I had a $400 76 Granada in 1988 and drove it until 2001 when someone ran a red light. Insurance gave me $2500. That was a great car especially with that 250 6cyl
Wow, this video portrays this car as a fancy and elegant car for wealthy people. I used to see so many rusted out examples of this Monarch and the Ford Granada clone that the brand new car featured seems incomplete and unfinished. (Somehow, the rust protection touted in this video didn't work so well in the real world.)
I bought a 76 Granada in 1985, red with a white vinyl top 6 cylinder with A/C for like $700. I sold it a year later for about the same price. Mine was a little worn with 85K had some minor rust and a rip on the driver seat. I never thought it was that bad of a car.
That wood grain appliqué really wowed me! Understated elegance! Precise body alignment...strong and quiet. Hot melt insulation! Wow! I wish Ford still sold these...
Don't forget that the Monarch featured that odd mid-'70s molded plastic interior that magically turned crumbly and then white and flaky after 3 years of California sun. I was always fascinated to ride in my friend's dad's Monarch, to see how much of the interior b-post and armrest surround had melted away. Upon entering, Mr. Dad always cautioned everybody aboard not to pick at, rub or even touch anything that had once been red and plastic.
Yes there was some odd plastic going round the automotive industry in the mid-late 70s. My dad's Granada held up ok but my aunt had a Pontiac Sunbird (decendent of the Vega) and one of my friends had a Chevette that had the desintegrating plastic interior. It was so messy and odd that it only seemed to afflict certain vehicles
From 1976 to 1980 my father drove a mercury monarch ghia with the legendary dearborn 5,8 litre V8. Only a few more than fifty monarchs were sold in germany. Was such a great car!🎉
we had a 78 ford Granada with straight inline 6 cyl, was a good car, and my brotherinlaw had a 77 Granada gia coupe, with a 302 v-8 rode even better than ours and had more power of course, long gone and you don't see many even at car shows today, thanks for the video
Loaded with details like the best quality European cars, aaah! Those luxury wind-down windows, non-servo assist brakes, rear drums, fablon wood-effect dash accents and vinyl seats guaranteed to make the back of your shirt tick with seat after 5 minutes on a warm day. Plus a mind blowing 145 horsepower on tap. No wonder Jaguar and Mercedes had such a foothold in the American market.
Its an insult putting mercedes in the same category as jaguar. Jaguar was pos british junk. Rust prone with lucas electrics Anything fomoco produced in the 70s was more reliable than a jaguar.
Mercedes of that era also had fake wood, low HP, crank windows (power was optional) but cost way way more than this Mercury. Learn some automotive history, mate.
David Hunt....How much more was the Mercedes and Jaguar compared to the Monarch? Everything is optional on European vehicles unlike American vehicles that have many standard features. Ford products were much more reliable and dependable compared to Jaguar's persistent electrical malfunctions and Mercedes outrageous price noisey sluggish smoky diesel engines rock hard seats skimpy carpeting just to name few back in the seventies.
David Hunt....How much more was the Mercedes and Jaguar compared to the Monarch? Everything is optional on European vehicles unlike like American vehicles that have many standard features.
@@LearnAboutFlow i meant the plastic junk cars are constructed of on the outside. How dare you make fun of that luxurious plastic baby burl wood inside the vehicle. LoL.
my very first car a 1976 monarch coupe with the week nowadays but nice 302 for then. my dad spotted it since he owned a 1977 for the family. i payer 500 $ for the car in 1992. wish I still had it. I wrecked it on a snowy curve when I was 17. man I wish i still had it though.
Well, cars in the '70's weren't very powerful because of crude emissions equipment, so, they started advertising them based on "luxury". It was actually a pretty nice thing. The cars were very comfortable. We had a '77 Monarch two door, and it was a decent car, and comfortable, but pretty slow. But it didn't matter since the speed limit was 55.
also since the power cars had back in the 60s and now 70s had less due to emissions the car makers Had to come up with new ideas to draw buyers Hence in my opinion all the extra options you could get like consoles console shifts the luxery decor optoin that gave you under dash courtsey lights glove box lights and duel beam overhead maplights
My father has a minty low mile 77 Monarch Ghia 4 dr with pretty much every option available including the 4-wheel disc brakes from the Lincoln Versailles. It's even a nice shade of dark blue, not an awful colour like so many 70s cars got painted.
A friend’s mom in high school had a 2 tone grey/silver 2 dr. Monarch Ghia with red leather and alloy wheels. The paint was fading by the mid 80’s so they had it repainted in solid metallic grey. It looked sharp. She traded in in ‘87 for a silver Chrysler Conquest ESI. Silver with red leather. Now THAT was a nice car.
6:11 ....in other words Falcon unibody that had been around since 1960. Used in Falcon , Comet , Mustang Cougar, Ranchero, Granada , Maverick....etc....
I ran across and bought one of these back in 1987 and mine had the 302 V8 in it it was a ghia and had the cloth seats and was a four dour it rode like a limosine and had one of the Best Air Conditioners I ever experianced in a car. The radio was also really nice sure miss having cars like these I paid $200 for it cant rember how many miles it had on it wish I could run across one like that again
my first actually purchased car payment car(1981). 77 two door brown automatic. later determined it was a "planned obsolescence" car. all american mfgs seemed to be doing that in the late 70s. 3rd gear & reverse went out about time it was paid off. learned to park when only facing uphill. while i did not take great care of it, still wasn't type of driver that stressed it very much. could haul bunches of friends. spent a lot of time parked in front of house; awaiting repairs. got around in the snow ok. junked it about 87. all that and this video made me long for it again. ha.
My first car was a '77 Monarch my grandfather gave us in '88 when he bought a new car. By the time we got it, it was badly rusted. Rode like a truck and had a dangerous steering system design that fortunately only made itself known when I was pulling out of a parking spot and not driving on the road. The red vinyl interior was brutal in the summer. It was, however, my first car and part of me still misses it
The Ford Granada had the same identical interior choices as the Monarch. For that matter, these cars could be had with front bench seats - I'm not sure if they weren't offered at launch or they were just only showing buckets for some random reason in this vid.
My brothers 1977 Trans-Am had a red interior, when he bought it well used in 1997 it had turned almost pink, the carpet was no longer red either. This was a northern Illinois car..
I'm a Chevy man myself. But my first car, at 16yrs old was a 1976 Mercury Monarch, back in 1983. Some of you guys are putting this car down. To tell ya the truth, I would gladly take this car right now over alot of this CRAP they are putting out today.
lawnmowermanTX It looks like Thousand Oaks or Westlake Village area of Southern Cal. Probably some upscale neighborhoods or country club settings were used.
"The Mercury Monarch was meticulously designed and made for the car-buyer, who under no circumstances, whatsoever in any possible conceivable scenario, that anyone would dare imagine in their wildest dreams, would just assume rather be caught dead in, even if they got for free, let alone pay for, a Ford Granada."
We’ll call it a “Video Network.” We can Post and share videos that will be both educational and entertaining. 🤣 Anyway they were really trying to align with the MB 240/300 series.
Never in a million years could the Ford Granada or Mercury Monarch compete against Mercedes Benz product. It was an american compact competing against the likes of the Dodge Dart, Plymouth Valiant, Chevrolet Nova (to include the LN) Oldsmobile Omega, Pontiac Ventura, Buick Apollo and the venerable AMC Hornet. Certainly the Ghia models were plush and the size right, but the goal post was to make compacts acceptable to drivers of full size american sedans like LTD, Impala and the stable of offerings from Chrysler. No Benz driver or prospective driver was ever going to step down to a compact from Ford, of premium european metal would ever have taken the Granada or Monarch seriously as a contender. Unfortunately, things remain the same with Benz, BMW, Audi and Porsche leading pack of contenders for the serious buyers of premium motorcars, joined by Lexus, Infiniti and Tesla. Cadillac, sadly, is hardly even in the race, unless you are a buyer over 70 and from Florida.
The Mercedes comparisons were more of a marketing gimmick than a serious attempt at competition. The quietness and smoothness about which Ford was bragging were not even top priorities for Mercedes buyers or engineers and the crisp handling and steering for which Mercedes was known were nowhere to be found in these Ford cars. I suspect that many Granada and Monarch buyers would actually have preferred their smooth, quiet, somewhat clumsy $5,000 Fords to a crisp-handling $20,000 slow-as-molasses 240D with its supportive-but-firm (eh, hard) seats and lousy air conditioning. Crisp handling and a solid feel cost a lot, but not everyone is willing to give up comfort, quiet, a modicum of power (even in smog-strangled 1975) and $15,000 to get them.
Yes, they were meant to compete with Mercedes Benz, a more affordable option though. What people don't understand is when the narrator brings up "European styling design" that's what he's talking about, competing against imports such as Mercedes-Benz. @ 8:10 it even resembled a Mercedes at this angle. Also the people resemble well off suburban white folk and that's who it was marketed towards.
@@alexanderblack2869 You're confusing FoMoCo's intent with the actual result. And no, this was not aimed at the Chrysler A-bodies. Not by a damn sight.
I think the Mercury version looked far better and more refined elegant than the Ford Granada. The Granada grille was just "too busy". The Monarch definitely had the better-designed hood ornament. No thought at all went into that Granada hood ornament. But on both, the rear end design fell well short of being stylish or memorable. The rear design of both cars looked old and dated even brand new. I wonder how many people realized that these cars were just reskinned Comets and Mavericks still being sold? EXACT 109" WB platform that actually came from the 1960 Ford Falcon. Which also gave us the original 1965 Mustang. Also brought us the 109" WB, $12,000.00 Lincoln Versailles. My great uncle's sold the Monarch and Versailles. They did not dare put a Monarch and Versailles together in the showroom. No one could justify the price of two Monarchs for the price of one Versailles I had the opportunity to drive both the Monarch and Versailles. They both drove and rode far better than any Comet they were based upon. However, the Versailles was far superior to the Monarch in engineering and build quality.
R Curtis I know, right, seats of 100% Nylon with the look and feel of cashmere (which was meaningless to people mostly wearing Dacron polyester at the time).
European styled, look of precision, supple, inviting, harmonizing...bullshit buzz words. I do love these presentations how they spend so much time telling you nothing about the car such as power, handling and mileage. I guess if they were honest, they would never sell cars. Vague steering, slow acceleration, rattling interior trim and dull, orange peel paint finish is never going to sell a car.
By 1975, the Dark Ages that lasted from 1974 to 1990 had set in. Horrible emission controls and low compression engines and lean carburetors and fugly styling. These were bad years.
In the 70s, corporate America was convinced it could sell any piece of shit with the right marketing pitch. Nothing has changed. To be fair to them, hipsters today bought the new Fiat 500!
Trim pieces added on to an already ugly car constituted "luxury" back then? People truly were more gullible then. As a child I remember these mostly off the road after 8 years.
I think the color combinations were prettier 20 and 30 years ago. Silver and greys with black interiors are the standard today. Without question, the lowest budget, cheapest combo money can buy. Bad Enough Silver, gray and black are not colors first of all, and ugly to the max. I look at silver and gray and black combinations and I see and 1940s black and white television set..
Mercury Monarch, Ford Granada, Lincoln Versailles...three flavors of the identical cheap plastic disposable POS. The most expensive Lincolns in this era were just as awful and they were the absolute best that FMC could do. Just cringe-worthy.
Yep, compared to the G.M. equivalent, much better ride, better running, better handling. My dad was a Ford man all his life, and I don't know why. You should have heard him when I told him I was a Chevy, or G.M. man. Oh he loved that! him..> 🤬 me..> 😖
The Versailles had posi rear end with rear disc brakes that fit into 67-70 mustang. I fitted my 68 cougar with the Lincoln rear end and people were amazed.
It's hard to believe that Ford tried to sell a car that was a miniature version of the Marquis. They could have at least had Power Windows, Cruise Control and leather interior as standard equipment, instead of vinyl. Ford made some bad decisions in the late 1970's and early 1980's. GM didn't downsize as much as Ford did, at least not until the mid-80's. Btw, background music sucks. Typical elevator music of the 1970's.
Nothing about this car is attractive. Nothing. The body lines, stance, headlights, grille, trunk, hubcaps...all gross. My grandpa had a 1977 and I thought it was ugly when I was 5. Hard to believe people bought this shit back in the day. If I recall correctly it was a piece of shit, too.
And they tried comparing to to a Benz. The Benz has trim, flowing lines and the bumpers intergrate well into the body. The Granada's are bulky and look like they're added on. The chunky, boxy lines don't work well with the smaller body. All the interior was plastic and imitation everything. Its funny if you look you can see how they recycled the inside door handle releases from the Falcon and Maverick, which this car is derived from.
1:50 ..also available with this optional luxury cloth material. This cloth is durable tightly knitted 100% NYLON which has both the look and feel of CASHMERE.. 😂
It had the large safely home while drunk driving hood ornament just aim it on the white line on the side of the road and follow it all the way home turn on the cruise control so you keep a constant speed. The cop behind you will finally get bored with you and pass you then you can relax but you've got that hood ornament to aim on the white line on the side of the road so you don't wander in the lane like today's cars they took that away in the interest of safety and pedestrians. Every one of my old cars has one. I won't buy a car if it doesn't have a stand-up fold back hood ornament
