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Ron Hale’s Dark Brown Metallic ’70 Convertible

The Basics

  • Owner: Ron Hale, Woodbridge, Va.
  • Mileage: 191,000
  • Engine: 351C-4V, Holley manifold, cam, bored
  • Body Color: Dark Brown Metallic
  • Interior Color: Ginger

Options

Factory air conditioning, front disc brakes, AM/FM/CB cassette radio

This Cat’s Tale

“I was crazy about Cougars when they first came out, before I was driving age. I went looking for one after my preordained first car was getting near the end of life. I looked forever for one with XR-7 trim. I gave up and bought a 1970 standard in pale yellow, with black interior and a black vinyl top. It was a 351 Cleveland two-barrel car. It looked really good and ran well. Since it was high mileage, I had the engine rebuilt as close to a Boss 351C as I could afford, about a year after I got it.

My current cat enters the picture in the classified ads a few weeks after I got my first cat out of the shop from the engine work. Of course, now I notice there is a one-owner XR-7 for sale in Gaithersburg, Md.! Not knowing what I was going to do, I went to look at it anyway. It was a high-mileage local commuter car, but it looked good and ran well. I didn’t care at the time about it being a convertible. The couple who owned it were retiring to RV life, and she really did not want to give it up. I gave them about $1,200. The outgoing owner put the top down for me, and I drove the cat from G-burg to Woodbridge, Va. I became a convertible fan from that time on. (The last Eldorado convertible was not long after that.) I have the window sticker somewhere. It came from Cherner Lincoln-Mercury, in September 1969. The price was around $4,800.

At that point, I had the Cougar pair and little cash. I decided to swap the engines between the two and sell the yellow cat. My current cat is operating with the 351C Boss tribute motor from 1976. I also changed the paint color from dark green (olive) to brown metallic (Ford 5J, from 1974). I thought brown looked better with the ginger interior. I took the body-colored steel wheels idea from the Olds 442. The car has remained in that configuration to this day.

Nearly everyone that has been exposed to this car seems to love it. One of my nieces has been eyeing it for years. There are so many major life milestones of mine, and others, associated with this vehicle that it has become a part of us. The car was a wing man for dates. Everybody wanted a drop top cruise. A more recent milestone with/for the cat was an appearance as an extra in the Wonder Woman 1984 movie (WW84, DC Films) in 2020. The traffic scenes that included my car were shot Father’s Day weekend of 2018. The film crew loved the car and let me drive it to the scene of the shoot. The studio workers’ approval was conveyed to me as I cruised past them!”

Notes

Major projects for this car include a refabricated floor pan (1983); extensive rust removal (two years in a shop), including the inner and outer rocker panels and quarter panels (1991); and replacement of leaf springs and all front end and frame bushings (2010).