Seeing an operable Granada in the wild should have been a cause for celebration. It’s not a frequent event. Instead, my opinions about things associated with the Granada overruled all else that moment.
I am old enough to remember these when new yet young enough to have been highly impressionable during their time on the market. It has taken a bit to articulate my thoughts about this less than ideal colored example of Ford’s North American Granada. These things happen.
The Granada, introduced two years after the 1973 oil embargo, did entice people into smaller, yet not austere, transportation.
There was a considerable dreariness quotient in Ford showrooms in 1974. Pinto, Mustang II, Maverick, Torino, and Galaxie/LTD…there wasn’t much to compel one to pony up and stride away in something aspirational because aspirational was something Ford wasn’t selling that year.
Except the Thunderbird, although that was more of a specialty vehicle.
Enter Granada, spawned by the incomparable Lee Iacocca.
The Granada was a frequently seen car in my childhood orbit. A cousin owned a nicely trimmed two-door example and a great-uncle owned a Monarch, the badge-engineered Mercury equivalent.
Both had small kids and their Granada / Monarch suited their situation in life. When compared to the brown, porky 1973 Ford Torino sedan my parents owned at the time, the Granada appeared more modern and desirable. The Granada seemed like a car purchased from want, unlike the Torino, purchased with expediency and apathy as my parents just needed a car.
Since forever, old ideas are recycled into new ideas; identical concept, different execution. The entertainment industry is an endless well of recycled ideas, so let’s peek at the music industry to illustrate this.
The year our Granada was introduced, country singer Ray Stevens covered Johnny Mathis in a much more compelling way. Making a few key revisions (and recording it in only two takes) utterly transformed Misty from something slow and monotonous into something much more upbeat and enjoyable. The idea obviously worked as Misty did well, even reaching Number 2 in the United Kingdom.
It was a good enough transformation to win Stevens a Grammy Award.
Crooner Paul Anka revised Van Halen’s Jump into something that might also appeal to those who would have shunned the original version.
Both are new takes on an old idea.
Which leads us back to Lee Iacocca. None of the critiques I have read of him ever refuted his craftiness. Iacocca has come the closest of anyone in Detroit to, as the old adage goes, making a silk purse from a sow’s ear. The Granada is proof of concept.
Nobody but Lee Iacocca could take their magic wand, tap the hood of a Falcon, and make a Granada appear.
One characteristic of an Iacocca created car is the amount of recycled content. The Granada has the basic suspension of a Falcon, numerous bits cabbaged from the corporate parts bin, and drivetrains recycled from other Ford lines. Power output, particularly the monumentally pathetic 72 horsepower from the 250 straight six in 1975, was recycling from the days of Ford’s Model A.
More powerful engines were available, but “powerful” was a relative term. Even the 351 cubic inch V8 available some years churned out less than 150 horsepower.
However, one option available on the Granada was a refreshing departure, although recycled from the full-size cars. One could obtain a Granada with rear disc brakes. For some makes, that was very heady stuff in the mid-1970s.
Another Iacocca trademark was sales. Sales of the Granada, like some of Iacocca’s other offerings at Ford, met with great initial success but quickly tapered off. Obviously Iacocca was able to realize momentum by this rinse and repeat method of car manufacturing, but the inevitable sales slide of his creations seems to encourage potential repeat customers to go shopping elsewhere.
The Fairmont undoubtedly helped hasten the demise of the Granada. Maybe this should have been the second generation Granada?
Oh wait. It kinda, sorta was. Doing so in 1978 would have eliminated yet another redundancy at Ford as a lightly revised Fairmont was the second generation Granada that came about in 1981 and sold alongside the Fairmont.
I digress.
None of these are the greatest sin associated with the Granada. The sin was thrust upon it, with the stigma of this sin perpetually tainting the Granada.
What was the sin? An obnoxious slurry of greed, stupidity, and whoring yourself. There is a lot of overlap among those three.
Here it is, in print.
That wasn’t a singular ad.
It was an entire ad campaign. For years.
Let’s not forget these ads were also on television.
All were cringeworthy and devoid of self-respect.
Ford, what were you thinking? Or, rather, were you thinking?
AMC initiated such comparison ads in the 1960s. It was solidly tongue-in-cheek with the premise being content comparison. The schtick was obvious. Nobody was cross shopping these two, yet it works to make a point. AMC even says it’s an unfair comparison.
The Granada ads? Let’s be honest…
In any job interview you must set yourself apart from the competition. Ford, these ads are your job interview – remember? Instead, you have the Granada proudly and loudly exclaiming “I look just like them!”. I somewhat see what you were trying to say, but there was too much earnestness. Any sarcasm, which should have been there, was lost. Instead, you painted a perception of the Granada as being a low cost clone of a car from a different price class. Did you really want customers having that takeaway?
The Granada ad campaign’s premise would be like saying author Elmore Leonard’s character of Raylan Givens is like Baron Munchausen because they both have a way with words. Both are terrific on their own merits, but any comparison is painfully forced. Ford, all you succeeded in doing was flushing your self-respect down the toilet.
Throwing away your self-respect wasn’t a good look in the 1970s and it has aged like fine, artisanal milk. Your ads have forever tainted the first generation Granada. The Granada may have been admirable for the time and intent, but that taint lingers like the stench of squandered opportunities and ambitions of covetousness.
The taint is so bad when I stumbled upon this Granada, my thoughts went straight to those asinine ads. You should have touted the fact you built a more attractive car than your Chrysler and GM competition and that your Granada met with immediate success. You were already outselling the dickens out of Mercedes, so why do you want to stoop to say your car looks like theirs?
Your customer base isn’t stupid; nobody was fooled.
Might these ridiculous ads have contributed to the steady drop in Granada sales? The phrase “screwing the pooch” comes to mind, Ford. You should have been telling us what makes your Granada unique, extolling its virtues, and how it is better than the competition, not how you cribbed the design of an upmarket competitor.
Rant over.
Seeing this Granada was a wonderful indication spring was imminent. Let’s hope this spring and summer continue to bring about more automotive findings, tainted or not.
Found March 2025 at the St. Louis Zoo’s north parking lot
The car Lee Iacocca is standing near has front vent windows that never made production.
The gas filler flap on ’78 to ’80 Granadas were all the charcoal color seen on this car, rather than a color that matched the vinyl roof and body side molding. This was significant, because these usually broke off within a few years, and Ford wouldn’t have to stock 7 different colors for spare parts.
The Granada looked nothing at all like a Mercedes or Cadillac. It did look like a reasonably handsome big Ford scaled down to a more manageable size, and was nicely proportioned. The interiors were considerably plusher than the competition – leather was optional, carpets were thick, and the door panels looked like they were from a luxury car. The LDO package interior was similar to what was later used for the Lincoln Versailles.
The only thing that felt “old” to me when we shopped these in 1976 was the inside door handles which looked more like window cranks. You pulled them toward you as if they were some sort of ejector-seat handle, which made the doors open with force. Chrysler ditched these in 1966.
The refreshed front on ’78 and later cars was unfortunate.
“It did look like a reasonably handsome big Ford scaled down…”
Exactly. What bugs me so much about how Ford handled Granada marketing was their inability/unwillingness/reluctance to claim the car as being unique, which it was. What Ford did just wasn’t a good look. As a child seeing these ads, I knew Ford did not have a better idea with their marketing of the Granada.
Not only that but they kept doubling down and doubling down on “it looks like a Mercedes” for the entire production run even as YoY sales were on the downward curve.
I always found this kind of comparative advertising refreshingly cheeky when browsing through US car magazines. Unfortunately, in my part of the world, it is illegal as so-called “unfair competition” – then and now.
Wow, you even found one with bucket seats and a console/floor shift! I saw a lot of Granadas back in the day, but I am not sure I ever saw one with this interior configuration.
The 1975-76 Granada was a true phenomenon. I knew so many people who bought one of them, and they were not a group of people who would typically own the same model. But these cars suffered from another common trait of Iacocca-mobiles – although they presented beautifully in showrooms, they did not age gracefully.
I have never heard either of the musical selections you featured. I actually like the Paul Anka version of Jump.
The buckets and console really surprised me, in a good way. I just wish my pictures of the interior had turned out better. Despite my railing on Ford with this piece, seeing this Granada was enjoyable. It really stood out in the crowd.
I also remember seeing Granadas (and Monarchs) all over the place back in the day. They are attractive cars but, like la673 said, they were obviously a Ford.
Mrs. Jason Jr put me onto the Paul Anka song. It really made me pause and breathe it in more than I do with most songs. Last fall we stopped while driving through Nashville to see Stevens perform at his Cab-A-Ray theatre. He told the story of Misty (it was an impulse to record it during a session for something else) and had his Grammy award in a display case in the lobby.
It just now occurs to me that if Chrysler had built this car, they probably would have gone with this song as the theme for the advertising.
https://youtu.be/gJMmK2OriQs?si=yteYwG6kLlUrJvzw
It would have been ideal!
This was truly the “The beatings will continue until morale improves” era of automotive design. Appalling styling, appalling performance, appalling accomodations, appalling marketing, and even the colors are bilous. The Fairmont was still dreary, but it was at least a step up in basic competence.
Long ago I came across a stash of Motor Trend or Car & Driver magazines from the mid- to late-1970s. What they reported on was dreary and even the presentation within the magazine was dreary. There were some bright spots in the auto world back then, but not enough.
It was the appeal of traditional American luxury and appointments, that made the Granada more marketable to the masses, as a compact car.
If Ford built an AUDI 100LS type car, at that point in history with low key almost austere styling and appointments, it would not have appealed to all those LTD, Caprice, Torino, Colonnade, Monaco, etc, buyers, it attracted.
It was an important car, in transitioning traditional US buyers, to what *they* considered fashionable, and European. It made what was a traditional American car, more palatable, as a small car.
Of course, car enthusiasts would clearly see, that it was not a European car.
Interesting car the Granada.
Still, I liked the european Granada’s design much better.
Just brilliant, and written in that inimitable Jason Shafer style. For years and years those Granada print ads were the source of jokes between me and my car-aware friends. When YouTube arrived, seeing the TV spots only added fuel to this.
Not with the thickest of cataracts might I have ever confused the two.
With that said, I have come around to appreciate the styling of the first-generation Granada four-door, particularly in Ghia form with those stunning road wheels.
And thank you also for the musical reference. I had known Ray Stevens from “Everything Is Beautiful” and “The Streak” (and those early ’90s TV ads for his compilation album from that time), but this is my first time hearing his take on “Misty” – and I like it!
I’m previewing the Anka album in it’s entirety – I may need to make that purchase. Thank you!
Those wheels you mention do indeed elevate a Granada.
I’m glad to have introduced you to those two songs.
Stevens and Anka are 2.5 years apart in age, Stevens being the elder. Both deserve credit for continuing to do their thing well into their 80s. While I can’t speak to Anka, I was within 2′ of Stevens when we saw him, and he looks great at 86.
Yes, the adverting was cringe worthy, but Lido did pull a rabbit out of his hat again and again and again.
As also noted in CC, other manufactures jumped into the luxury bandwagon:
– AMC with the Concord
– GM with the Nova LN/Concours
– Chrysler with the Aspen/Volare
As a counter point, below are the corresponding Mercury Monarch numbers:
1975. 103,936
1976. 145,823
1977. 127,697
1978. 91,714
1979. 75,879
1980. 21, 746
Total Monarch= 556,795
Lets not forget that Lido also pumped thru 50,156 Lincoln Versailles.
A great source of Granada, Monarch, & Versailles info is:
http://gmv-registry.com
Tune in tomorrow. This piece inspired a little something further about Ford, Mercury, and Lee.
The last time I came across a Granada was in 2017. It was a rather tired-looking ’78 model (below) – I took photos of it, but I just couldn’t muster the energy to write an article about it. I’m glad you did with this one.
Funny that you mentioned that you were young enough to have been highly impressionable by the Granada when it was new. I felt the same way. My first (perhaps only?) direct experience with one was when my mom rented one though Rent-a-Wreck sometime in the early 1980s. I thought it was the most awesome thing in the world, with all that fake wood, fancy-looking interior stuff, and vinyl that looked like leather. Eventually, I wised up (a bit).
In other news, it appears that the couple in the 1979 ad with the Mercedes (George and Eve Nazarian) were real people. George was a lawyer, and Eve worked as a realtor – they lived in Southern California. I wonder if the other people in these Granada ads used their real names as well?
Lawyer and realtor. I wonder if rather than being “his car/her car” it was horses for courses? She’d use the Benz with sellers and the Ford with buyers, he’d switch off based on whether it was more important to look Successful-with-a-capital-S or unpretentious?
You and I are scary close in age, so I can see how you were also impressionable with the Granada. In fact, the two-door belonging to a cousin was a darker blue with a white top and I was rather smitten with it.
However, you are way ahead of me – I have never ridden in any Granada or Monarch.
The Benz vs Grenada ads had to be the same ad agency that lifted a Lincoln Versailles to the Windows of the World Restaurant on top of the NYC Twin Towers.
Both just as ridiculous. Look, it has four wheels just like a Mercedes! Drive up to the top floor of a hi rise!
Lifted, or pasted in?
“Lifted, or pasted in?”
Both would be legitimate. Anyone with even a spark of intelligence knows that advertising has nothing to do with reality. It’s all about the effect.
Ford (and any of their advertising agencies) of course knew, the Granada was not a European car.
Promoting the Granada as a modern, European-style car, worked getting traditional buyers out of over-sized mid-sized and full-sized cars.
It sold well, until Ford developed a more genuine European-like car in the Fairmont. And it helped set up the less flashy Fairmont, to be more palatable for the US market. In an era, when many buyers expected chrome and flash.
The Granada played a key role, in making small car luxury appealing, to traditional American big car buyers.
Say what you will about the Granada. It was one of the first high volume domestic cars, to push American buyers from oversized mid-sized and full-sized cars, into cars of a more rationale less wasteful scale.
By offering all the big car features and looks, Americans had come to expect in a car that appealed to them, in a more sensible and practical scale.
If they had made the styling and interiors more austere and less like familiar American luxury, it would not have sold nearly so well. And been so transformational in acceptance by Americans.
For all its faults, I do credit the Granada for playing this important role. Largely what I remember it for.
For one brief and terrifying moment I thought it was the Osmonds in the ad for the ’78 Ford Fairmont. “Crazy Horses” indeed !
The ad that highlights the independent front suspension and Hotchkiss drive, not to mention choice of cloth or vinyl had me laughing; uhh, just like pretty much any American car for the last 25 years.
In 1975 I had a summer job in rural Virginia. My boss, a retired military guy, had a Saab 99 and a Capri. Both 4 cylinder, stick shift. I didn’t like him but at least he had OK taste in cars. One day near the end of the summer he showed up in a new Granada. He loved it and was happy to have gotten rid of “that POS Saab”. I forever associate Granada’s with him.
It might be an urban legend, but I heard through the years they disassembled and put back together at least the shell of a the Versailles up the freight elevators. With three Martini lunches and deep pockets it could have happened.