Naidu’s V8 gurgling grenade of a Granada

IF YOU were fortunate enough to have been a car-conscious kid in the early 1980s, you’ll probably remember “how big a deal” the Ford Granada was.

Its claim to fame, among other things, was that it was apparently built in Germany and cost, if memory serves, as much as a similar-sized Mercedes-benz, which was roughly around R40 000, a king’s ransom by pricing standards at the time.

The Granada was, as such, the “bees knees” of performance luxury saloons and arguably one of the most desirable Fords of its era.

A 53-year-old car enthusiast and “die-hard” Ford aficionado, Jaysen Naidu owns this week’s featured ride, a cool, classic, uprated, third-generation Ford Granada.

Naidu, who works as a shift manager at a large international company, lives in emanzimtoti.

Naidu, who could be considered by some measures as a collector of fine classic cars, has an impressive five-car fleet of classic Ford motor vehicles.

Mechanically, Naidu’s car received the performance and theatrical benefit of an all-powerful, five-litre 302 V8 power plant and automatic gearbox.

He added an MSD Coil, a bigger carburettor and a Powerflow branch and performance exhaust system to further boost the performance.

The V8 drop-in replaces the car’s, already powerful, original manufacturer’s Ford V6 motor and transmission.

The suspension on Naidu’s Granada also received some work – it was tweaked to “handle” the extra power and so features a fairly low 30mm drop all-round.

A set of awesome 18-inch Racing Hart mag wheels were married to two pairs of Continental 225/40/18s to ensure impressive form and function on the tarmac.

It was not disclosed how much was spent on this build and no service providers were listed.