The
Ford Granada was an intermediate sized car built and marketed by
Ford Motor CompanyThe Ford Motor Company is an American multinational corporation based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury brands, Ford also owns Volvo Cars of Sweden, and a small stake...
in North America from 1975 to 1982, along with its sister models, the
Mercury MonarchThe Mercury Monarch was a mid-sized sedan manufactured by the Ford Motor Company from 1975 through 1980. The Mercury Monarch was released in 1975 alongside the Ford Granada, which was mechanically similar. Monarch justified a price hop over the Granada by offering an improved interior and a...
, and
Lincoln VersaillesThe Lincoln Versailles was the first mid-size car from Ford Motor Company's Lincoln luxury division. It was sold from 1977 to 1980, as a four-door sedan only, with a total production of 50,156. The Versailles was largely a response to the great success of the smaller Cadillac Seville which had...
. The Granada was touted by Ford as a rival to the similarly sized
Mercedes-Benz 280The Mercedes-Benz W114 are smaller sedans and coupes first introduced within the 1968 Mercedes-Benz model line up. The 1968 W114/W115, the S-Class cars, and the 280SL were all marketed as the 'New Generation Models'. In fact the W114/W115 were the only truly new cars in the 'New Generation' lineup...
of the time. The Granada and Monarch were available as a 2-door
coupeA coupé or coupe is a closed car body style, the precise definition of which varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, and over time...
or a 4-door sedan. A total of 2,066,336 Granadas were produced.
The Granada replaced the
TorinoThe Ford Torino is an intermediate car produced bythe Ford Motor Company for the North American market between 1968 and 1976. It was initially an upscale version of the intermediate sized Ford Fairlane, which Ford produced between 1962 and 1970. After 1968 the Fairlane name was retained for the...
as Ford's mid-size model.
The
Ford Granada was an intermediate sized car built and marketed by
Ford Motor CompanyThe Ford Motor Company is an American multinational corporation based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury brands, Ford also owns Volvo Cars of Sweden, and a small stake...
in North America from 1975 to 1982, along with its sister models, the
Mercury MonarchThe Mercury Monarch was a mid-sized sedan manufactured by the Ford Motor Company from 1975 through 1980. The Mercury Monarch was released in 1975 alongside the Ford Granada, which was mechanically similar. Monarch justified a price hop over the Granada by offering an improved interior and a...
, and
Lincoln VersaillesThe Lincoln Versailles was the first mid-size car from Ford Motor Company's Lincoln luxury division. It was sold from 1977 to 1980, as a four-door sedan only, with a total production of 50,156. The Versailles was largely a response to the great success of the smaller Cadillac Seville which had...
. The Granada was touted by Ford as a rival to the similarly sized
Mercedes-Benz 280The Mercedes-Benz W114 are smaller sedans and coupes first introduced within the 1968 Mercedes-Benz model line up. The 1968 W114/W115, the S-Class cars, and the 280SL were all marketed as the 'New Generation Models'. In fact the W114/W115 were the only truly new cars in the 'New Generation' lineup...
of the time. The Granada and Monarch were available as a 2-door
coupeA coupé or coupe is a closed car body style, the precise definition of which varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, and over time...
or a 4-door sedan. A total of 2,066,336 Granadas were produced.
The Granada replaced the
TorinoThe Ford Torino is an intermediate car produced bythe Ford Motor Company for the North American market between 1968 and 1976. It was initially an upscale version of the intermediate sized Ford Fairlane, which Ford produced between 1962 and 1970. After 1968 the Fairlane name was retained for the...
as Ford's mid-size model. They were assembled in
Wayne, MichiganWayne is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan, southwest of Detroit. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 19,051. Ford Motor Company has two plants here; assembling the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator in one, and the Ford Focus in the other.As of 2006, Downtown...
and
Mahwah, New JerseyMahwah is a township in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the township population was 24,062. The name Mahwah is derived from the Lenni Lenape word "mawewi" which means "Meeting Place" or "Place Where Paths Meet".The area that is now Mahwah was...
. They also overlapped with the Maverick/Comet's ultimate successors, the
Ford FairmontThe Ford Fairmont was a North American compact car, produced between 1978 and 1983.The 1978 Ford Fairmont was the first vehicle built on the Ford Fox platform, which would be the basis for a variety of other models, including the 1980 to 1988 Thunderbird, the 1981 to 1982 American Ford Granada, the...
and the
Mercury ZephyrThe Mercury Zephyr was a compact car sold by the Lincoln-Mercury division of Ford Motor Company in the North American market from 1978 to 1983. Along with its corporate cousin the Ford Fairmont, it was the first use of Ford's long-lived unibody Fox platform, which did not completely leave...
, which were released in 1978. The first-generation Granada and Monarch were based on the platform of the Maverick/Comet four-door. It shared much of its design with earlier Ford compacts and intermediates, dating back to the 1960 Ford Falcon. Powertrain options included the base 200 CID six-cylinder, a 250
CIDA cubic inch is a non-SI unit of volume, equal to the volume of a cube with sides of one inch.Cubic inches are still sometimes used as a unit of measurement in the United States and Canada, although SI is continuing to gradually displace non-SI usage.-Notation conventions:The following symbols...
six, a 302 CID V8, and a 351 CID "
WindsorThe Windsor engine is a 90-degree small-block V8 from Ford Motor Company. It was introduced in 1962, replacing the old Ford Y-block engine. Though not all of the engines in this family were produced at the Windsor, Ontario engine plant , the name stuck...
" V8. Available transmissions included a standard three-speed manual, a four-speed manual with overdrive, and a three-speed automatic (standard on 351-powered cars). The 1980 model year added a 49-state optional 255 CID V8, which was the only V8 offered in California-spec cars that year.
Ghia versions of both the Granada and Monarch included higher-level interior and exterior trim and added sound insulation. The 1975-76 Grand Monarch Ghia
http://gmv-registry.com/generic483.html was a top-of-the line version. The Granada Sports Coupe
http://gmv-registry.com/generic488.html was produced from 1976 to 1977; Mercury offered a similar treatment with its 1976-77 Monarch S
http://gmv-registry.com/generic481.html. A 1977–1/2
http://gmv-registry.com/generic489.html variation on the Granada Sports Coupe, produced from May '77 through the end of the model year, featured blacked-out molding, modified trim, taillights, and color selections. Documentation of this half-year model exists in Ford advertising from spring 1977. This car is perhaps the "rarest" of Granada production.
The 1976–77 Sports Coupe and S packages included standard heavy-duty suspension, styled steel wheels, striping unique to this option and unique interior trim with standard bucket seats. The 1978-80 ESS
http://gmv-registry.com/generic553.html(European Sport Sedan) replaced the Sports Coupe and S models. Sports Coupes, and ESS models equipped with bucket seats, can be identified by trim codes beginning with "P" on the car's data sticker on the edge of the driver's door. The Granada and Monarch ESS models featured "blacked-out" chrome, and a standard-equipment bucket seat interior with a floor-mounted shifter, although a bench seat was optional. Ford Motor Company's design chief at the time, Stephen Estrada, mentioned later that "The Granada was my favorite design and the one that I'm most proud of". The ESS option included standard color-keyed wheelcovers (styled-steel wheels were optional) and unique opera-window louvres.
The 1978 model year brought a minor restyling including rectangular headlamps and revised taillights, features which continued through the end of first-generation Granada/Monarch production in 1980.
1981–82
The range was moved to Ford's newer
Fox platformThe Ford Fox platform is a rear wheel drive, unitized-chassis, automobile architecture that Ford used for 16 years in the North American market...
(introduced as the 1978
Ford FairmontThe Ford Fairmont was a North American compact car, produced between 1978 and 1983.The 1978 Ford Fairmont was the first vehicle built on the Ford Fox platform, which would be the basis for a variety of other models, including the 1980 to 1988 Thunderbird, the 1981 to 1982 American Ford Granada, the...
and
Mercury ZephyrThe Mercury Zephyr was a compact car sold by the Lincoln-Mercury division of Ford Motor Company in the North American market from 1978 to 1983. Along with its corporate cousin the Ford Fairmont, it was the first use of Ford's long-lived unibody Fox platform, which did not completely leave...
) for the 1981 model year and was sold through the 1982 model year. The Granada name was retained, but the Monarch name was replaced by
CougarThe Mercury Cougar is an automobile sold under the Mercury brand of the Ford Motor Company's Lincoln-Mercury Division. The name was first used in 1967 and was carried by a diverse series of cars over the next three decades. As is common with Mercury vehicles, the Cougar shared basic platforms with...
in Mercury's lineup. Styling of these cars resembled a slightly bigger and more formal version of the Fairmont, with upgraded interior trim. Base power for the Fox-body Granada was a 2.3 L Lima I4, with an optional 200 cid straight six and 255 CID V8.
A wagon joined the line-up for the 1982 model year, replacing the Fairmont and Zephyr wagons, available in "L" and "GL" forms. The 1982 model also saw the return of the Blue Oval logo on a Ford vehicle for the first time since the
Great DepressionThe Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. Although most other Ford models saw the logo arrive in 1983 (Except for the Fairmont, which was about to be replaced with the
Ford TempoThe Ford Tempo is a two-door coupe and four-door sedan car model that was produced by Ford Motor Company for model years 1984 to 1994. It was the successor to the Ford Fairmont, and was replaced in 1994 by the Ford Contour...
for 1984, and the
Ford ThunderbirdThe Thunderbird , is an automobile manufactured by the Ford Motor Company in the United States over thirteen model generations from 1955 through to 2005...
, which rarely had any mention of Ford on the vehicle itself for most of its existence.), the Granada saw it arrive a year early, largely as a test. While Ford had quit using the logo on its vehicles during the Depression, it had remained over the years as its logo in all other uses (corporate logo, sales literature, advertisements, owner manuals, dealership signs, etc.) and decided to use it again on its vehicles.
For 1983 the Granada name was retired in the North American market, replaced by a Fox-platform-derived downsized model of the
LTDThe Ford LTD was a car model name that has been used by the Ford Motor Company in North America.The LTD designation is considered by some an abbreviation of "Luxury Trim Decor" and by others as a limited body style classification for the Galaxie...
. Mercury offered this car as the
MarquisThe Mercury Marquis is a vehicle produced by the Ford Motor Company under its Mercury brand from 1967 to 1986. It began as a full-size car, but became a mid-size in 1983. Continuing as a full-size was the former top-level trim line, Grand Marquis...
.
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