As the team gets a few Grannies together for a party!
My Granada passion started with the 3.0 Ghia MkI we ran on the magazine back in the early Noughties. We took it on a rather ambitious road trip all the way to meet some PC subscribers in Latvia, a huge ask for an old saloon but it didn’t disappoint.
Comfortable, composed and completely at ease with everything former eastern European roads could throw at it, our Ghia was equal to the task. It felt so modern.
It did throw up one issue though when it sucked a carb securing nut in through the inlet manifold of the big Essex V6, which then started doing an impression of a jack hammer. That was halfway through Poland. A mechanic (with a very fast tractor) rescued Mark Dixon, Simon Goldsworthy and myself, and we all then enjoyed a few hours fishing for metal debris through number one spark plug aperture. It worked and the Granny got us home. A month later the engine let go in a big way on the A14 which, to me, is proof that classics have souls. That Ghia was given away to the reader who guessed how many Pork Farms pork pies we could fit in the boot, and was then bought by comedian John Cul
