1982 Ford Granada review from UK and Ireland

I bought this black Granada from a friend who ran a scrapyard; he was going to weigh it in, but I thought it looked good enough to fix up. I bought it then discovered the hackney plate in the boot. Whoops...

Yes, it was an ex taxi. Good thing and a bad thing - good in that it's never still long enough for moisture to get trapped and cause rust, bad thing in that mechanically it'll be knackered. I ended up changing the gearbox and the cylinder head; after that it was fine.

A big comfy wallowy old rear drive barge. Not the disaster you would expect with a relatively small engine in such a big car, it pulled quite well and never missed a beat despite the huge mileage. Buy one now before the banger racers make them totally extinct, like they have with the mk1 Granada.

This was a basic L model with little frills, nonetheless a good car.