When was the last time you saw a second-generation Ford Granada that looked this good? Hell, when was the last time you saw a second-generation Ford Granada, period? For $2900, you can get your hands on what is easily one of the most forgotten Fords of the past few decades.
Ford had a huge hit on their hands with the first-generation Granada, launched in 1975. Despite its ageing, Falcon-derived mechanicals, its posh styling inside and out got people’s attention. Plus, the fuel crisis had helped encourage North American buyers to buy smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles.
Granada sales would decline over the first-generation model’s run, in part due to the introduction of the compact ’78 Fairmont. Almost 500,000 units were sold in 1976 but by 1979, sales didn’t crack 200,000 units.
With the Big 3 downsizing their line-ups, there was a shifting concept of what was compact, what was intermediate and what was full-size. The Fairmont was only around four inches shorter than the Granada and three inches narrower, hardly a huge drop size in size from the Granada. It had a lower price, too.
Though the Granada was shedding volume, Ford still saw a place for a mid-size model after the retirement of the “mid-size” LTD II in 1979 (for its last year, it was sold alongside the similarly-sized, full-size LTD). The Falcon-based Granada had one last season in 1980 and was replaced by a new model in 1981, using the same Fox platform as the Mustang and Fairmont.
Unlike the first-generation model, the new Granada was no wider than the Fairmont and shared its 105.5-inch wheelbase. Mercury once again had a twin, though it now wore the Cougar name instead of Monarch.
Sales were up modestly in its freshman year, from which this example is from. The range comprised L, GL and GLX models in two- and four-door sedan body styles, with the same engine range as the cheaper Fairmont: a 2.3-liter four-cylinder, a 3.3-liter six, and Ford’s downsized 255 cubic-inch V8.
The color-keyed wheel covers and upright grille of this mid-range GL are reminiscent of the first-generation model but the Fox Granada is even more boxy and upright. It looks somewhat like a more starchy Fairmont, which is exactly what it is.
The typeface used on the trunk lid was perhaps the most stylish part of it.
The range-topping GLX had stylish turbine wheels, while all Granadas had a slightly nicer interior than the Fairmont. Still, this was a pretty forgettable Ford.
The company agreed. Though the Fairmont wagon received a nose job and joined the Granada line for 1982 – remaining Fairmonts using the Fairmont Futura nameplate – the Granada’s sophomore season would be its last.
Despite the introduction of a wagon to the line, sales actually decreased by around 1000 units to 120,323 units. The Granada also lost its V8 option that year.
Ford’s replacement for the Granada was simply a restyled Granada. What a difference the restyle made, though. Adopting the LTD name (the full-size model was renamed LTD Crown Victoria), the new car had a more modern, aerodynamic look. A V8 was available again (in the LX) and sales were up by around 30,000 units.
Ford clearly didn’t do enough to make the Granada a worthwhile step-up from the Fairmont. Sure, its styling was fresher, but it didn’t necessarily look better. It wasn’t bigger, nor was it more powerful.
Its truncated two-year run makes the car a real rarity. But for a damaged taillight, this example is lovely and mint. It was unloved then, but can you love it now?
Related Reading:
The listing (Update: It looks like it’s been sold! You snooze, you lose…)
Curbside Classic: 1981 Ford Granada – The Fox In The Fairmont’s Henhouse
Curbside Classic: 1981 Mercury Cougar –The Only Two Door Sedan Cougar
Gran A da
not your fault, Ford’s
Wow, I thought that was a brochure picture at first.
I didn’t realize you could get one of these with the 2.3. I had that in a Mustang with a manual and it was a slug, it made all of 88 HP back then.
I thought it was a catalog pic too! Very nice car.
Not much to say about the Granada, but the title of this post…thanks for giving me a good chuckle on this cold, snowy Friday morning. Prompted me to look up the Allan Sherman song on Youtube. So great!
He will always be the Cat in the Hat to me. Martin Short’s take is annoying.
Alan Sherman FTW! And who can forget his Twelve Days Of Christmas that puts a Japanese transistor radio in place of the partridge in a pear tree.
parents had a baby blue fairmont 3.3. was reliable. car got totalled and my dad bot a 84 LTD LX that had a 5.0 H.O mustang engine in it. I totalled that one lol.
You actually managed to make this appealing (in a way). Excellent for sale post!. Perhaps you should just buy it and store it here for your visits, you’d save a fortune on Turo cars and drive a true American Classic.
I didn’t plan to get a car like this, it was given to me for work when it was time for the company to lease a new car. Trust me, at the time I was pretty disappointed to get something Aunt Bea Taylor would have designed and drive.
But I discovered that it was a very good car. I would love to find a Cougar/Granada wagon with the wood vinyl exterior trim.
Good price too.
Aunt Bea actress drove a Studebaker.
I am aware the listing doesn’t actually link to the Granada in question. Unfortunately, I have not found the ad elsewhere, so I’m not sure what’s going on.
I’m conflicted by this car, it deserves to be preserved just because of the shape its in but it would also be perfect for an LS swap drag car.
The combination of excellent condition, black paint, and those body-color wheel covers actually make this a desirable-looking car. The best Granada I’ve ever seen. And really, for under $3,000 it’s not a bad price for folks who would like a unique-looking (to modern eyes) quasi-classic. And if I owned a nearly 40-year-old car, I’d likely drive it rather sedately anyway, so the Granada’s underwhelming powertrain wouldn’t bother me.
Goodness, it seems like I’m trying to talk myself into buying this car!
The only Granada I’ve seen in the past decade or so is this two-tone example that lives near me… it’s an original-owner, daily-driver, fully-patinated example:
Looks like a Lincoln.
The 83-86 Fox LTD did not have an a la carte V8 option. The 302 was only available in the police package or the 84-85 LTD LX.
Neither did the the Fairmont have a V8 after ’81, it was 2.3 or 3.3 in ’82-83.
The last year for a 302 Fairmont was ’79, then it was the 255.
Encyclopedia of American Cars strikes again, unless I misread.
I’ll amend the text as soon as I can.
4.6 and 4r70w from any late model panther would make this an entertaining machine.
One of these appeared in our neighbourhood a few month ago, outside the seniors’ housing complex. It’s natural habitat, I’d think.
Seeing it in the flesh reminded me just how much cars have change in wheel/body positioning. The excessive overhang, combined with the tiny wheels tucked waaay inside the wheelwells, make these look really out of balance – like they’re about to topple over if pushed too far in any direction.
I really want color keyed wheels to make a true comeback.
I think they’d look great on many of our current large 2 row and 3 row CUVs that have the proportions that cars did in the 1940s.
A mechanic friend had used one for a family car, unreliable with a front suspension that would not keep an alignment. Periodically episodes of erratic stalling, power windows failing, trim coming loose. All the way around a junky car. His experience wasn’t unique, other in the area who had them had the same problems and the local Ford dealers were beset with warranty work . Everyone wondered if all the Monday assembled production was shipped to western New York.
Forgot to add, lousy mileage from the six, in the 12-13 mpg range, It looked nice, they grew to hate it and the time and expense to fix it. It was motivation to trade for a used Dodge Caravan that turned out to be one of the best vehicles they’ve yet enjoyed.
Clearly I missed this car as I can’t say I have ever seen one of them. Now where was I in 1981? Oh, I was finishing up Grad School at UC Berkeley which might explain why no one would see one of these there. If I had seen one from a distance I would have never known it was a Granada based on what I had seen in the past years.
It’s a dead-ringer for the ZiL 40141.
I think you may have it backwards; the ZIL is a dead ringer for the Granada.
The ZIL 410XX series didn’t start production until 1985, four years after the second-generation US Granada appeared.
This car presents a more cohesive visual package than the (also) Fairmont-based Mercury Marquis posted yesterday. But I have never looked at either one and thought anything other than, “Oh, there’s a Fairmont.” They represented to me a very cynical era at Ford, when it thought it could fool the public into thinking that this was more than the bland compact car it really was, tarted up and disguised with fresh badging.
That aside, this is certainly a nice survivor.
Funny, in my case, Ford fooled me into thinking the Fox-body Grenadas and LTDs were actually larger than the Fairmont, with a wheelbase stretch at least.
Just longer noses, to my knowledge…they never stretched the wheelbase, right? That’s what made the derivatives so disappointing…from wheel to wheel and cowl to C-pillar they were the same car.
If Ford had stretched the 1981 Granada wheelbase a bit like Chrysler did with the first K-car derivatives (Dodge 400/600/Chrysler E-Class/Plymouth Caravelle), maybe just maybe, Granada’s journey could had been longer.
Why do I like this??
While I liked the Fox-Granada’s frontal styling (with a grille that seemed really rounded to me at the time), I didn’t like that horizontal trim piece on the C-pillar. It just seemed like unnecessary gingerbread. (Well, I suppose that “unnecessary gingerbread” was what separated the Granada from the Fairmont. But, still…)
I wonder how hard it could be to source a replacement GLX taillamp lens for the passenger’s side.
One of the main things I notice on this car (and on yesterday’s LTD) is the presence of vent windows. There were long gone from most other cars by this time. I wonder if these are among the last.
As someone who prefers rolling windows down over running the A/C even on hot days, that’s an old car feature I miss. I know they’re probably an aerodynamic disaster, but, boy, do they move a lot of air.
Those were optional equipment on a few lines of Fords in that period of time. I loved the fact that they existed, but I hated the fact that you had to turn a big knob to open them. Both the 85 Crown Vic and the 86 Marquis Wagon in our family lacked that option.
That knob was awful. The 1979 LTD wagon in my Dad’s employer’s fleet had them and both operation and appearance were painful. I think Ford felt they had to match the standard that crank vents were considered deluxe over simple latch swing vents in the 1960s. Ford later simplified these to latch swing vents as featured on my 1987 Mercury Grand Marquis LS. That really cleaned up the door panel, and avoided the awkward contrast of a big manual control on a door panel loaded with electronic switch gear.
“Its truncated two-year run makes the car a real rarity. But for a damaged taillight, this example is lovely and mint. It was unloved then, but can you love it now?”
Damn, I can.
I hated this car when it came out, and as much as I can love a 1978 LTD Brougham, this car was just a brougham too far.
Recalling that just about everybody seemed to hate on it, it sold better than I thought it did at the time, especially considering the recession racked economy.
As noted by others, the color, trim and options on this one make it about as desirable as these ever got. The only change I’d make is I’d choose the full vinyl top. The mid-roof landau version looks like dealer installed crap, but, unfortunately, it is factory. Yes, Ford sank that low.
Why not the slick top? The roof top panel left an unfilled / unfinished joint on the C-pillar a half inch down from the top. Just one of the many easy to hate things about this car. The black plastic bumper wrap-arounds always bothered me as well.
The Fox LTD that replaced it, while more palatable in most respects, also had some nasty cost savings compromises – the doors were straight off the Fairmont and tried to hide the Fairmont character lines by jamming in a piece of trim, leaving the doors out of sync with the fenders forward and aft of the wheels. At least this Granada has logical character lines on the doors and fenders that don’t look like a Chevy fitted with Buick doors after a collision.
If I had to choose between the Fox Marquis (Fox LTD variant featured the other day on CC) and this car, I’d take this Fox-In-Box in a heartbeat. Just too much old-school character to pass by.
Some offending points noted:
Roof Joint, crappy pillar trim, crappy bumper wrap-arounds, crappy tail light wrap-around. And, an awkward two-tone. Make mine black and hold the sugar.
I always considered these one of the best jobs ever of scaling down the proportions of a traditional big American car to a smaller size. But the guys in the Thunderbird studio must not have been paying attention.
The lack of a 5.0 is a big problem for me. I would have a tough time getting excited over that 255.
The other reason these sold so poorly is that the economy was awful in 1980-82, with interest rates that were sky high, making new cars an expensive proposition. Everyone’s sales were down, though these fared worse. The GM RWD stuff was better and the FWD stuff from GM and Chrysler was far more modern, offering the kind of gas mileage a guy could brag about back then. These didn’t do anything really well. But I would still drive this car.
The listing shows a volvo, and I’m dying to check the listing out!
I’ve posted most of this information before when this generation of Granada is discussed. I probably have as much experience with these cars as anyone here. From a family member I inherited a new 1981 Granada L two-door with the 2.3/auto and 1,000 miles on the odo – at a time when I needed a new car. In order to get any equity out of that car I traded it in for a factory-ordered 1982 GL two-door with the 3.3/auto, a somewhat uniquely optioned model with vinyl bucket seats and floor shift for the automatic, heavy-duty suspension, and the extended range (20 gallon) fuel tank (memories of two fuel crises in the 70’s). The car did not fit my image or age then and was chosen to be eminently practical and economical during a time when I was building a career and trying to curb my interest in cars in order to devote resources to saving for retirement and European travel. My Granada, built at the Chicago assembly plant, did not disappoint in that regard, as it was well-built, very reliable, and inexpensive to service and repair. Interestingly it was replaced with a 1985 300ZX Turbo with 5-speed ☺. The car later was sold to the aunt of a friend who drove it for many years until her passing. The color was medium pewter metallic – this pic does not do it justice.
Yes, the car was underpowered but the 3.3 was a quiet, reliable engine with manageable torque at higher speeds. I chose it over the newly available (in 1982) 3.8 Essex V6 because it was tried and true. I drove the 1981 equipped with the 2.3 four cross-country and by comparison it was raspy loud and snail-like in movement.
I noted previously that Jim Cavanaugh and I are in total agreement (and perhaps among the minority here) that the little LTD that replaced the Granada in 1983 is inferior in styling. It looks like a modified shoebox parading as an aero sedan (unlike the all-new T-Bird) whereas the Granada proudly wears its traditional shape but with refinements the Fairmount lacked. And those bumpers were the real deal. Jim is also correct to mention that cars were not selling well during this time period due to the continuing economic downturn that would not end until 83-84, culminating in Reagan’s triumphant re-election. Consequently dealers were providing significant discounts on these cars.
It’s always seemed to me that this model was a symptom of Ford’s cash crunch as the 70s came to a close. Otherwise it would have made more sense for the ’81 Granada to be based on the longer wheelbase of the ’80 Fox Thunderbird (as the ’82 Continental was) and use the T Bird dash rather than a fancier version of the Fairmont one. Even better, if one were creating an alternate history would be if Ford had simply adapted the Australian XD Falcon/Fairmont which likely easily could have been done had there been will and funds.
In early 1981, my mother bought a brand new Ford Mustang Ghia, a good little car that served her well for 17 years. While she was in the showroom signing the papers for the car, I was wandering around the showroom of our hometown Ford dealer. They had a Granada GL in there along with other new cars; this was about the time Ford advertised heavily their quality. Unfortunately, that Granada was not going to be a poster child for high quality, as it had huge runs in the paint and other easily correctable issues in the interior. It’s like final inspection never took place.
Later that year, I went to work in the parts department for a Ford/AMC dealer in another town. I remember the sales manager was rather upset one day, as a truckload of 1982 Granadas was delivered. He still had 1981 Granadas that hadn’t sold and now he had newer cars on the lot to sell, also. They were making sweetheart deals to move them off the lot, but for most folks who had to finance a new car, the 14-18% interest rate (and high gas prices at one point, too) shunted them into a lot of lower priced Escorts instead.
With that combination of factors, it seems understandable that the Gen 2 Granada had a short lifetime.
I honestly like the looks of this generation of Granada more than the Fairmont. It is square but it doesn’t feel stodgy, much in the way that the Fairmont resembled a Volvo of the same decade.
My grandpa had a 1980 Fairmont and I knew someone who owned this generation of Granada as well.
At least it’s easy to get in and out of the back seat. Today’s sedans have a fastback roofline were you have to fold over to get in or you’ll bash your head on the C pillar. Looks like it’s got plenty of head room once in the back seat as well.
Now I understand why most taxi companies are hanging on for dear life to their Crown Vic’s. 🚗🚗🚗🚗🚗🚗
Wow. I dont remember ever seeing one of those.
What that car really needs is:
1. A limousine style rear window
2. Hidden headlights
3. Wider whitewalls
4. Sunroof
5. Factory 8track
6. Continental kit