Florida Man's $128,000 Bugatti Veyron is Actually a Mercury Cougar

"I woke up in a new Cougatti" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

BY JAMES GILBOY SEPTEMBER 9, 2019

The phenomena of replicating exotic cars on the cheap is nothing new; everyone's seen at least one tragic Ford GT40 replica with a Pontiac Fiero underneath. But there's a rarely seen, more extreme version of hubris which can compel someone to attempt to pass off a 17-year-old economy coupe as a multimillion-dollar hypercar. Under the affliction of this arrogance, one Florida resident decided that the perfect candidate to underpin a Bugatti Veyron replica was a 2002 Mercury Cougar. My god, what have they done?

Originally listed on Craigslist in Orlando for $125,000, this Cougatti (as we'll call it) has since reappeared on Car Export America for the princely sum of $128,000—about $12,000 more than what you'd spend on a brand new Mercedes-AMG GT coupe. The only thing that matches this car's outrageous price is its instrument cluster, whose odometer reads 129,239 miles, and whose speedometer goes to an optimistic 280 mph. Note that the photo of the latter taken at an "indicated" 130mph, which sounds like a lot for a Mercury Cougar. A Cougar fansite, CougarDB, suggests this speed is indeed possible though we're still skeptical.

This car's performance capabilities get even more suspect when you notice the gauges are just the plasticky Ford originals with Bugatti decals laid liberally onto their face. The clock, which comes from a Chrysler 300, also gets the Bugatti treatment, though for some reason they didn't remove the Chrysler logo when they added the EB emblem.

It's no better throughout the rest of the interior, which is plainly not that of a car which originally cost seven figures. The leather upholstery? Colors don't match. The back seats, which a real Veyron doesn't have? Dirty. The center console? Crusty, like someone has been wiping their nose with it. As a whole, the interior looks as if it's not recently (if ever) been cleaned.

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