Can you tell the diff between a Ford Granada and a 116?
 

http://jalopnik.com/362733/can-you-tell-the-1978-granada-from-a-20000-mercedes-280se

Heh.

Ford Grenade, starting what Kia would continue 20 years later.

Oh man, that was too hilarious! A blind man could see the difference in those two cars.

Well, there was also a famous print ad from a lady we knew in Great Neck NY who got a parking ticket on her Ford and the cop wrote "Mercedes" on the ticket under "Car Make". She turned a $5 parking ticket into a payday when she sold the story to Ford for the ad campaign.

She must have gotten an illiterate cop that day.

Mercedes, F-O-R-D, Mercedes.:eek::rolleyes:

I thought it was claimed by ford the granada had a copy of the mercedes steering goeometry as well. Or perhaps some dealers just used the scam. Anyways few were fooled but attention was gained and that was the original object. So fords gambit was successful from their standpoint I guess. Perhaps it was mercedes that in revenge coined the hidden meaning of ford. That was ford owner really dumb. Came out about the same time.

Times are tough;;
Sale or trade; My 1978 Mercedes 280se, $4500.00, or trade for Ford Granada, of same color, so my friends, and family, won't know I got rid of the Mercedes to begin with, because they look so similar..LOL

Ford has plenty of masterminds alright, but most of them must live in Europe because that's where all their really good looking cars end up. Look at the way they market stuff us in the US. They proclaim the Taurus was gone last year as if somebody is going to raise a fuss, then the very next year they take the 500 and make it the "new" Taurus! But I can't tell, it looks like a completely new car to me. ;) Yup, that Granada looks just like a Mercedes alright. Now somebody give me glass of cider vinegar on the rocks, it looks just like Makers Mark it must taste like it too.

Water & Vodka..?

They're both liquids, Both crystal clear...HHMMM.

I suppose it doesn't matter then right?

Two shots of water bartender...In fact, I'll buy a round for the whole house, put it on my tab..

We're really partying now..How many shots of water does it take to get drunk though..?

The biggest difference between the Ford Granada and the Mercedes?

There are still 78 Mercedes W116 still on the road.

The Ford? It`s over in China now rebadged as some new Chinese POS
trying to pass the crash tests.

Charlie

Who came up with the name Grenada?

Whether its derived from Grenade or the conflicted island country, its not a name that inspires confidence.

Kind of like Ford Dynamite, or Ford Kosovo.



If I ever confuse a Mercedes with a Ford, I better be really, REALLY drunk.

Well, I hope you have a good bottle of 12 year old cranberry juice, or a fifth of water in you, if it does happen..

Trucky

i see Ford of that era all the time.... remember the Reincarnation ad Mercedes had?

Ford Reincarnated.

"the out side may change but the soul stays the same"
http://www.veetee.com/assets-veetee/...in/Tin-Can.jpg

Rofl. Was that a real ad or a joke? I can't believe they would put an ad up stating that buy our car and maybe people will mistake it for a Mercedes.

I can....

No, It was a real ad. They really marketed cars that way back then. They used the "Flaky" approach.

Unlike today, where they typically use the "Comic" approach, to appeal to customers. I'll never forget some of the Honda, and VW commercials I've seen over the years. Some of them have had me rolling..

Trucky

Im hoping to get out of a parking ticket I received in PA in my 300D that was magically transformed by the time the citation was mailed into a Mercury.

Exactly. How many Grenadas has anyone seen on the road lately?

sadly, or strangly, a man on my street owns one. still drives it daily too. whats strange, is that it still looks really nice. he must have babied it all this time. which is sad.

There is usually an exception to every rule.

The only "same" things I saw on the commercial were both cars were silver, both had blue colored interior, and the driver was the same.

There is no way anyone can confuse a 3 pointed star with a blue oval.

they should have compared it to a 75 300D... more similar appearance the 115 front grille is closer to the granada grille. still it's like comparing an eagle to a turkey.... they are both birds right?

I don't think I've ever seen a "Grenada" on the road....or in a junk yard...or anywhere. Probably a combination of low-sales numbers + all of them rusting away in 5 years. :D ;)

That commercial was crazy.

MB should have made a commercial that said "Grenada" (crash into crash-test barrier) and then "Mercedes" (crash into crash-test barrier)

Can you tell the difference? ;)

Thanks!
 

"The following user(s) say, Thank You! to SirNik84",for his excellent translation.

"I only wish there was a way to send a copy of your post to Billy Ford".

Tyler, it's G R A N A D A.

And they also had an ad campaign that bragged about the perfect 45 degree miter cuts on the chrome window moldings, just like the Mercedes had.. But when the cars came out on the streets, they still looked mismatched.

I even know of a guy who bought a Granada with Granada body ID emblems on one side and Mercury Monarch emblems on the other side--

The only good thing ablut them was the '78 Monarch could be ordered with a 351 Cleveland, mu brother-in-law had one and it smoked the tires like nothing else on the road that year- but it also passed everything but a gas station.

It looks just like an old W116 coupe!
http://denver.craigslist.org/car/615868743.html

that is a major selling point for me

My sister's first car was a Granada. The door fell off, there was so much rust in that car. The rear window leaked. The windshield leaked. Everywhere you looked there was rust.

Did you see the car rocking as it braked to a halt in that video?

Did it even have shock absorbers :D

That's what I noticed as well. Did it need new shocks right from the factory, or did that one have a couple thousand miles on it from filming.

My college roommate drove a Granada from age 16 til college graduation. It was a 1975 model with absolutely NO frills. 200ci inline six with a carb butterfly the size of a quarter, three-on-the-tree, no a/c, one gauge (fuel), no power brakes or steering. I think his was voted car of the year by the Amish. You cold literally hold the gas pedal to the floor and dump the clutch in first (or reverse) and it would kill the engine!
It lasted forever (the body was going bad though) and delivered reasonable fuel economy. We still remember it fondly.

I bought a '77 Ford Torino in '78 It was my dad's company car and they gave him the option to turn it in or buy it cheap. I needed a car for school at the time so I bought it. It had only 48K miles and at around 50K the 351 V8 started a very noticeable miss which got worse every day.
Compression chech revealed two dead holes so the heads came off and we discovered massive gooves in the cylinder walls.
When the engine was torn down for a complete overhaul we discovered Ford had all the piston ring gaps lined up and two cylinders had broken rings.
That was my first and last Ford product.

Well... I do own an old '84 F600 two ton flatbed truck today but it has a GM Detroit 8.2 diesel factory installed. I find it interesting that Ford chose to use a GM engine in the mid size trucks then.

NO WAY! really? ford used GM parts in their linup? wow. that is news to me.
I guess the IH Diesel can't be changed to handle that large a vehicle...

thats ok, most of the bigger midline trucks use ford frames, they all kinda share. most early dodge engine accesories had ford part numbers on them.

my buddy had several grenadas and was perfectly happy with them, he used to buy them for a few hundred dollars and then part out the remains when he had squeezed out the last of its miles. They did rust, like most cars of the time, but then most cars didnt have the budget to use all of the coatings that Mercedes could use at their price point.

that being said, it is a rediculous advert. But only in America, Europe outlawed direct comparison ads a long time ago.

I just looked at a picture of a Grenada on google and realized that my elementary school best friend's dad had one as his daily driver. It was POOP brown (real dark) and he "abandoned" it to the street in front of the house when he got sick of trying to fix it....finally had it hauled off a year later when he donated it to a local "shop class" or something like that. :D (This was in like 1996, ages ago) I remember riding it it like 2-3x ever, when I was about 9 years old....it rode like a boat. So sadly, I have ridden in a Ford Grenada. :o

I remember it spewed soot on the ground when he'd start it up. Like a diesel....except a poorly running ford gasser. :D

Grenada or Granada
 

Grenada is a country. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenada

Granada is a car. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Granada

Remember the Ford " Probe" ? whats up that name.. makes me pucker when I say it...

Next we will see the the Buick Enima :eek:

Grenada Granada, interchangable simile

Of course the Ford Granada was also the Lincoln Versailles.

I just checked out ebay and there still seems to be a few out there. Someone is even selling a mint one with 55k on it. :D Its definatley a late 70's/early 80's ford. The looks say it all. I shudder at the thought of driving one.

Granada is also a city: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granada

...just being a smarta$$... :D

That is correct. The German (European) Ford Granada was actually a pretty cool car (and the first one I drove - at age 15 :eek:), especially the wagon.

http://www.garaget.org/?car=19525

And for the "Five-Hundred": Just look at a 2005 Ford and a 2005 S-Class standing next to each other. They're still at it.

... and the original Taurus/Sable was pretty much designed to be an Audi 5000 (100/200) clone. I was around for the "best in class" study, the 5000 met 96% of the best in class, so Ford copied the car as close as they could without actually engineering a car.

My grandfather had both of these cars at one time!!
but guess what car he still held onto?


....the euro 280se

Is it just me or did Ford (europe) come as close to the look of a W123 wagon as they could without breaking the law? Yeesh. Its like an uglified W123 wagon! Still way better than the US version of the car though.

Yeah, I can tell the difference between a Ford Granada and a Mercedes! The Granada has been crushed and turned into something else and the Mercedes is most likely still on the road!:D

There was a similar TV ad campaign in the mid 70's when the Granada was first introduced. In that ad they actually compared a 115 to the Granada. In that ad actor Herbert Rudley and unsuspecting owners of 115's were brought a Granada instead of the 115 in a valet parking scenario. The point of the ad was that you could not tell them apart.
Yeah right!:rolleyes:

Hmmm, sounds like my 300D.

Oh My God, I bought a nice 280SEL from a guy on ebay. when I took it to the dealer for service, they looked at it for a bout an hour and then said it was a Granada! We really could not tell the difference! I mean it was 100% like the 280 or is the 280 100% like a Granada...:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

Granada Grenada Grenade!:ukliam3:

they did make a lot of Granadas, which was the original intent.......

http://www.lovefords.org/tech/production/

I work with designers all the time and it seems that trends are trends and what people like one year will be on everything the next. look how many PT Cruiser clones there are out there now, even BMW, MB and Porsche have "cross overs". a long time ago there was the AMC Eagle, which I remember was very much like the cross overs that are popular now, it just never caught on then.