Ford Granada ESS

[M.D. Holloway]

My Father in-law just inherited a 78 Granada ESS. It was in AZ its life, no rust, about orig 65K miles. Insides smells like cigs but otherwise in excellent shape. Still has the original tires! I don't know much else other than that it is brown but was kept in the garage.

Question - what to do with it? Sell? Restore to mint and show? Hot Rod-able? or just drive it? Not even sure if is worth anything.

Any ideas?

[86 911]

Cool! And look what I found laying on my bedstand! Yep, that's an advertisement for a 1978 Ford Granada ESS in the 1978 National Geographic:
http://tinypic.com/view.html?pic=xrinl

Matt

[Icemaster]

Drive it to the edge of the nearest cliff, put in in neutral and push.

Worst car I ever had teh displeasure of owning.

[Oh Haha]

Tub it out, stuff a big block in it and do smoky burnouts with it, THEN drive it off a cliff. (or push it, whatever.)

[pwd72s]

If you have the need for a "work car"...something to drive to work, something to suffer the agony of shopping cart dings, etc? This sounds like the perfect vehicle...

[cegerer]

You could do this to it and get into the undertaking business:

[project935]

Someone will want the front disc brake setup (and rear too if disc) for their early Mustang.

[Z-man]

I don't think restoring the car to mint condition would be a good investment for you. But I also don't think you should push the car off a cliff either.

A grocery getter, around town driver isn't a bad option, if the car is driveable.

If it is not driveable, your father-in-law can donate it to a local high school that has a mechanic shop program. If the car is solid, some of the students will have a fun time repairing it - IIRC, that car was simple and easy to work on.

Just my $0.42,
-Z-man.

[cstreit]

We owned one of these cars... It was a real nightmare... Put it on ebay as a "classic"...

[kach22i]

How much does it take to make a crash car durby racer?

[M.D. Holloway]

Originally posted by cstreit
We owned one of these cars... It was a real nightmare... Put it on ebay as a "classic"...

Sounds like another great example of 'you get what you pay for!'
What were the problems?

[A Quiet Boom]

If I'm not mistaken the 78 Granada is a Fox body as was the 78 Fairmont. The importance of this of course is that so is the Mustang, meaning just about every performance upgrade for a Mustang will also bolt onto that Granada. A few years back one of the big Mustang parts suppliers had a Fairmont with a Saleen suspension, supercharged 5.0, Tremec 5spd and a host of other upgrades. I think they used cop wheels with hubcaps and basically had the ultimate street sleeper. I think they even hid one tail pipe to give the illusion of single exhaust and used really quiet mufflers. If I remember right this car ran in the low 11's if not the high 10's and could hold it's own on an autocross course. If it were me I'd keep it, drop in a hopped up smallblock, brakes and suspension and terrorize the local ricers.

[Icemaster]

Originally posted by Z-man
If it is not driveable, your father-in-law can donate it to a local high school that has a mechanic shop program. If the car is solid, some of the students will have a fun time repairing it - IIRC, that car was simple and easy to work on.
-Z-man.

That's actually not a bad suggestion. If he's going to donate it to Salvation Army or whatever, make sure he does it before year-end. Tax laws change making it less favorable to do so 1/1/05.

[M.D. Holloway]

I was hoping it was a diamond in the rough - goes to my original suspicions, nothing good if it has anything to do with the word "Granada"! I could get a created smallblock from Jugs - then again thats $2k and time I could put towards the Targa.

[chibone_914]

I remember that ad campaign. Even then, the car looked nothing like a mercedes. (Unless I had the ugliest 6.9 in history)

They all had major problems, good luck trying to find a hydro-boost unit.........

[M.D. Holloway]

'been looking for the Popular Mechanics, or possibly Popular Science issue circa 1978 to 1980 timeframe in which they took a Ford Granada of 17mpg and put a compressed air tank in the trunk. The car was modified to run the engine at an efficient RPM to pump up the air in the tank. The car ran off an air pump/motor...can't remember design. Braking also provided air pressure into the air tank. Bottom line...the car got 30mpg.

The Honda Insight is a wonderful implementation of energy storage. The other thing to realize is that the "electric supercharge" can be scaled up (why the hell hasn't aftermarket companys seized this idea????) to easily 50 to 100 hp. Now that's a real jolt of supercharged power (compared to tranditional superchargers which take mucho energy at high RPM). Yes, the idea of energy storage with air is for real. Can you use compressed air to "accelerate" a car. OF COURSE you can. You simply don't want to have to PRE-STORE the compressed air. You make a design which compresses the air using the cars own braking.....or stores the energy slowly during normal running like the Honda.'

[M.D. Holloway]

He still has the Granada...and I still don't know what he is gonna do with it. I think it would make a great pimp ride...

[RANDY P]

throw some cheap wire wheels on it then stick it in Craigslist for $3.5k

Kids and ghetto dwellers are into that kind thing these days.

I'm 100% serious. make sure they are 13-14" reverse pattern.

eBay - 14 100 SPOKE CHROME WIRE WHEELS RIMS W FAT WHITE WALLS, Similar items search

[maxnine11]

A total Ford turd that was later out-turded by the Ford Fairmont.

[Arizona 911]

Put a body kit on it and sell it to playa as a one off prototype. You can use hair dryers for turbos .