Classic estate cars have featured very rarely in our Prime Find slot (I’m not including shooting brake type cars such as the Lancia HPE or Reliant Scimitar GTE here). They’re often favoured by antique dealers and people with dogs, as well as families with students taking half their belongings with them to college – at least, that’s one of the uses our BMW Touring is put to.
One thing about estate cars is that they tend to be better looking than the saloons on which they’re based – that’s my opinion, anyway. I can think of numerous plain or even slightly ungainly saloons that with an extended roof line and a properly integrated rear glasshouse look cleaner and smoother than the base car.
I think it’s true of smaller ones such as the Traveller variants of the Morris 1000 and ADO 16 through the Ford Escort from the Mark I onwards, the Vauxhall Viva HB, and moving up a class, I’m thinking of the likes of the Austin Montego, the estate version of which was greeted with enthusiastic applause at its presentation to fleet buyers – or almost any Volvo estate from the 120 series onwards.
The Mercedes S123 estate launched in 1977 and the later BMW E34 Touring were two more examples of what might be called “executive” estates, both fine looking cars. They can also be pretty damn quick – the BMW E34 M5 Touring was every bit was quick as its saloon counterpart, and most famously, Rickard Rydell tore up the UK’s racetracks in a Volve 850 Estate in 1994. The Audi RS2 Avant of the mid-1990’s was described by some as what a five-door Porsche, who helped develop the 158mph RS2, would be like – before the advent of the Cayenne.
Our Prime Find this week is one of those “executive” estates, a 1983 Mark II Ford Granada 2.8i Ghia X, on sale with a private vendor in Swardeston, Norfolk, East Anglia.
Ford were no strangers to making big estates, having produced estate versions of the Corsair, the Zephyr/Zodiac, and continued to do so with the Mark I and Mark II Granada.
The saloon variants of the Granada were very successful especially in the corporate sector – when I was selling Rover SD1’s into companies the main rival was always the Granada, which was the default executive company car. 504,747 Granada Mk I’s were made, followed by 918,969 Mk II’s, though I haven’t been able to discern how many of these were estates.
When the Mark II Granada was introduced in 1977, it was basically a re-skinned Mark 1, and the estate even shared some of the earlier model’s skin, carrying the design of the rear portion over from the Mark I Granada estate, which says a lot for the integrity of the Mark 1’s styling.
This particular Granada is an example of the post-1981 facelifted model and is the top of the range in terms of equipment levels at the time and based on the photos we have borrowed from the advert, presents in excellent condition, both inside and out.
While not quite a Q-car in the mould of, say, a BMW E34 M5 – not many cars are – it’s still pretty quick; that 2.8-litre fuel injected V6 pushes out 150bhp and in an April 1983 Giant Test, CAR magazine – comparing the saloon version of the Ford with a Peugeot 604STI and a Volvo 760GLE – the testers took the automatic-equipped Granada to a top speed of 113mph and achieved 60mph from a standstill in a decimal point under 11 seconds; not bad, and comparable with the French and Swedish cars. I couldn’t find a road test of the estate, which would have been slightly slower, but not much – it’s a car for moving a lot of stuff fairly rapidly.
Compared to perhaps its most obvious rival, the Volvo, the Granada has a relatively restricted load aperture in terms of height, but the amount of space inside is nevertheless impressive, and can be made even more so by folding down the rear seats, so unless you’re looking to transport a wardrobe or a hefty chest of drawers, the Granada is plenty big enough, and better looking – purely my subjective opinion, of course.
Our Prime Find is finished in its original Graphite Grey metallic paintwork, which shows no obvious signs of rust, with an interior in a paler grey velour, which according to the vendor is “wear and tear free” – it certainly looks that way; even the load bay appears pristine. Leather was actually standard on the Ghia X saloon and would appear to be the only significant luxury item missing on this estate. Otherwise the car is “fully loaded” and comes with an impressive list of equipment that includes heated electric front seats, heated electric mirrors, electric windows front and rear, sunroof, aircon, electric seat adjustment and onboard computer. This would constitute a pretty well-equipped car even today, and this Granada dates from almost 40 years ago. Externally, the car sits on its original alloys and also has front driving lamps and a factory fitted roof rack.
Our car has covered 116,000 miles in it’s 39 years, although it has recently been in storage as part of a private collection – the advert doesn’t say for how long – before being put on sale. The asking price is £12,000, which seems to me to represent very good value if the car is as good as described. It’s also worth pointing out that these high-end Granada Estates are few and far between. Granada Ghia iX’s of all kinds still on our roads number fewer than a couple of hundred, according to howmanyleft.com, and while it doesn’t split estate models out, I’ve seen very few Mark II estates of any kind, let alone the Ghia iX.
The car is sold with a good history encompassing old mot’s, bills, the original stamped service book, previous log books and the original handbook.
I have to say I really like this big classic estate – it looks cool, it’s luxurious yet practical, and for £12,000 seems to me to be very good value for money. You can see the full advert here, and as always, should you be interested enough in this big Ford estate, we recommend you arrange an inspection before you part with your hard-earned cash, if possible.
With our Saturday instalment of Prime Find of the Week, we’re offering our services to the classic car community, by passing on our favourite classic car for sale from the week that passed. This top-tip might help a first-time-buyer to own his first classic, or it could even be the perfect motivation for a multiple-classic-car-owner to expand his garage with something different. We’ll let us be inspired by anything from a cheap project to a stunning concours exotic, and hope that you will do the same.
Just remember – Any Classic is Better than No Classic! We obviously invite our readers to help prospective buyers with your views and maybe even experiences of any given model we feature. Further to that, if you stumble across a classic which you feel we ought to feature as Prime Find of the Week, then please send us a link to primefindoftheweek@viaretro.co.uk