As you may or may not have noticed in the last video I posted about my Mark VII, I’ve got a little bit of an issue with wheel hop under certain conditions. Well, we thought it would be cool to take an up close and personal look at what is really going on back there.
Before we have a look at the video though, I’d like to quickly go over exactly what wheel hop really is.
We are bringing another section to Generation: High Output. It’s called “Floor It From a Stop” and it’s going to be a video series. Basically, we are going to just shoot a video of us flooring it from a stop in every car we can get our hands on (whether it’s fast or not), just to document what it can do. The first car in the series is my Mark VII. Jump over to our YouTube channel to check it out!
In other site news, don’t forget to head over to the gallery once in a while, there’s always new stuff to check out. And keep an eye on our YouTube channel as well. I uploaded a pretty sweet video of a very mean sounding Shelby GT500 getting a little crazy leaving the Cars and Coffee show yesterday. In case you missed it, here it is:
Have you ever heard the expression “Everything old is new again?” This is especially true in the auto industry, where the current trend is to make new cars that look like old cars. This trend has brought about a wave of retro-styled muscle cars including the Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro, and Dodge Challenger. But where did it all begin?
So, I was out on a bike ride, just trying to get some fresh air, and in the middle of some random neighborhood, I happened upon this:
If you think it looks like a Cavalier in the middle of the road, sitting on a brake rotor with nobody in the car, you’d be absolutely correct. What the picture doesn’t show is the house-length groove the car made in the asphalt before it grinded to a stop.
I didn’t see “The Incident” unfold, however. I stumbled into the situation just like this. There wasn’t a soul in sight, no wheel anywhere, nothing. Just a car in the middle of the road. Don’t you just love a good mystery?
[printprofilepic]
Welcome back to the Rice Report: your up-to-the-minute guide to the exciting and confusing phenomenon of the ricer resurgence as of late!
Before I begin, I would like to apologize for the poor quality of the photos. I think my camera must have a special mode that I don’t know about. I was able to see this car perfectly fine in person, but for some reason whenever I tried to take a picture of it, it came out terrible and grainy. I really believe my camera was trying to protect me from ever having to see this car again. Anyways, on to the car.
When things got weird in the 70’s with gas prices and emissions laws this little guy came around. It was one of the more luxurious compact cars around with the intent of easing people who were used to large cars into smaller cars. These first generation (1975-1980) Ford Granadas were based on the 4 door Maverick (the second generation Granada went on to ride on the Fox platform like every other Ford). There were 4 engine options, two I6 models, a 302, or a 351 Windsor. I don’t know too much about these cars and I wasn’t able to track down the owner (not sure if they work at the smoke shop, Goodwill, Kmart, or the pizza place.. but let’s not judge) so who knows what is going on under the hood. I’m not even certain what year this car is but they did switch to square headlights for the 1978-1980 model years, so it falls somewhere in there. 
This car is the ESS (European Sport Sedan) model, even though it’s obviously a coupe. The ESS trim level is basically just a couple of blacked out body parts, some fancy wheels (not pictured), buckets seats, and possibly a heavy duty suspension setup.
I like that this car is daily driven, I see it all the time. I also like that it is not beat to piss or modified in any sort of ridiculous way, although that hood scoop is pretty atrocious. It makes me happy to see an old car being driven around fulfilling the simple duty of just being an old car.
In an interview with AAA president Obama mentioned that his very first car was a Granada:
“The Ford Granada was not the peak of Detroit engineering .. It rattled and it shook, and I don’t think the girls were particularly impressed when I came to pick them up in a Ford Granada .. But you know what? It moved and so I have fond memories of the fact that it got me to where I needed to go. That’s about all I can say about the Ford Granada.”
I don’t have much to add to that, he summed everything up nicely.
