Latest news with #Porsche928
Yahoo
08-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
As-New 1978 Ford Granada Is Today's Bring a Trailer Find
Here's a museum-quality everyday Ford from the late 1970s. It's essentially a time capsule, with only 47 miles on the odometer. It's not fancy or fast, but it does have the rarely seen four-speed manual transmission. In 1978, the fortunate few might have bought a new Porsche 928 or BMW 635CSi. The most enterprising purveyors of imported party stuffs might have picked up a newly bewinged Lamborghini Countach. Most Americans, though, had more mundane jobs and more mundane cars—their automotive excitement was maybe watching Starsky & Hutch drive through a fruit stand once a week. Over the years, while the Porsches and Bimmers got polished and pampered, the regular cars got used up and thrown away. But not all of them. Today's blast from the past at Bring a Trailer (which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos) is a 1978 Ford Granada two-door, and it only has 47 miles on the odometer. It was reportedly driven home from the dealer then stored by its original owner for decades, a highly unusual garage-queen life for a deeply ordinary machine. But by surviving in shockingly original condition, it has aged, unexpectedly, into something quite special. Ford launched the Granada in 1975 as a slight step up from the Maverick compact sedan, a car for the someone who dreamed of an LTD but didn't relish the thought of putting gas in that two-foot-longer mastodon. With its humble Maverick underpinings, the Granada was not the choice for disco-listening groovy cats, but a sort of dadmobile for people who just wanted to listen to Perry Como while they drove to work at the Acme stapler factory. If you wanted big-car luxury, you could get a laundry list of options on the Granada. Or you could not. This example is slightly unusual for having the four-on-the-floor manual transmission, but it doesn't have many extras besides an AM/FM stereo with an eight-track player. It's finished in black with red vinyl upholstery and sports 14-inch steel wheels with wheel covers. The engine is the 4.1-liter Thriftpower inline-six, which, with 88 horsepower on tap, is clearly far more thrift than power. The tires were replaced three years ago. Ford's advertising made an attempt to burnish the Granada's image by challenging consumers to compare it to a similarly sized Mercedes. "Can you tell its looks from a $20,000 Mercedes-Benz?" Uh, yes. Obviously. Ford's plant was cranking these things out as fast as it could, and the late 1970s were not what you'd call a time of peak quality control. Still, the Granada offered some luxuries at less than a quarter the cost of the Merc. With only 47 miles on the odometer, this Ford is a time capsule of regular everyday life toward the end of the 1970s. It'd be ideal for anyone filming a period movie or TV series, or perhaps as part of a museum display on the Carter administration. Or you could roll right up to your local Cars & Coffee event and show up all the gathered vintage BMWs and Porsches with a car of a type no one has seen in decades. A perfect, low-mileage Granada with a four-speed manual transmission? Just throw a coupla Perry Como eight-tracks in the glovebox, and it'll be like you're right back in the late '70s. The auction ends on February 11. You Might Also Like Car and Driver's 10 Best Cars through the Decades How to Buy or Lease a New Car Lightning Lap Legends: Chevrolet Camaro vs. Ford Mustang!
Yahoo
07-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
A Car for Your Valentine: Window Shop with Car and Driver
Would it be Valentine's Day without Window Shop? We're not sure of the answer to that question, so it made no sense to take the risk. After a brief hiatus, the gang is back to buy one another gifts of used cars that cost no more than $14,000 in any random color, or $15,000 if the car came in some sweet shade of red. During last year's heart-day-themed episode, senior editor Elana Scherr said, "Sometimes, you want to give someone a gift that they wouldn't think to buy for themselves." Taking her own best advice, she bought editor-in-chief Tony Quiroga a Nineties-era Rolls-Royce she found in Nebraska, justified with something about luxury and life at the top and movers and shakers, none of which moved him as much as talk of a retracting hood ornament. Joey Capparella, Hearst Autos' head of ranking and other things, also took Elana's advice. However, he multiplied it by some large scientific constant in deciding to buy contributor Jonathon Ramsey a lurid red Mercury Cougar XR7. Ramsey, ever thankful, and known to be a fan of cougars, might have had to be convinced this was the Cougar for him. Ramsey bought for executive editor K.C. Colwell. After ruing being given a mere $14,000 for the task of pleasing what might be Window Shop's most fastidious panelist, he settled on a hope, a prayer, and a deep bronze Porsche 928 with a manual transmission and some color-matched wheels. It just might have worked. Colwell hit the shops for Scherr, returning from the Nineties with a lime green Alfa Romeo GTV Spider—a distant cousin by marriage to the Mopar family that Scherr normally finds most comfort in. This one was another hit of Scherr's year-old wisdom, the Alfa being a convertible and, in case we didn't mention it, lime green. EIC Quiroga's famous line introducing his picks—"You guys wanna see the winner?"—finally had real red substance. Buying for Capparella, the honcho gifted a scarlet Lexus SC with a manual transmission, a car so nearly perfectly suited and perfectly timed that everyone was ready to end the show as soon as it appeared onscreen. Nearly. Tune in to find out who won the box of chocolates, then tell us what you'd buy for the same money, and then heed Scherr's latest Valentine's Day wisdom: "Guys, if she has not told you she doesn't like flowers, buy your girlfriend flowers." You Might Also Like Car and Driver's 10 Best Cars through the Decades How to Buy or Lease a New Car Lightning Lap Legends: Chevrolet Camaro vs. Ford Mustang!
