Long Story (Part One)

Now we’re stretching things.

Image: the author

It wouldn’t fly with the 21st Century car buying public, but restyling an existing vehicle by adding a few redone inches on one or both ends of the car, then selling the result as a new model under a different name (often while retaining the original rendition in the lineup) was a practice resorted to by several car manufacturers in the 1960s and 1970s.

Using a pre-existing base is, of course, less costly and, in those more naive times, enough potential buyers were either oblivious to the car maker’s sleight of hand, or simply didn’t care that the new model was not as new as it appeared to be at first glance. A selection of these cheap ‘n quick stretches will be covered in this series(1). Continue reading “Long Story (Part One)”

Ride Engineered – 1980 Mercury Monarch

The Ford Granada/Mercury Monarch pair are not known to be among Ford’s finest cars. Recently I had a closer look at a 1980 Mercury Monarch to see what it was really like.

1980 Mercury Monarch

Given that reputation, it may come as a surprise to some (it surprised me) that Ford marketed it as a rival to Mercedes’ W-123 in its 280E guise. Ah, that car again. The car shown here is a 2-door Monarch with the Windsor 4.9 V8. Ford also made 3.3 and 4.1 straight sixes available along with a 5.8 V8. The Ford version was almost the same barring cosmetic details at the front and back.

Production ran from 1975 to 1980. The intention with the Granada/Monarch was to Continue reading “Ride Engineered – 1980 Mercury Monarch”