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Hi Steve,
I've only owned my cougar for 2 years now but I haven't had any major drama with it. The only words you should be ready for when you buy ANYTHING for it is, "what's a Ford Cougar?" or "never seen one of these before".

All in all, can be serviced at home with a jack but wheel stands make the job 1000 times easier. If you just want to drive it as is, it's a nice car.

If you're willing to spend some $$ though, you can get a little performance out of a CAI, exhaust and headers. Some other little fun pieces can be found in the US from a model that's roughly 3/4 compatible with our cougars called an SVT Contour.
From the SVT you can grab the upper intake manifold and throttle body(make sure they give you the bracket!!) which is a relatively simple home job as well.

You may have seen it mentioned already in your browsing but just in case, rockauto is a great place to get parts from. Make sure you get everything you need though as it's international shipping and can add up. Also, the cougars had a change in 99 that most sites with parts list up to 2001. Searching 2002 will get you the right parts.

Welcome to the forum, hope that info helps