His Mercury Cougar Puts the Car in Carpe Diem

Joe Carter, 63, a real-estate investor living in Moreno Valley, Calif., on his 1970 Mercury Cougar convertible, as told to A.J. Baime.

I was raised by a single mom in Hollywood, Calif. We were poor, and I used to go to the 49-cent theater to see rerun movies. In 1972, the James Bond film “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” was playing. That is where I first saw a Mercury Cougar, driven across the big screen by the actress Diana Rigg. It was love at first sight—the car, I mean, although Diana Rigg came in a close second. A song in the movie was, “We Have All the Time in the World.” The thing is, we don’t.