When Chrysler introduced the Valiant for the 1960 product 12 months, the automotive globe had no thought that this new compact would come to be a single of the most effective solutions in the company’s record. Valiants and its A-Human body siblings ended up built and sold by the hundreds of thousands all-around the entire world, with creation continuing into the early 1980s (in Australia and South The united states). The sales pinnacle for the Valiant in the U.S. was 1964, and modern Junkyard Gem is one particular of all those automobiles: an upscale V-200 station wagon, located in a Denver-area wrecking lawn a several months back.
The Valiant began life as its possess marque, became a Plymouth for 1961, still left Plymouth for 1962, then returned as a Plymouth model right until American Valiant generation ceased in 1976, and the Volaré took its area. You’ll barely see any mention of the Plymouth brand name in the 1964 Valiant brochure, and Plymouth badging on the ’64s was nominal.
You could get the 1964 Valiant wagon as the base V-100, setting up at $2,273, or as the nicer V-200 with its $2,388 value tag (which is about $21,150 and $22,220 in 2022 dollars). Valiant coupes and convertibles could be had with the even swankier (by cheap smaller-automobile benchmarks) Signet trim level.
As Ford confirmed us in the middle 2000s, figures are just classier if you spell them out on emblems.
In the middle 1960s, substituting an computerized for the base 3-on-the-tree column-shift manual transmission jacked up the price tag of an cost-effective car or truck by an eye-watering total. The Torqueflite 3-velocity automatic and its slick-on the lookout push-button shifter value 172 bucks excess (all-around $1,600 nowadays), which manufactured the car additional than 7% costlier. A four-on-the-flooring guide was available for the to start with time in a new Valiant that yr, but it cost $180.
Also new for the 1964 Valiant was a V8 option (a 273-cubic-incher rated at 180 horsepower), but this car has the superior aged Slant-6. If it’s the engine that arrived with the automobile when it rolled off the assembly line, it’s a 101-horse case in point with 170 cubic inches… but these automobiles are infamous for getting motor swaps early and generally and I didn’t examine the block casting figures.
The cassette deck tells us that it was being pushed as lately as the late 1980s by center 1990s.
There is some rust in the standard places, about what this auto would have obtained by 1967 if it had stayed in Michigan.
This automobile could have been restored, even though the price for rust mend and inside refurbishment wouldn’t have been a very good financial investment from a economical standpoint. It was obtained previous slide for $500 at the similar auction that gave us very last week’s 1981 Chevy Quotation Junkyard Gem and must yield at the very least that considerably in parts income and scrap metallic.
Equally 1964 and 1977 are tied as the a long time when the major variety of distinct styles of new station wagons were being available for sale in the United States, and Chrysler’s Plymouth Division presented a few unique dimensions of wagon that year: the compact Valiant, the midsize Belvedere/Savoy, and the huge Fury. Of program, even Rambler experienced 3 different wagons in ’64, and obscure players such as Hillman and Humber had a pair apiece that 12 months.