NECO History...anyone know?

[Batgirl]

I have been thinking about this pretty much since I joined NECO. Does anyone know the history of how it began, who were the founding members, and how large it is today? Also, how much time do the key players like Trevor spend in a week to maintain this site? I guess I am a bit of a history buff when it comes to things like this...

Thanks,
Batgirl

[v6cougar]

i don't know the exact date when it was made but i believe it was late 1998, i bought my car january 30 1999 and soon as i did i looked for clubs on the net and found 2

one was neco and one was a different site but also made by mortis/trevor and others. I remember they were identical sites almost but one was pretty plain and white with nothing really exciting.

I also remember it was way before they had a message board and they had a listing of all members of each year and i was member #58 of neco :)

It was also interesting to see because i would be on work every day looking to see if / how many new cougar owners were finding the website and i would email a few out of curiosity and ask how they found it. I guess the big thing back then was "road tales" and i remember mine was the second one (i think) listed on there named "smashed"

neco has come a long long way :)

[Batgirl]

Cool...keep the stories coming please!!!!

[Shelly1]

Oh yeah...I think this was brought up before too. It is pronounced Nee-co, not neck-o

[v6cougar]

oh and yes it has come along way for the better :)

and the date on my "joined" where it says oct 2000, isn't correct that is just for this board, i was on that ezboard? message board they had before that since the day it came out :)

[Shelly1]

Yeah, all of us "old" members from the other board all have dates in Oct of 2000

[nac704]

I remember when Newcougar.org and fastcougar.com joined together. There was a news post about that on both of the sites. That's when the message board kinda took off a little more. I also remember the old board....that was great (not that this one isn't).

[v6cougar]

i try and promote this site like crazy too!!!

i have the neco sticker on my car (which i hope some people have seen and gone too because of it)

and i tell EVERYONE about the site


and i also wear my shirt that has the neco logo on it :)


GO NECO GO!!

[Fern]

Well I've been here pretty much from the start.

In November 1998, I really, really, really wanted a Cougar. I actually been wanting a Cougar since I saw a spyphoto of it in a Portuguese magazine in 1997. They weren't out yet. Officially yes, but people and dealerhsips were on huge waiting lists for them that lasted for months. I tried to find a forum or something, anything really, about the Cougar on the net. CSG (the other New Edge Cougar club) was starting up then too but I didn't run into them. So what I eventually went on the alt.vehicles.mercury.cougar newsgroup on usenet and hanged out there for about a week. I didn't really like how the owners of older Cougars were treating us fans of the new Cougar. Many hated the idea of FWD and no V8 and blamed us. Basically calling us riceboys and such. Anyway, there were a few of us in there. Then this guy with the nick KillerLup (I think it was KillerLup) said he set up a Cougar mailing list on Egroups (Yahoo Groups now) just for us New Edge Cougar people. So I joined and left never went back to usenet. Mortis sent out the first post to the group. I made the 8th post.

You can check it out here:
The birth of NECO (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NewCougar/messages/1).

Anyway, we've talked and talked about starting up a club but nobody really did anything. Lots of talk and no action. Then Spencer joined and got things rolling with Mortis. They created newcougar.org and you can say that was when NECO was officially born. It seemed like an enternity when we were trying to figure out the domain name for the website and even longer for the name of the club. Then Trevor set up the forums. I don't really know the specifics about how the forum started because I didn't join til very late. Even though I joined the forums really late, in my book, they are a hundred times better than the mailing list. I don't even participate in the mailing list anymore. And then then came CougarFest, that was huge...

November 1998 to November 2001. Three years with you guys... I love you all.

[joemamaTypeR]

This is the third iteration of NECO forums/message board. First was the single page message board that wasn't too organized. Then the EZ-Board, now this.

[YelCougGrrl]

Does anyone have the link to the cougar EZ-BOARD forum? I think it was ez-bored. I posted it before a couple weeks ago, but then it got erased during one of those switching over things. hehe.

[Upper90]

Here ya go:

Old EZ Message Board (http://pub6.ezboard.com/bneconewedgecougarowners)

[Shelly1]

Wow, what memories :cool:

[Upper90]

I know. That is what I thought when I brought that link back up.

[AfterBurner]

i joined up in early 2000, and was considered a full time staffer on newcougar.org right after that. I stayed away from fastcougar just cuz, and i only came to the boards a few short months ago to fraternize with my fellow WI-neco buds.

i can personally say i spend about 5 hours thinking about the national stuff, 10 on local chapter and about 100 on the boards and mailing list now :)

[Phantom]

Wow... that awesome to see some of the first messages in NECO and my chapter IL-NECO...

[Fern]

LOL. Thats a lot of hours. Don't know how many hours I've spent on the forums and mailing list. I only averaged 2.66 posts a day according to the stats. But in the last year of university my grades dropped by like an average of 7% and I've lost two girlfriends because I spent too much time spent too much time on NECO and thinking about my car. My current GF is absolutely clueless about cars but the good thing is that she knows that me and my Cougar come only as a packaged deal. At school, I brought an old PC of mine and set it up on my desk and hooked it up to the internet so I could hang with you guys during the day. Of course, I use it mostly for teaching related stuff... like for running the presentations I make for my lessons and such.

[FastCougar]

I got my 99 Cougar in October of 99 and was very active on the first message board ... never cared much for list servers and newsgroupds. I am a graphic designer and don't like not having a gui or logical navigation system. That is why I set up the first EZBoard account ... I hated the single threaded board ... HATED IT! So I coordinated with Mortis to set up the EZBoard site and I of course became the admin.

That was back on 02/02/2000. Since that date, I have been administrating the message boards and neglecting fastcougar.com. That is all about to change as fastcougar.com will be getting a complete makeover with dynamic editable content.

I began to develop ColdFusion applications about that time as well and was looking into hosting everything on my end to ensure better control over the data since EZBoards would just start deleting threads when they accumulated 20 pages. Then in October of 2001, a mere 8 month later, I began hosting with the current boards. We chose to host not only for control of the data, but also because EZBoards had a terrible search feature ... it was awefull! Completely sucked! I completely hated it! Picking up on the fact that I didn't like? :)

So, here we are yet again, a year later. We now have archives on this board that go back to January 1, 2001 (lost some data when I first started archiving ... you live and learn). We are on our second version of this board and it quite frankly ROCKS! The only way that it doesn't beat EZBoards is the fact that you can not "mark thread read" or "mark all read". This feature is very possible, but extremely database intensive and I doubt that E-Zone Media will ever support it. Other than that 1 little shortcoming, I think that everyone will agree that this board is far better.

[FastCougar]

Since this isn't really off topic, I am moving to General :biggrin:

[Batgirl]

Thanks to everyone who responded. I am getting a real kick out of this. I just feel like I have missed quite a bit being a relatively new member. It is an awesome story to hear. I don't know about everyone else, but I am sure grateful to Trevor for all the work he does on this site. I agree that the GUI approach is better. Graphic Designers are the best!!

Thanks everyone!!!!!!!!!

[mprtklr]

i do know that we are breaking a trademark by having NECO, which is a tredemark of the company that makes the candy!!! BUT I WONT TELL SHHHH

[FastCougar]

I think that would only apply if we where selling candy ;)

[bzcat]

I remeber NECO when there was no message board... I'm that old. I'm also the 3rd or 4th member to join from California. I really miss the old fashioned flame wars we used to have on the single thread message board...

[monogodo]

<< i do know that we are breaking a trademark by having NECO, which is a tredemark of the company that makes the candy!!! BUT I WONT TELL SHHHH >>

That's NECCO (http://www.necco.com).

[ssix]

I have been around from the beginning. I bought my Cougar in July of 98 and I can remember being on the Cougar Digest with a WebTV. :) I can even remember helping in deciding on the NECO name. If you look on www.newcougar.org under 99 members I think I am around 5 down on the list under the other Trevor who isn't around anymore. BTW I am also a Trevor.
Speaking of something funny, I can recall when the KKM intake was the biggest mod around,and Ray was there to answer ANY Cougar question.

[FastCougar]

God rest his soul ... hopefully God has a car club that Ray can head up :biggrin:

[Fern]

We were all like newbies. Ray came over from CEG was probably the most helpful and knowledgable member in our earliest stages even though he himself didn't have a Cougar. I was in complete shock when he passed away.

Speaking of Trevors... At one point very early on, there was like two or three Trevors and I thought they were all the same dude.

[Cat88Extreme]

I found this a couple weeks ago when using yellowpages.com to find local auto repair shops. I was shocked when
I saw the name of the place: Neco Engine Replacement (http://www.necoengine.com/)
Thought you guys would be interested with all the Necco Wafers company talk.

[ScubaSteve]

Boy... I really am a Scuba come lately... I missed ALL the growing up days of NECO...

[ssix]

The three personalities of Trevor. The thing is I beleive that all three of us had the same color Cougar. :)

[Fern]

You know what, I've been thinking and thinking of the old days and looking back, I can't help but realize how valuable Ray was to NECO. Not only did he answer every freakin' question about the Cougar we newbies threw at the him, he really modeled for us how to act in this type of environment and how to be good NECO members later on. There were times when Ray would act like a referee on the mailing-list. He didn't treat us any different from the CEG guys that he's been with for much longer. How many other CEG guys came over and helped us as much as Ray? Without Ray's influence, we'd probably be as bad some of those other car forums and mailing-lists that consist of largely of flames and full of really senseless talk like who could beat who because they have a better intake. I think we owe a lot to Old Fart Emeritus. If there was a NECO Hall of Fame, I'd probably vote for Ray McNairy for the first inductee.

I think his grand-daughter bought a Cougar. Is she here by any chance?

[MercMobile]

Just in case anyone has deep pockets.. www.neco.com is for sale.. for $15,000 :) hahahaha

[ssix]

One thing that Ray did, was never use I. When explaining things to us it was never I think this, or I did this, or I know this. Ray just gave us the facts. When someone else would question what he was saying he would reply with proof, but never using the words "I'm right, your wrong". He didn't try to change minds. Ray always stayed objective.

[Q]

Heh, I remember before NECO was a glimpse in anyone's eyes, we just had the NewCougar email list. That was a great list of great people. I believe Spencer and Mortis brought up the idea of a New Edge Cougar group and all of us on the list started to get to thinking of names. I mean some really cool names came, and some real silly ones appeared. After a time, NECO came to be and Mortis and Spencer got working on the site.

I remember back when there were only 50people in the Member database, then 80, then over 100. After the website got blooming, we grew very fast.
I also remember Trevor (I think it was Trevor) who had the first Dynomax Dual exhaust put on his car, but the mufflers were too big and hung way too low. It was the talk of the group though. Then I did some research and found the Dynomax 17763 mufflers and had them put on and they fit like a glove. Thats when those became the Dynomax mufflers of choice.

I remember back when Raj Patel had the baddest Cougar on the planet, with that incredible sound system and the infamous tweeters that sit in the window panel, hidden. I remember the VERY FIRST Neco stickers, that had the Cougar Logo and just said NECO on the bottom. They came in 4 flavors.
I remember the first message board, what a mess that became. And what a wonderful thing it evolved into.

I unsubscribed from the mailing list a long time ago, not because I didn't like it, but because we used to talk SO DAMN MUCH that I would LITERALLY recieve about 50+ Email messages a day by the time i got home from work.

I could go on and on and on, but I'm sure others have some great stories as well.

[Bobnoxious]

Oh those old days of the single line posts and to get a SVT style KKM or not. When they actually offered them. Do you all remember when we were trying to figure out if the SVT contour cat back would fit and work will. Dreams of turbos and supercharges, the Eliminator, Inform Design, and the dreaded teasing of the Cougar S. Remember the time when no question was stupid?? Also, remember Puck talking about his cat eye for lights and the kids in the hood saying he was like night rider!! Good times!!!! Still getting better all the time... Viva la NECO!!!!:cool:

[nac704]

I believe this marks the first time that a post was moved from OT to General. Every post that is moved is usually TO OT not FROM OT.

[mykl00]

I just wanted to say you guys did a great job setting up NECO. When i got my cougar i really had no intentions to mod my car, i honestly didnt know much about any car, but i loved my cougar. I was the first person in the my area to own one. I would always see this one cougar on my way home from work and thats when i decided to look into it. When i found the site i was ecstatic to see that other ppl love the car as much as i do. Although i dont post much i read practically everything that goes on here. Thats when i had the desire to start modding and learn as much as possible. In the almost 2 years i owned my car i learned a helluva lot and its all because of this site. I have been to many other car boards but none can compare to NECO. Its like a fraternity/soriority. Every mod i got for my car has been because of this site one way or another. I have gotten tons and tons of compliments on my car and now i see cougars all over my area! But i still remain the only modded one :) Just wanted to thanks all who got this started and thanks to eveyone who helps the rookie cougar owners out because back in the day i was one myself. Everyone was. So i gove mad props to the pioneers of NECO !!! And ill drink to that:biggrin:

[RiverRojo]

Q.......I remember you from way back in NECO. Both Trevors too. Q, remember when you needed info for a glass moonroof? You and I talked about them for at least a month before you bought yours. Wow that was a long time ago. I remember the first dual exhausts...but was a poor high school student and could only afford a dynomax muffler and took out my resonator. I also remember the original cougarfest of 17 cougars......boy have we evolved (yet still most immature).

[BLKPHATCAT1]

i was number 15 on the list from way back when and started moding my cougar soon after that.wENT WITH ARELLI VETTAS 17S and had them custom drilled,then eibachs,and put in N.O.S A WEEK AFTER T0REVOR DID HIS INSTALL,ALSO WENT WITH DUAL exhaust all ALMOST 3 YRS AGO.I use to be ram41 @bellsouth.net but changed to blkphatcat@msn.com How many of you remember speaking with paxton for the first time?I also pissed people off because I typed in caps all the time but as you can see Im still a screw up!Take care,Ron Morisseau

[Fern]

I remember that I had an evening class the night that the Paxton chat was going to take place. Half way thru the class, I decided to skip and came home and joined the chat. I joined about a half hour late so I was asking questions that were already been answered pissing off everyone. 58% increase in horsepower the rep was saying.