Running into a primo muscle car is rarely a Craigslist coincidence or a word-of-mouth barn find. It usually takes being in the know. This was especially true in the days before people shopped for cars on the World Wide Web. Back then, die-hard car guys joined clubs to meet like-minded gearheads. The club publications were where they got their news and their leads on potential purchases. It's how Jay Williams first came upon this hyper-rare ebony 1970 Cougar Eliminator.

"In 1983, I bought a 1969 Cougar Eliminator, which was my daily driver through college," he says. Jay joined the Cougar Club of America. In the fall 1986 edition of the CCOA's newsletter, At the Sign of the Cat, he read an article by Jim Rakowski about a mysterious black Cougar Eliminator.

Rakowski was the registrar who chased and recorded all the known Cougar Eliminators built, 2,250 in 1969 and another 2,267 in 1970. During its two-year run, the Cougar Eliminator was known for special appointments as well as powerful engine choices to back its tough image and name.

Standard 1969 and 1970 Cougar Eliminator features included front and rear spoilers, racing-style exterior mirrors, bright rocker moldings, a hoodscoop, and a blacked-out grille. Black or white graphics called out the Eliminator name against the bright colors that most Eliminators were sprayed.

Eliminators were available in a limited pallet of very noticeable colors, many of which had Competition in their name: Competition Orange, Competition Yellow, Competition Blue, and so on. However, a handful were sprayed in other hues by special order. When this black 1970 Eliminator appeared at the 1986 Spring Carlisle swap meet, it set the Cougar world abuzz.

A Fake

Jay says, "[Rakowski] had gone to the Carlisle swap meet, and he didn't actually see it, but some friends of his told him about seeing a black 1970 Cougar Eliminator. It had the 428 Super Cobra Jet and dual-quad carburetors. At that time, he had never heard of —nobody had ever heard of—an Eliminator painted black."

In addition to the nonstandard dual carburetors and jet-black paint, the Cougar at Carlisle was missing an Eliminator-only feature that helped smokescreen its past. "That car had a standard gas filler door, while Eliminators had a special one, so they decided it was a fake," says Jay.

Soon after the swap meet, Rakowski learned that a club member had bought the black Eliminator. That club member wasn't happy when informed by Rakowski that the car was likely a fake. "So Jim told him how he could get a copy of the factory invoice and a few other things he could do to document the car," Jay says.

The car's new owner got the invoice and even tracked down the original owner. The invoice proved it was a real Eliminator 428 Super Cobra Jet, with special-order paint on the invoice. The original owner also confirmed that the dual quads, a solid-lifter cam, and some other performance equipment had, in fact, been installed by the dealership.

"Rakowski took all that info and put it in this article that I read in 1986," says Jay. "The article stuck with me. This car just sounded really, really cool. As far as I was concerned, it was the ultimate Cougar, the Cougar I'd have bought if I hadn't been 6 years old when it was built."

Through the pages of the CCOA newsletter, Jay kept track of the slick black Eliminator. He learned that "a guy I knew in Oklahoma bought the car. I got in touch with him and went to see this car that I had read about and thought was so neat. I asked him if he had any plans to sell it. His idea was to do some restoration and turn around and sell it, and I asked if he would consider selling it as-is."

He would, but the sum he tossed out was all the money in the world for an Eliminator, and certainly exceeded a college student's budget. Jay had to pass, but it never fully left his mind.

In 1989, after Jay graduated from college, passed the bar exam, and got a job, his thoughts returned to the black Eliminator. "I was single and didn't have any dependents and expenses. Long story short, we made a deal and I bought the car."

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Mysteries Solved

Getting the car was just half the battle. While complete and in decent condition, the Cougar still deserved a quality restoration. But buying the car tapped Jay out; he didn't have the funds for a resto. Then life happened: Jay married and moved while chasing new job opportunities. "In the meantime, I bought a lot of parts and did a lot of research and just drug it around with me."

Jay also learned a lot about the car's past. He contacted the original owner, who said that he'd bought the Cougar from B.A. Jewell Lincoln-Mercury of Pennsgrove, New Jersey (now defunct). The original owner verified that the car's original 428 Super Cobra Jet received a day-two hop-up right in the dealership's garage, which added the dual-quad carburetors and solid-lifter camshaft.

According to a 1968 Car Craft article, FoMoCo had intended to install the dual-quad 427 setup on at least 50 428 cars to homologate the package for racing in two NHRA Super Stock classes. That never came to pass for 1968, but Ford's Autolite Parts Division offered through dealership parts departments a dual-plane intake manifold kit with carburetors and linkage for doubling the venturi of the 428.

The 428 SCJ in Jay's car also received a set of headers and a Ford dual-point distributor from a 427. "Although the latter two modifications were not specifically documented as being installed at the same time, it makes sense that they would have been, and I elected to keep the engine in that configuration," he says.

According to its Marti Report, Jay's car is one of 32 1970 Cougar two-door hardtops built with a special paint/trim code. From his years in the CCOA, Jay knows of a total of three originally black 1970 Cougar Eliminators, but records don't definitively state how many were painted that color by Lincoln-Mercury.

"When Kevin Marti ran the numbers, he determined it was a 'one of one' car even without taking the special paint into account," Jay says. "That's not too surprising since 1970 Super Cobra Jet cars are pretty rare to begin with.

"Since the Drag Pack option was intended to appeal to racers, most cars so equipped are pretty bare-bones. This car, on the other hand, came loaded: decor interior, courtesy light group, eight-track stereo, Deluxe seatbelts, sports console, rear window defogger, and so on."

Resto Time

Although Jay had restored several cars, including his college-era 1969 Eliminator, he left the bulk of this restoration to Billups Classic Cars in Colcord, Oklahoma. Jack Guyll was charged with the teardown, sheetmetal and bodywork, and a majority of the reassembly. Casey Kelly completed the suspension detail, carburetor, and paint detailing. Skeeter White applied the exterior paint. Tommy Guyll and Jason Billups applied the underbody paint. Gerald Billups built the 428 Super Cobra Jet engine.

The crew began the job in 2016, but Jay wasn't totally hands-off. He did the disassembly, including pulling the engine and transmission, and restored various subassemblies, including the console, steering wheel, gauge clusters, and several other smaller components.

The goal of the restoration was to make the Eliminator look like new but to also maintain the day-two condition it was in when it left B.A. Jewell Lincoln-Mercury. To that end, the Eliminator was given a stock-type dual exhaust system but with larger-diameter pipes and cutouts for the headers, fabricated by Russ Engman of Muskogee, Oklahoma.

During the restoration, they learned why the car had a standard Cougar gas-filler door. The car had apparently been damaged in an accident back in the day, and the rare Eliminator filler door with the prowling cougar outline was likely hard to find.

While the build sheet explained a lot about the car, it also left Jay with at least one question: Why would someone load up an Eliminator with performance and luxury options, but choose the base 14x6 steel wheels with hubcaps? His educated guess was that the owner had aftermarket wheels in mind for the car and didn't want to spring for Merc's fancy Cougar wheels. It was already an expensive car. The 428 SCJ alone added $310.90 to the Cougar two-door hardtop's $3,114 base price, and when the other options were factored in, this Cougar stickered at $4,649.70 when it landed at B.A. Jewell before the dealership added the trick day-two features.

"I don't know what wheels he might have installed, but Fast Eddie Schartman ran Spyders on his factory-sponsored Super Stock Cougar, and I've always loved the way they looked," Jay says. "I picked up this set at least 15 years ago, saving them for the day the car would be ready."

Today, those 15-inch Motor Wheel Corp. Spyder Sports Wheels are the Eliminator's only exterior modification on a restoration finished in March 2018.

Although he opted for a nut-and-bolt restoration, Jay has set his sights on chasing elapsed times more than show trophies. "I don't really expect it to win a lot of awards, and I didn't build it for that," he says. "The period modifications pretty much take it out of contention in the stock classes, and without a wild paint job and custom interior, it doesn't really fit with the modifieds. It's its own thing, and I'm OK with that.

"It's important to me that the car be fully functional and not a trailer queen. The folks at Billups were fully supportive of that," Jay continued. "Short-term, I'd like to take it to a few events and show it off a bit before putting some long-distance miles on it. Some quarter-mile trips are definitely in my plans, as well."

At a Glance

1970 Cougar Eliminator

Owned by: Jay Williams, Gentry, AR

Restored by: Billups Classic Cars, Colcord, OK

Engine: 428ci/335hp (with 4V carburetion) Super Cobra Jet V-8

Transmission: Top Loader close-ratio 4-speed manual

Rearend: 9-inch with 3.91 gears and Traction-Lok

Interior: Black vinyl high-back bucket seat

Wheels: 15-inch Motor Wheel Corp. Spyder Sports

Tires: F60-15 Goodyear Polyglas GT

Special parts: Special black paint, dual four-venturi carburetor setup installed on 428 SCJ by original selling dealer, Eliminator package, four-speed manual Hurst shifter, Drag-Pack, higher ratio axle, courtesy light group, ram air induction, sports console, power front disc brakes, rear window defogger, AM radio/tape system, dcor group, deluxe seat and front shoulder belts, appearance protection group, remote control left-hand mirror

The Starting Point

These photos of Jay Williams' Cougar Eliminator prior to its restoration show that it was in decent condition, but nothing like the masterpiece it is now. Its rarity certainly made it deserving of such a top-shelf rejuvenation.