The other day, I was watching a ’70s neo-noir flick on Turner Classic Movies called Night Moves, starring Gene Hackman. After watching old movies, I tend to meander off into a haze of unnecessary research from critics and scholars, and someone somewhere mentioned that Hackman belonged in that category of actors who don’t quite fit the mold of traditional leading men but clearly are leading men, a category that includes guys like Bogart and Cagney. That leads us to the Fox “Aero” Cougar. With its rounded jellybean styling and stiff, formal roofline, it just shouldn’t work, but many of us would agree that it does. In 1988, when this car was built, Mercury moved 119,162 Cougars, only about 9,000 fewer than Thunderbird (a car that theoretically should “work” better than the Cougar). If you are drawn to the Cougar’s inherent charisma, this is an excellent opportunity. A charity in Orange, California, is selling it on eBay with no reserve, and the high bid is currently a mere 829 dollars. Did I mention that it has only 52,000 miles on it?

The only downside is that it’s powered by the base 3.8-liter Ford V6, which was given a 20-horsepower power bump for 1988 (to 140). The 3.8 is notorious for blown head gaskets (my dad had a ’94 T-Bird with a 3.8, and it blew a head gasket at under 50,000 miles), but the overall condition of this Cougar makes it worth the risk of an oily milkshake in the crankcase. Maybe you’ll get lucky, and even if you don’t, it’s not a bad repair job in a rear-wheel-drive car if you’re accustomed to that kind of thing. The optional 5.0-liter V8 would, of course, be the bee’s knees.

The interior looks as if it’s barely used in the seller’s photos, although they claim that it has wear. They also claim that the exterior shows some signs of paint fade.

Here’s the evidence of the mileage; Cougars of this era did use a six-digit odometer (I owned an ’87 T-Bird with this exact instrument cluster). The combination of a digital speedometer and analog fuel and temperature gauges doesn’t exactly appeal to my sense of symmetry, but it’s easy enough to get used to. The standard transmission in the Cougar, by the way, is a four-speed automatic. Highway fuel mileage should easily be in the mid-to-upper 20s.

All is not perfect in Cougar-land; the air conditioning doesn’t work, it needs a battery, and the tires are merely “fair.” The title is also “not on-hand,” but the car comes with a clear application for a “duplicate California title.” That may or may not be a headache. Regardless of all that, this is a solid, low-mileage Cougar that could easily become a daily driver with some style, especially if you like that roof as much as I do. Some things don’t need an explanation; they simply work. This Cougar is one of them.