hide away headlights because those were very expensive features.
What does GT-E stand for?
While he could not say for sure, he recalled that it might have been Grand Touring, European. Other than sounding good, there wasn’t a lot of extra thought put into the name.
What was the XR7-S?
The XR7-S was never intended for production. They were one off show vehicles. He remembers the one that HFII had. The paint job alone on those cars could cost upwards of $25,000 and in 1967 that was a very large sum of money! Since these cars were not intended for production his division had very little involvement with the vehicles.
Who killed the XR7-G and why?
The bean counters killed it. IT was not selling well and the prospect of having to support it with 10 years of spare parts made it too expensive to continue.
As a side note, John was the first person to meet Heinz Prechter of American Sunroof. He went with Heinz to see a prototype of the electric sunroof, and was impressed with the product. The end result was that they would use the XR7-G to introduce the feature to the market. John and Heinz became close friends as John was able to introduce the feature across a broad range of Ford products.
Who killed the GT-E and why?
The bean counters killed it. Sales were underwhelming, and expansion of the 428CJ across all Cougar models made it irrelevant. Of note: the side trim on the GT-E was made using an extruted aluminum bar. The tooling was very cheap for this type of trim even though the piece cost was a bit higher. In many many cases, it was the constant battle of tying to keep tooling costs low that drove product decisions. On low volume cars they had to keep the tooling very low to make things work financially.
Why the change in the spoiler from the Eliminator prototype to the production model?
The parts on the prototype cars did not necessarily represent what could actually be built or at least built within the budgets they had to work with. An additional concern was what was feasible in production.
What happened to the Streep 2 speed rear axle?
That was an experiment done by the guys in Power Train development. The Power Train folks did not advance it as a proposal to the product planners for consideration.
Why no white or silver option on the Eliminator side stripes for 1970?
The Eliminator could be special ordered in any color, but the quantities of those special orders was not sufficient to justify more colors. Keep in mind that this was the first use of a large tape stripe in the industry.
To put the stripe on the car in production was a fairly involved process. The decal was attached to a large carrier assembly. After they peeled off the backing the carrier was attached to the car using suction cups at carefully selected locations. The side of the car was wet-ed down with soapy water. The carrier was then pressed against the side of the car to apply the decal. After the carrier was removed, they squeegeed the decal to remove any air bubbles and to make fine adjustments in location.
John was the person at Ford that worked with Ron Weber from 3M to make all of those Boss 302 and Mach one side stripes a reality.
Why did they kill the Boss 429 Cougar?
It was never seriously considered for production.
Why was the 390 the biggest engine option in the Cougar in '67.
Weight. They had big concerns about putting that much weight in the nose of the car. The other factors all related to the fact that they really did not expect the Cougar to sell all that well. This limited the amount of money they could put into developing different options.
Why change the hash marks on the side of the '67 XR-7 for the aluminum rocker trim?
The Cougar was selling well enough to justify higher tooling costs associated with the aluminum trim, and it eliminated the need for the carrier assembly used to hold the hash larks in production.
Side note: there were 7 hash marks on each side because it was an XR… wait for it… SEVEN.
Why the nose up stance, is that a design feature?
The photographers of the day would put sand bags in the trunk to give the car the look of going fast while sitting still. Nose down looked like you were hitting the brakes, nose up you were hitting the gas. The real stance was more or less level. (A look at the chassis drawings tends to show that this was the case, I think what we see to day is that the leaf springs fatigue faster than the coils.).
Did the Cougar meet it’s sales and program objectives?
Absolutely! Almost every one associated with the Cougar got promoted ans some in very big ways. Two of the guys that worked on the Cougar eventually became President of Ford.
What was the logic behind placement of the XR-7 gauges? Why did the oil pressure gauge end up on the passenger side?
It was not really a big decision. The engineering guys laid it out, probably they felt it was the least useful to the driver on a daily basis. The real problem was finding useful ways to utilize the switches in the center of the dash. It always seemed like they had one too many but they liked the look of four switches.
There were many questions about minutia: lanyards for hood pins, designs for hood scoops, instrument panel (he told me dash boards went out with Model T’s!) materials, and so on. While he was fascinated that we would care, most of that was settled before it got to him. At his level he approved things for production. He was able to give me a very long list of names of folks that could probably answer many of these questions.
Of course memories fade over almost 50 years so there some tings that he just couldn’t recall at all. You have to remember, that he worked on a lot of very successful things at Ford and he has had a long and prosperous career after Ford as well. Sadly, he had saved his correspondence but it was all tossed a few years ago, so a great treasure trove of minutia has disappeared. He has agree to speak again, and I am already thinking of more things to ask.
I was doing about 95 in a 55 zone and got it down to 70 before his radar lock on me.