(first posted 8-1-2013) Valiant. Just saying the name to anyone who grew up in the Sixties will likely bring forth a ton of memories, both good and bad: “Oh, my Aunt Hilda had one, it was the toughest car she ever had”, or, “I drove one in high school and it was the slowest, most boring car I ever owned.” Oftentimes, these memories are prefaced by the words Plymouth Valiant–and indeed, Valiants were Plymouths from 1961-76–but not in the inaugural year!
Yes, Chrysler Corporation’s response to the mini-import boom of the late 1950s was much more, um, stylish distinctive than the oh-so-vanilla Ford Falcon and outré, rear-engined Chevrolet Corvair. Virgil Exner was clearly the father of the Valiant, to which its looks attest, despite front styling intentionally reminiscent of the 1959 Studebaker Lark. From every angle, though, it really was its own car.
Of the three new Detroit compacts, it was also the hottest number. That lovely Slant Six engine–which made its debut in this car–got the Valiant up to speed in no time, especially when equipped with the Hyper-Pak engine option. Some Valiants even went racing.
The 1960 Valiant was every bit a product of the Chrysler Corporation, with its unit construction (shared with their big cars that year), torsion bar front suspension and optional push-button automatic (a floor-mounted three-speed stick was standard equipment). Valiants came in two flavors: V-100 and V-200.
The V-100 was the base model, with little chrome trim and a drab gray interior (shades of 2013!), but it still had that lovely, brand-new engine, crazy Exner styling (either a plus or a minus, depending on your point of view) and plenty of interior room. And just look at all that glass area. Yes, you used to be able to see things from the driver’s seat!
The finest Valiant money could buy was the uplevel V-200, which offered much nicer upholstery with vinyl bolsters and nylon inserts, in a choice of three colors. Two-tone door cards were also added. Outside, V-200s got bright side moldings that wrapped around the flared rear wheel arches, as well as bright window trim. A V-100 sedan started at $2,033, and the V-200 at $2,110.
Soon after the sedans made their debut, V-100 and V-200 station wagons were added to the lineup. These little haulers arguably were even more eccentrically styled than the sedans; sadly, though, the Exner “toilet seat” fake spare tire trim was not available on the wagons, which were available as six-passenger V-100 and V-200 models and a nine-passenger V-200. The nine-seat wagon was the most expensive ’60 Valiant, at $2,546, and also the rarest: Just 4,675 were built.
This pristine ’60 V-200, one of 106,515 built, was seen at the AACA Grand National meet held in Moline, IL. Living ten minutes away from the event guaranteed my attendance. Despite rain that never entirely went away, I saw plenty of cool cars. This V-200 is the first 1960-62 Valiant I had ever seen in the metal. The styling is certainly polarizing, but I love ’em!
That race-car grille is a big plus to me. It was not until recently that I realized the Valiant badge on the grille was a hood release. A neat detail, about which I probably read here on CC!
The Valiant stood alone in 1960–but only for that year. In 1961, it officially became a Plymouth. Plymouth needed the extra sales, as Dodge’s full-size, Plymouth-based 1960 Dart had led many Plymouth loyalists to abandon the marque: While 1960 and 1961 were not good years for big-Plymouth sales, the Valiant was a bright spot, and would continue to be for years to come.
A neighbor of mine here in Pittsburgh’s Little Italy (Bloomfield) just retired his 1962 Dodge Lancer with the 225/6 and tons of miles. The only reason it was retired was because he just turned 92 and his daughter made him give it up. It was “rusty but trusty” as he would say. I wish I got a picture of it but I never did.
“This V-200 is the first 1960-62 Valiant I had ever seen in the metal”
Ah, if you were only my age (61) you would have seen plenty of these in the metal. Our next door neighbor actually had one as a company car; it was pretty basic, I know it had the manual 3 speed with floor shifter and I doubt it had a radio or any other options. He worked for our town’s municipal power plant and I’m sure they bought him the cheapest Valiant they could find. A little later, when I was in high school, my best friend’s father had a Valiant that he drove back and forth to work. This one was better equiped, at least it did have an AM radio to go along with the automatic. I suspect that the reason these tend to be rare today is that most of them were driven until they quit, at which point they were put out to pasture. That, and the rust that was endemic to cars of this era.
I can only second that, these things were ALL over L.A. back then. They were quirky, odd looking little buggies, basic transportation at best. They spun off an image that was, uh, not exactly the kind of image that a teenage boy wanted to have. My most favorite science/homeroom teacher in junior high school, a guy about 30 then, had the first gen Valiant, a silly-looking 2-door green affair that earned him regular teasing comments from all my classmates. And in high school, the mother of one of my best friends would frequently drive us to school in the mornings in the Dodge Lancer equivalent, a wagon no less. I recall shoehorning my 6′-3′ frame into the rear seat, and slamming the paper-thin door shut, and cringing that anyone would see us extricating ourselves in front of the high school. Funny little things, these cars, never on my personal radar.
That said, I couldn’t help but notice the ’60 Lincoln Continental in the background of the first photo, and further down in the front view of the Valiant, everyone crowding around the Lincoln, while the Valiant sits forlornly unadmired. Kind of its lot in life, polar opposites of the automotive world back then.
My mother remembers these cars well. When I was showing her the pictures of this one, she told me that back in the ’60s Chicken Delite used this vintage Valiant as delivery vehicles. They all had a giant cartoon chicken on the roof. As she told me at the time, “You can’t make this stuff up!”
I just posted about these on FB, and linked to your article. (My timeline is all public.) I was fascinated that you said there was some copying of the Lark styling going on, because I originally thought they were Studebakers because of the grill.
My first car was a 1964 V-200, push button transmission, slant six.
I’m glad it was not the Exner years. Those are damn ugly.
That said, Valiant save Plymouth. It spawned the Barracuda and the Duster, giving Plymouth their only lifelines from a corporation lead by executives ignoring Plymouth’s success in the market and pampering their Dodge business heritage. Although it was Plymouth that put butter on their bread, Chrysler didn’t respect Plymouth enough to keep it healthy through the 1960s. Plymouth was not given exclusive models to help differentiate it from Dodge, and when they lucked out with the Valiant, Duster or Barracuda, their success got hijacked by Dodge.
This was good, ugly car. It was a better car than my 1963 Falcon or my old girlfriend’s Corvair. But that styling! It drove folks away.
I owned a new 1960 Valiant, white with a red interior and three-speed manual transmission. My first new car! I was 26 years old at the time, with a wife and two kids. Maybe I was in the minority, but I loved the looks of the car; I thought it had some flash and good lines, and it was surely distinctive from the other cars on the road at the time. It had a very comfortable and quiet ride and good handling. It got about 18 mpg as I recall. I think the only problem I had with it over the three years I owned it was the alternator needed the diodes replaced.
I LOVED the look of the ’60 Valiant then, and I still love it. It’s wonderfully deco.
Welĺ, that was overly harsh. Here it is 9 years later and I think my comment is too severe. While I am still not a fan of Exner, I do realize that this goofy looking car is one of the best. So sad it looks like this though. The 1963-66 generation should have started in 1960. Sales doubled when this first generation was replaced, so these terrific cars were, in fact, hampered by its designer’s love for – whatever you’d call it.
I guess I’m a bit angry that a really good car could have a rough start if its exterior looks like a flying potato.
I wouldn’t want to live in that world.
Yeah, And McDonald’s sells a lot more meals than Sardi’s, but that doesn’t mean McDeath is better. By your kind of logic, all 1960 compacts should’ve looked like the drab, unstylish Ford Falcon…gross!
That’s one guess, and you’re entitled to it, but it’s not the only valid opinion, and it’s certainly not objective truth.
The ’60 Valiant is surely an unconventional design that got people talking and created some amount of polarisation, but from period media—no, I don’t mean ads—it doesn’t seem like hordes of people were put off by the car’s design or styling. People were still avoiding Chrysler products in reaction to the godawful build and materials quality of the ’57-’59 cars, and the Valiant was as new as a new model could possibly be, with zero track record and a bunch of what could be talked about by any number of engineers and still be considered untested novelties by the buying public. That would’ve been a double whammy because as with the ’60 Valiant, in ’57 they’d been trumpeting about all-new marvels; “Suddenly, it’s 1960” and all that. And while the engineering and specification shortcomings of the ’57-’59 cars had been well rectified for ’60, the cars were still being carelessly thrown together; it’s mentioned in most of the road tests and owner surveys of the day.
Likewise, no amount of advertising the car’s 7-step dip-and-spray rustproofing process could allay that skittishness. Yes, they had a long list of engineering and performance superiorities versus the ’60 Falcon and Corvair, but so did the Volvo. More people bought Falcons and Corvairs than Volvos, too. Speaking of which, the Valiant’s higher price versus the competition in what was supposed to be the inexpensive-car end of the field, I think probably exerted significant drag on Valiant sales versus the Corvair and Falcon.
The Valiant’s unconventional (may we agree?) design might’ve helped and hindered at the same time. Probably some people rejected it out of hand because they didn’t like its looks—either explicitly, or because they’d been through the 2nd half of the ’50s, were sick to damn death of tailfins and fashion-forward flying buttresses, and wanted a toaster on wheels. Still, take a look at what people were saying about the Valiant’s styling at the time. Also here, and here, and if we include ’61 Lancers, see here.
And in other markets—Australia, notably—this Valiant caught the public’s fancy immediately and hugely. All 11,017 of them offered down there found homes in a hurry, not just because they were so enormously mechanically superior to the competition, but because of their design and styling.
(Back to the states—can’t resist sharing this hair-raising complaint by a New York photographer demonstrating ignorance and stupidity typical of the time)
All of that said, I can’t help wondering if objections like yours to the design of the ’60-’62 Valiant-Lancer cars might’ve been nullified by curved side glass.
Yes, the first Valiant’s remained popular in Australia into the early 70s as mildly modified young guys cars, wide wheels were mandatory of course. I planned on having one as my first car, until I was won over by the charms of a VF Regal Hardtop with a 318
I think most cars of the late 50s & early 60s looked ok with flat side glass, the Valiant’s design seems to highlight the fact that it needs it.
The worst part of it for me is the high leading edge of the front door frame where it meets the A pillar and the top corner of the windshield, I think this would have been vastly improved by side glass curvature.
And those cheap and nasty windshield and rear window seals, the less I say is probably for the best.
Our family had two ’60 Valiants growing up…both second cars…a wagon in about 1963-64 when we lived in Wayne, MI outside Detroit, and a 4-door sedan in 1967-68 after we moved to Butler, PA north of Pittsburgh.
One day Mom had returned from a shopping trip in downtown Butler and we heard a “meow meow” coming from under the hood. Pop it open (yes the front badge doubled as the latch) and there was a CAT sitting atop the battery. How he got there we’ll never know but as you might imagine with all that acid in the battery tray and around the terminals, he only lived a day or two…washing him off did no good.
I can still hear that slant six though…and they were neat-looking cars.
Can’t believe my wstrn PA ,hometown got it’s name in print here!
I have an image of these cars – not a good image.
There were two middle-aged sisters, living in next-door homes in a part of the region that was rural but becoming suburban. One was a spinster; the other was a classmate’s mother. The father was an engineer.
Between them, they had four Valiants of this generation parked around the house. Now they weren’t junkers; they drove; they weren’t falling apart…but they were obviously used cars. And to my preteen eyes, not very attractive cars.
The taillights of these units reminded me of the cat’s-eyes eyeglasses of the spinster sister, who was a kindergarten teacher in our school district. That’s the image I carry of these: of no sense of style, of general decay; of aging; of lack of excitement. Now I KNOW the engineering on these was superb and would last for 25 years and more; but the package…was somehow both garish and dowdy.
I’m getting images of Marge’s sisters from the Simpsons when you describe them, except they drove a VW Thing.
The styling of these cars really is interesting, to say the least. There have been a few 1960-62 Valiants at local car shows, and what stands out to me is how SMALL they look. Unlike most Detroit cars of that vintage, they were not designed to “fill out the box.” This generation of Valiants features interesting design details – the three-window, flowing greenhouse and lack of “shoulders” at the beltline – that would show up on other cars years later.
The engineering of the Valiant was top-notch (even if the build quality wasn’t). The 1960 Valiant was the first car to feature an alternator as standard equipment, something that wasn’t even offered on that year’s Chrysler and Imperial.
One wonders how the 1960 Valiant would have fared in the sales race if it had debuted with the styling it would sport for 1963, and been badged as a Plymouth from day one. The decision to sell the Valiant as a separate brand undoubtedly caused some confusion among potential buyers. Combine that with Chrysler’s decision to take Plymouth franchises away from all Dodge dealers that year, and it seems as though the parent corporation was doing its best to undercut its new car.
Count me in as one who loves these little gems!
When I was a little kid, a friend of my mother’s had one of these – a baby blue sedan with the toilet seat decklid. I though it was a cool, but unusual car. It even sounded unusual, which I later learned was the sound of a slant 6.
Fast forward quite a few years, and in college I was driving a pushbutton 59 Fury. Another guy in the dorm had a pushbutton Dodge Lancer. It was aged and a bit rough, but ran and drove just fine.
I have read in contemporary comparison tests that these were considered the most stylish of the new compacts at the time. However, as time moved on, these began to look quite old fashioned, certainly by 1963 when the next generation came out. From that point, they were kept only as appliances and run into the ground. Nobody kept these because they really loved them. But they should have. 🙂
I came across one of these for sale a few years ago. A V-200 that was white with red interior. I was half interested except for two things – a former collision repair had involved welding the back of one car onto the front of another, and the guy was really out there on the price. Because you never see them, they are highly collectible, you see. Uh – no.
Such distinctive styling! It’s never really appealed to me, but I can still appreciate uniqueness.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again now:
I think the current Nissan Juke looks like it was inspired by the original Valiant’s design. Compare the two. Is it just me or is there some similar, (vulgar), design language going on? Whatever the case, I want to like both vehicles but if I stare too long I feel compelled to look away.
A perfect example of how something can be plain and overstyled at the same time. Though I do find them interesting in an oddball sort of way.
I had several rides in a 1961 or 62 Lancer 2-door that a friend of my wife’s had, and remember that it felt very similar in its ride and handling to the later A-body cars that I owned several of. Hardly surprising, I suppose.
They’re a French Bulldog of a car,so ugly it’s cute!Sorry Virgil I’ll take the Falcon.The later Plymouth Valiants were an attractive car and Mopar certainly had their money’s worth from it with the many cars sprung fromit.
I find, as I get older, that a lot of cars I thought were weird or ugly when I was young start to grow on me. This isn’t one of them. And every now and then I see one go past my house, white, with mags on it. I remain puzzled about their appeal.
Question for you guys: When the Valiants first came out they were equipped with a 3 on the floor or the push button automatic, correct? So why did they go to 3 on the tree? My ’65 Valiant has the manual transmission, (and the radio delete, and the all metal not padded dash, and the rubber mat instead of carpeting, etc…) and I’ve always wondered why the change from the floor to the column with the manual tranny.
Thanks!
The most likely reason is too provide more room in the front seat. The Valiant/Dart was in theory a six-passenger vehicle and moving the shift to the column would maximize the leg room for any passenger in the middle. This was the rationale that was used in the late thirties when most brands migrated from the floor shift to having it on the column.
While Chrysler was using the pushbutton automatic, their steering columns weren’t designed to accept any kind of shift mechanism. That’s why all Chrysler products of this era had floor shifts, even a big Chrysler. There was no other way. When they went to column shift for the automatics, the column was totally new, and designed to accept both the automatic and manual shift mechanisms.
The floor shifter on Chryslers of this vintage was rather weird for American cars of the time; but then that kind of fit in with their weird image.
We had friends who bought a huge big Dodge or low-level Chrysler wagon, and it was very strange for me to see it the first time, with that three speed floor shift and a bench seat.
Mmmmmmmm, not sure where you are comming up with that, I’ve seen Mopars of this vintage with a colum shift manual, here is a 57 Plymouth on ebay with one. (and a flathead too)
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1957-Plymouth-Belvedere-/141026581187?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item20d5d6dac3
Here’s a 60 Dodge with a column shift manual too, and a big bank of blank buttons where the pushbutton automatic would have gone
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1960-Dodge-Dart-Pioneer-3-7L-2-Door-Coupe-Make-offers-must-see-many-pictures-/141025261813?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item20d5c2b8f5
61 Dodge Seneca with a 3 on the tree
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/59-60-61-62-Chrysler-Plymouth-Dodge-DeSoto-Mopar-/121151023444?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item1c3529e954
I seem to dimly recall that we all hashed this out once and decided that there was a column shift on Plymouth/Dodge but not on Chrysler/DeSoto, at least after 1959. The early 60s Chrysler dash with the AstroDome could not accommodate the column shift. I do recall driving a 63 Dodge Polara with a column shift.
I imagine that a Chrysler with a manual must be rare though, outside of a maybe a 300, I’m pretty sure an automatic was standard on the New Yorker for a while already by then. DeSotos? They barely made it past the intro of the Valiant, I don’t even know what the dash on a 1960-61 Desoto looks like.
The Valiant went to a column-shifter for the manual transmission in the 1962 model year, 3 years before they switched to a column-mounted automatic transmission shift lever.
Memories are such strange, funny things. While I can’t recall what I wore yesterday, I actually still remember seeing a Valiant, much like the white one pictured here, parked outside my nursery school. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but do I ever remember that “spare tire cover” decklid. Just seared in the mind of a 4-year-old and I’d never seen anything like it. This was around late 1970 or early 1971, so it was an old car at that point, and I even remember that there was rust around the “rim” of that “toilet seat” on the trunk.
To describe my take on the car today, I’d actually use the French expression “Jolie Laide” meaning beautiful in an unconventional sense. It looks like nothing else and could actually be described as ugly, but is still strikingly memorable. Later Valiants to me were utterly forgettable however. As a boy I thought they were some of the dumpiest, more boring, oldest looking cars on the road, durability be damned.
When we were young, our memory banks were still mostly empty and desperate for something to occupy them. Not so much nowadays 🙂
Valiant V-200 for 1962 was my first new car. I liked its distinctive styling, but most of all it was an excellent runner. Economical, nice handling, and also a large trunk. Just a reminder that the “toliet seat” spare was removed for ’62. That slant-6 deserves its place in engine hall-of -fame!
The toilet seat model was called the R model here and the restyle the S series then the AP models began, While the styling might not be every bodies taste when new the buyers of Valiants didnt regret it the cars held up well the stylish falcon fell apart and only had 170 cubes, all Aussie Valiants got the 225 and 14 inch wheels.
There are several Valiants around here including some US models as I see them so will you on the cohort page.
I was curious about this, the R & S relate to Canadian model year codes apparently. Chrysler Aust imported one 1960 (QX1) Valiant, and had trouble converting it to RHD due to the engine’s slant. They got it figured out in time to import & build 1000 R-series cars (1961), but the launch was delayed until Jan 1962 due to a credit crunch. By which time the 1962 S-series was already well down the road, consequently the initial R-series is quite rare compared to the 10,000 S-series sold.
I’m such an idiot! Here It’s been Mopar week and I forgot I had found two CC’s on my last boneyard excursion. Matter of fact one was a 60 Suburban and another was a 62 330. Here’s a pic of the 60 Suburban.
BTW my dad had a 60 or 61 Valiant back when they were new. I was too young to remember riding in it and my only memory is a few pictures taken by mom and her trusty Brownie with me at 2 or 3 years of age standing behind it. Oh yeah toilet seat!
BTW the 60 Suburban has a slant 6/3 by the knee powertrain.
What speaks to me in that picture is the Scout II with the Rallye package behind it. It is in way too good of condition to be in a wrecking yard with way too many parts that will inevitably get crushed rather than going to good use. Very sad. Those sliding windows are worth at least $50 each.
I remember seeing a ’55 Chrysler and a ’55 Desoto with manual shift. In this year, and the same probably applies to ’56, Chrysler substituted a steering wheel and manual shift column from a ’54 Chrysler/DeSoto when a manual transmission car was built. As everyone knows, the ’55 Powerflite models used a dash mounted shifter and for ’56, the pushbutton Powerflite made its debut.
Mr. Bill
I know I’m a week late and a couple of model years off but my comment is triggered by a line in this specific post. I recently drove a 1963 Valiant across the country. It got a fair amount of attention and conversations that usually started with “What year is it?” or simply a guess (more often right than not) at the model year. When the conversation went beyond that, it was almost always with an “I had a…” or “I remember my best friend’s…” or “My cousin raced a…” or, as Tom has it, “Oh, my Aunt Hilda had one…”. By the time I got home, I was convinced that every person currently living in the USA once owed or had a relative or friend who owned a Valiant. And just about all of them smiled as they remembered.
The early Valiants never really excited me. My Uncle had one, he used as a “beater”. He would haul his hunting dogs in it. It was old and beat-up and didn’t do much for me or strike my interest, except for the push button transmission.
I have owned a wide range of automobiles… Mercedes, Corvettes, Chevelles, Camaros, and Mustangs. And more unique autos like Merkur, Hudson Essex, and even Edsels. So, the oddity of the Valiant would not scare me off. I can’t grasp how the “fake” spare has come to be called a toilet seat. Man hole cover, maybe. But it is round and reminds me nothing in regards to a toilet seat. Having owned a few Edsels, with there “horse collar” grill, I get why it is sometimes called a toilet seat.
It is interesting that rusty gold has become the new collectable. And cars we would have been embarrassed to be seen in as kids, the new cool ride to own. I recently stumbled across a 1960 V-200 in above average condition. Original interior, no rust-out, the old girl even runs! My first thought was, laughing to myself, that it is the weird little car my Uncle owned. But the more I looked at it, the more I liked it. The big open mouth grill, much like Ford would copy on the 1972 Torino. The flatten front fenders jetting out from a hood that mimics a Chrysler 300. Lots of green-house leading up to the stylish roof line. And of course the sweeping little fins, attached to cat-eye tail lights. For an economy sub-compact, it has a lot of detail and style.
So, I guess I will throw a tweed sport coat on, a man’s dress hat from the 40s-50s and early 60s, and hold a pipe as I drive my new accusation to a few of the local cruise-ins. Nice enough to be presentable. Not so perfect that I would be afraid to drive it on a cloudy day.
What? No picture?!? 🙂
This is for jpcavanaugh… I will take some “better” pictures this spring when I drag it out of storage. Here is a picture (or two if the website allows) just as i found it. The gentleman I purchased it from has a large collection of automobiles. Actually, I am jealous. I liked all of his cars….
Hi Ghost, I love the pictures of the 60 Valiant you said you purchased, the white with blue interior, I bought a new one in Jan 1960 and took with me to Germany, everybody thought it was a Italian Sports Car, I have owned many car and I think I liked it the best. I would be a buyer if you wish to sell it. I have always been a Mopar man.
Another picture.
Boy do I remember the 60 Valiant. My older brother was 18 and he had a solid white automatic and I was 16 and I had a black 3 speed manual. I installed an 8 track 10lb 8 track player under the dash on the passengers side and had over 250,000 miles on it and towards it end I use to carry a 5 gallon can of engine oil in it and when the oil light came ON, I would get the funnel and the can of oil and fill her up. I finally gave her up when I had to clean the spark plugs every weekend due to the oil usage.
My brothers transmission gave up in his soon after we sold both of them.
Both had the 170 slant six.
Oh the memories.
Hi all, great stories of your Val’s. My husband and l are in Queensland, Australia. I have been a lover of the Valiant cars since high school. Where l used to admire a S Series sitting out the front of the school that belonged to a friends family. Decided that one day l would own one of them. Well l have had ‘Vera’, my first car for over 16 years now, have her still as my every day drive, and still love her as much as the day l first got her. My husband now also owns an R Series, which we have had around 5 years, in Australia are harder to come across. Which is also used as an every day driver. We are rural and drive them with pride, they have such beautiful lines, and reliable which is important where we live. I have noticed a few of you have mentioned the 1960 station wagons. These are never found in Australia, and yes as you’ve probably guessed we would love to own one of them. Sadly this time last year l missed out on one from the USA, unfortunately the chap was keen to sell and with all your might banks aren’t very accommodating during Christmas New Years period, and l suppose people do tend to worry are they serious when your on the other side of the world. So just thought l’ld ask the big question that if anyone knows of one, l would love to hear from you.
Not a Q-model (’60) Valiant wagon, but how about this?
I had a 1961 blue Valiant 4 door, best car I ever owned from the streets and alleys of Chicago to the freeways of Calif into the Sonoran desert and back it’s slant six just like a Timex took a lickin but kept on tickin..To me the 100 has a cleaner look the chrome on the 200 just never looked right. Valiant was Just not a trendy car. My next car was a 1963 VW micro bus which also wasn’t considered trendy in 66 but caught on to become iconic of the hippie era..
I have an identical 1960 Valiant up for sale in great running condition. 90K+/- miles. Local pickup in San Francisco, CA. If you’re interested in this gem or would like more info, please let me know.
Front view
I had a 1962 V-200 with the 225. A friend nic-named the engine:
“The Leaning Tower of Power”
My grandfather bought a new Valiant for my grandmother in 1960, so she could drive herself to the café they owned on Main Street. She didn’t know how to drive, and she was NOT going to learn. Well, my grandfather came up with an idea … he told her that he would just go ahead and put a trailer hitch on it, and pull the boat. She responded that he wasn’t going to use that ‘pretty, little car’ to pull the boat. She learned how to drive in it.
When I was a kid (in the late ’60s), I’d be in the back seat, with my arms crossed on the back of the front seat (no seatbelts), and I’d always ask her, ‘Mama, when I get old enough to drive, can I have this car?’, and she always said ‘yes’. When I turned 16, sure enough, she gave me the car. It was 13 years old, and only had 29,000 miles on it.
I’ve always enjoyed driving it, and still have it today. It even survived the 2011 EF5 tornado in Joplin. Fortunately, it was in the attached garage (the detached garage was completely gone). The roof was gone from the house, but the wall on that end of the house was being held up by the electric wire going to the light switch. The car was plastered with insulation and mud, but was completely undamaged.
I still love the look of it.
Awesome story!
My first new car was a white 60 V200 Valiant which I watched being assembled at the Dodge Main Plant. Great car except for the weak clutch. My next 60 Valiant was a red V200 purchased in 1973 which I fully restored and has been written up in several magazines and won numerous awards in both club shows and Concour d’Elegances. This car now resides in Florida and continues to win awards. Beauty is in the I of the beholder. One of my fun stories was told by a women who came up to me following our winning of a class award and telling of her father taking her to school in a 60 Valiant and how she made him drop her off two blocks from the school because the car was so ugly! In response to what do you think of it now she said; “I think it’s beautiful”. By the way my experience in shows was that this little red Valiant drew some of the largest crowds.
In 1962 my dad gave me a choice between a 1962 chevy 11 convertible or a white 1960 Valient with red interior. I picked the Valient. I loved the unique design and I set it off with 4 Dodge Lancer spinner hub caps. It was a fine ride through out high school and my first year of college.
Great choice! I have been photographing classic cars for over 20 years. It was a 1960 Valiant (red) that got me started. I love those cars.
Darn fine choice, Carl.
looking for 1960 valiant wagon preferably a two door
drivetrain not important just interested in body and frame
These things fell out of the fugly tree and hit every branch on the way to a face plant on the forest floor. This feat was later bested by the ProStar vans, those things not only fell mout of the fugly tree they landed in the fugly bush.
Looks like a first gen Valiant in the background of a period correct Fedders window unit air conditioner?
Mom & Dad had both of these items in 1960.
Good eye! That could be a ’61 or ’62 Valiant, or it could be a ’61-’62 Dodge Lancer; we can’t quite see it well enough from here to know for sure.
Here’s another such image, and this is definitely a ’60 Valiant V-200:
Color it white and this could had been my Mother at the A&P in 1960.
Lovely! This is an early-production car; it has the chrome shark-fins atop the front fenders; and not just an outer but also an inner ring on the spare-tire trunk lid, and the hood release/grille emblem sits relatively far forward of the grille. But it’s not an earliest-production car; it has the mylar-under-plastic lockstrip in the windshield and backglass gaskets rather than the stainless steel trim there.
I liked them all. Falcon, Corvair, and Valiant were distinctly different cars. I rode and drove
many of them In my teens and early 20’s. They were all second or third owner cars but
decently reliable and easily repaired. Basic transportation without the excess of their larger
counterparts. As a young guy 409 Chevys and 413 Plymouths were the stuff of dreams but these cars were our every day reality. I’d love to have one today.
Every car has a story. Here’s my recollection of a certain ’60 Valiant I once owned.
In the ’70s, I bought a ’60 Valiant to use as a summer work car. Basic $75 beater. Ran great but was well rusted with holes all over the fenders and floorboards. I don’t recall it as fast, but it would out-drag any Falcon or Corvair.
I only planned to keep the car for the duration of my summer job. I’d sell it when I went back to school. I can’t say it ever dawned on me that it had no Plymouth badging. I called it a Plymouth Valiant. So did everyone else.
Usually car VINs are like alphabet soup. You never remember one. However a bit of trivia seared part of the Valiant’s VIN into my brain. My Valiant’s VIN began with the number “100”.
In the 1960s & 70s, Wisconsin didn’t issue temporary tags. If you bought a car from a private party, you were on your honor to send a sales tax form along with the title and a check to the DMV. You’d drive without a tag until the DMV processed your paperwork. A careful person might tape a photocopy of a check in the front window. I wasn’t one of them.
I only planned to keep for a few months. I saw a chance to save some money. Wisconsin’s system ensured there were always some cars on the road without tags. What the heck. I’d beat the system just drive with no tag. I’d hold the signed title I got from the seller and pass it on to the next guy when I sold the car. Surely I could make it to the end of summer. Not.
What I failed to realize was that many small town cops are a lot more alert than smart-ass teenagers give them credit for. The same car going without a tag too long is something they check out. And let’s face it, ’60 Valiants weren’t exactly common by the early 70s. The car’s distinctive look did stand out.
About midway through the summer, I got pulled over and checked. I tried to lie my way out of it. I claimed I sent in the required fees, but DMV was just slow. You know how it is. Later I was to learn that no one ever believe a claim that the check was in the mail either. So much for teenage wisdom.
The cop asked me if I had a copy of the check or the sales tax declaration form. I started to rummage around in the glove box (don’t try that today!) to make a show of looking for something I knew wasn’t there to be found. I forgot what wasthere to be found.
Of course, I had to keep the title I got when I bought the car in a safe place. What safer place than my car’s glove box? No one said we amateur tax-cheats were any too smart.
The cop noticed this of course. Once he got a glimpse of the old title, it was obvious I was lying and had never sent in the required tax and tag payment.
He asked me to get out of the car and bring the title. He had me stand away from him and told me to read the VIN off the title. While he shined his flashlight on the car VIN plate (it was dusk), I started to read the VIN off the title without the benefit of a good light. I read “L (letter) O (letter) O (letter)”.
He stopped me right there and asked me to hand him the title. He said the VIN started with”100″, handed me back the title and told me to read the rest of it. Luckily the numbers matched. He let me go with a warning that he’d check with DMV in a week. If they didn’t have my check, he’d issue me a ticket.
While I was aggravated about having to pay something like $21 for tax and a tag, I also realized I was really lucky considering how I had lied. Not wishing to further tempt fate, I sent in the money. Of course, I had to send in the title with the tax payment & tag fee. That meant I had to wait to get the title back before I could resell the car. One things leads to another. When the university restarted and I moved back into the dorms. Still having the darn car, I now had to shell out for a university parking permit.
In trying to cut corners to save a few bucks, it ended up costing me more money in the end. Being a bit of a slow learner, I repeated this lesson more times than I care to recount before it finally sunk in.
Anyway, I drove the Valiant without incident – and without tags – for the rest of the summer and parked it when school restarted. I sold it as soon as I got the tags & new title.
Still remembering the Valiant’s VIN, seeing this post inspired me to check a VIN decoder to see what those 1st three numbers meant.
The 1 IDs the car as a Valiant. If it were a Plymouth, the lead VIN code would have been a 2 for a six cylinder Plymouth.
The 1st 0 IDs the car a a fleet buy. No idea of who the original purchaser might have been. I do recall that the paint had some brighter paint sprayed in a couple spots. I always thought it was amateur body work, but it could also have been to cover a logo.
The 2nd 0 is supposed to be the last digit of the model year. Yep, it was a ’60 Valiant. Evidently I at least remember the year of the car correctly.
When I did finally get the tags & title back from the State of Wisconsin, I can’t recall whether they listed the car as a Plymouth or a Valiant. Oh well. . .
There are 8 million stories in the Naked City. This has been one of them.
A 60’s Valiant with a slant 6 and 3 spd on the floor sounds delightful. Times are a changin’ and fast. Noticing today that many EV’s emit a resonance, not unlike the sound of space ships on various Twilight Zone eps.
I’m so glad they had the Slant Six ready in time. Can you imagine this with the old flathead?
That grille texture look awfully busy for an economy car on these early ones. I remember how wild these looked when I was a kid, totally unlike anything else on the road – but in a good way. The three side windows made a huge impression, as did the front and rear fender blades. I loved the cat’s eye tail lights on these and the ’61; the ’62s were boring in comparison.
I never asked Dad if we could have a Valiant; somehow it was always clearly ‘somebody else’s car’.
N/A; the flathead wouldn’t’ve come close to fitting in the Valiant. The Slant Six was slanted specifically to accommodate the low cowl and hood and short engine bay planned for the Valiant.
I agree with you that the ’62 Valiant’s rear was a downgrade from the ’60-’61.
I wonder what if Chrysler had worked on an Hemi 6 like the one who’ll appear on Aussie Valiants later instead of the slant-6?
I’m sure somebody has put a hemi six in one!
I doubt it. The Hemi-6 is longer than the Slant Six, and the Slant Six is a very tight fit, longitudinally, in the ’60 Valiant engine bay.
Well they have some recessing of the firewall seemed to have taken place but it was in there.
Might as well ask what if GM had put out the LS1 motor instead of the 265 in 1955. The knowledge and experience that went into the Hemi-6 didn’t exist when the Slant Six was being developed.
But even if it had…what do you think would have been better? The Slant Six when it was introduced was streets ahead of pretty much all competing American inline-6 engines.
Nice .
-Nate
Besides the peak Exner Euro-weirdness of the style (which was always fine by me, but then I love the ’62 B bodies) one thing that detracts from the original Valiant is the way the front and rear windows are both shaped and mounted, which is unlike any Chrysler product before or after and more like many lower end French or British cars of the period. It makes both a different kind of shape and a different framing from any other part of the car, and this extra complication is not what the already over complicated style car needs.
With the wagon version they obviously wanted to save money by using the sedan back doors with their slightly downward curving window framing. This was also seen on other cars like Volvo 240’s which used a different and also probably not worth it solution. Again, Chrysler picked an overly complicated solution, and with the extra little window it probably cost at least as much as a unique rear door. Falcon wagon rear doors had their own window shape.
Exner and company were probably flashing back to their 1956 Plainsman concept. Maybe they should have gone with the blank panel on the Valiant.
We had a dear friend of the family who owned a ’61 Lancer wagon, with 3 on the floor. She lived in Kelseyville, CA and worked as a waitress at a cafe called the 8 Ball. She drove that car all over creation, and when she visited us in the Bay Area my dad tried to teach me how to drive a stick in it at my local school parking lot..not so successful..
When she traded it in on a ’68 Dart with an automatic and a 225, she mentioned the Dart shifted exactly where she would in the old Lancer when climbing Mt. St. Helena.
Both engines broke their exhaust manifolds, which Dad brazed back together. Probably the only major problems either of those engines ever had.
I did get to drive the Dart when I was old enough. Non power assist steering, took around 5 turns lock to lock.
Both were memorable cars, and I miss her very much too. Her son had a Kaiser Darrin, mint green. I got to ride in it a time or 2, never realized it was 1 of 435 until much later.
Fine memories all around!
Big six’s slant facilitated tuned inlet manifolds with 3 twin choke sidedraft Weber 45DCOE and a balanced «extractor» exhaust. Australia’s Norm Beechey, a pioneer Sedan racer, had trackraced and hillclimbed well-modified early Holdens. His brown Valiant was a dragon, devouring Phillip Island and many another circuit, before Falcon or Holden had V8 options.
I saw this 1961 Plymouth Fury while I was riding my bike of the 4th of July. It was in a driveway, so I could only snap this angle from the road.
Nice instrument panel.
My Dad drove one of these as a company car. And Dad, Mom, and we three kids drove in that car from the San Francisco Bay Area to Iowa, and back, to visit relatives. A few years later we did the same drive in Dad’s newer company car: a second generation Valiant. Yay. Except that trip we came home via Canada and camped all the way.
The Valiants and Dodge Darts of the ’60s were very robust, but not beauties. To my eyes anyway. Oh, Dad’s next company car was a Dart and I learned to drive behinds it’s wheel.
I’ve always admired the early Valiant. Everyone had an opinion on them. I think that the rear view was the biggest point for me. They were a common sight on the road for quite a few years, then seemed to disappear overnight.
I always thought that I’d own one someday but never did. In the early to later 1980’s, I saw a very nice example daily in the parking lot of a shopping center near my workplace. An older woman who worked as a bank teller at a branch was the long-term owner.
I had completely forgotten about the floor shifter only on the manual trans models.
I very nearly bought an R model in Bowen Nth QLD years ago it was in a car yard for $900 floorshift manual but no offer of a roadworthy certificate scared me off and I stuck to my beatup 74 VJ wagon and it dutifully kept running but with cracked front chassis rail near the steering box, it did not steer very well.
The Valiant/Lancer in the US was a DeSoto in South Africa.
The Chrysler Valiant and the DeSoto Rebel (Lancer with some Valiant details and altered trim) were both offered in RSA—possibly also the Dodge Lancer; I’m not sure on that one.
Here’s a pic.
My Aunt Marilyn bought one. The car was nicely finished. The doors shut with a firm sound. The slant-six was a nice engine. Later on, I would drive slant-six equipped Dodges.
My first car was white 60 Valiant V-200 with blue interior. I bought it in 1962 for $875. I was 16 at the time. It was a year newer than my dad’s Chevy Biscayne.My mother liked driving it beause it was a manageable size and had good field of view onn all sides. I really hated to see her drive it because she had trouble with the floor shift. In 1t964 I j09ned the Army and my folks traded their Chevy and the Valiant for a 63 Plymouth Fury 4 door hardtop. 318 and pushbutton automatic. A very classy looking ride.
Very interesting how the acceptance of the car’s looks seem to change as one ages out .
I was there when these were new and I thought them FUGLY until I was in my 50’s .
I recall that folks over 40 bought most Mopars in those days .
-Nate
My first car was a 1960 Valient, white with the light blue interior and push button controls . My grandfather gave it to my sister and I in 1975. When I left home my sister took the car and I never saw it again. Since then I served 30 years in the military and found I had a passion for old cars/trucks and motorcycles so I went to school and completed 2 degrees (auto tech / auto body & collision repair). Bottom line, I’m looking for a 1960 Plymouth valient to restore. If anyone knows of the location of one, please email me.
My first car was a hand me down 1960 Valiant station wagon. Red. My mother gave it to me in 1975 when I started to drive and it was a perky little ride! It could easily carry 10 or 11 people (if some were kids).
It made me sweat getting on to freeways and I loved it! It was only 1 year younger than me.
HRU 111, I hope you lived long. You are lovingly remembered!