William Oliver just posted these shots at the Cohort that are just terrific. I could gaze at this one for…to long. There’s something so elemental and timeless about this Valaint, which I peg to be a ’75 or ’76 by its grille. That would make it the last year or so, before it got replaced by the star-crossed Volare, which stumbled so badly out of the gate.
Who bought this stripper Valiant in 1975, by which time that concept was largely extinct? And who posed it so perfectly in 2019?
Given the reputation it developed, it’s easy to forget that the Valiant was only around for sixteen years. It came to stand for the best reliable cheap new car, as well as the best reliable cheap used car for the following fifteen years or so. Or in other words, it and its Dodge Dart twin were the Toyota Corolla of its time. That’s the best way to describe these to someone who didn’t live through the Dariant era.
The steady gently-ticking thrumm of its slant six engine (thanks to its mechanical valve lifters) inspired confidence to its owners after the distinctive nayrr-nayrr-nayrr reduction starter invariably brought it to life. And the solid but gentl surge felt against its brakes when the gear lever brought the TorqueFlite into Drive. “Drive”? Yes, always ready to drive. In 1975, and in 2019.
It was Valiant right to the end.
Their only fault was was rust taking its toll on suspension mounting points and such. After a time they became unsafe to drive. Still, it took a long, long time to get to that point.
True
I had a 1975 Plymouth Duster that the rear shackle mounts rusted through the trunk floor on both sides of the car
The common failure of many of those
I owned one, a 1974, in this exact color but with full wheel covers, during the late 1980’s. Working for a regional airline in the Midwest, I had it stashed in an employee lot at OHare for occasional use when in Chicago. I sold it to a coworker around the early ‘90s who gave it to his parents in S Dakota. Sometime around 2010 I ran across him, and he said it was still soldiering on in semi daily use.
This whole thing (car, pictures and writing) brought a huge smile to my face. Thanks, William and Paul.
When I was born (early ’80s), my parents had a 1972 Duster with the 198-ci slant six that was given to them by my mother’s uncle shortly after they were married. They were fairly new immigrants from the Philippines at that time and could not afford a new car.
The folks kept that Duster for several years until it could not pass Vermont safety inspection due to the rust underneath. My dad tried hard to kill that slant six, even running it out of oil at one point. Yet that car continued to start and run reliably, without fail, even on the coldest of southern Vermont winters.
NYC is likely the toughest town in America when it comes to cars. Potholes, salt, and “park by feel” are just a few factors that beat cars to death.
Up until the mid-80s or so, Darts and Valiants were the cockroaches of the road there, bought and driven by people who wouldn’t spend a lot of money on a car just to have it beaten to death a few years later. These were cheaper and lasted longer than anything short of a Checker Marathon.
In 1975, a Dart/Valiant was the best way to spend $3000 on an NYC car. In 1981, a 1975 Dart/Valiant was the best way to spend $500 on an NYC car.
I am absolutely shocked that a Valiant lasted this long in NYC. It must be truly loved.
I’ve spent time in both. Maybe in 1975 NYC was tougher.
Now, Detroit is
In 1975, given the choice between a new Corolla or a used Valiant with the slant-six I would have taken the Valiant every time. In fact, I’d have paid more for the Valiant. *
* Fast forward to 1985, and the situation is totally reversed.
Notice the black wheels on a green car
They did this to save money so they could use the same wheels on different color cars .It also made you look like a cheepskate because you didn’t spring for full whee!covers
For this reason I dislike today’s trend with black wheels
@Fordfan: I must admit I like those cheapskate wheel covers and the black wheels on this Valiant. I can’t help it.
Keep the Volare; I’ll take the Valiant. Luv dem ‘strippermobiles’ of the ’60s and ’70s. I hope this mighty Valiant keeps going and continues to stay away from The Evil Rust Worm!
Is that New York? How did that car survive this long in NYC and remain so nice?
My Dad bought a new Valiant in 1968 because it was a tough, cheap car that could last in New York on his commute from Long Island to NYC.
“Who bought this stripper Valiant in 1975, by which time that concept was largely extinct?”
As a teenager in the mid-seventies, my friends and I referred to these as “Librarian Mobiles”, as the demographic in our area (Eastern Baltimore County Maryland) who purchased these were librarians, music teachers, heck, teachers in general. The teachers parking at our junior high schools and high schools at the time were filled with these things, as well as their Dodge Dart brethren.
The Corolla of their day, indeed.
Another purchaser of these cars: Driving Schools. At home, I learned to drive on the family LTD. At the little driving school that I attended in Rosedale, MD? Yeah, it was the Dart or Valiant. Today, the driving schools of our area use the Corolla for the most part.
Driving schools, eh. That reminded me. Our high school had a room equipped for Driver’s Ed. The instructor would play films, and we (year was 1976) would ‘drive’ along to the film, on 1970s Valiant/Dart driver’s consoles.
Just a nitpick, but 1976 was the last year.
Duly noted and corrected. I keep forgetting that it was kept in production after the Volare arrived.
Yes, it was. And the worst mistake Chrysler ever made until merging with FIAT.
Everyone was looking forward to their replacement in 1976. A tried and true dependable car would finally be updated. When the Reliant/Aspen appeared, they looked like winners. They had that updated Valiant/Dart look that was timeless 42 years ago.
Then they revealed themselves to being un-Reliant-able. The last cars you would have imagined to be a problem, were a complete mess. Sixteen years of road worthiness were gone within six months. Thankfully, Plymouth/Dodge didn’t continue with the Valiant/Dart names – or we might not be looking at them today with so many good memories.
I, and two of my siblings had a Valiant. They took us from high school days, through college. None of them were new. Mine was already over a decade old when I paid $200 for it. It lasted another five years. A brother’s Valiant was eight years old when he bought it, and it lasted until he finally bought his first new car, trading it in. My other brother’s Valiant was on the Duster coupe, before it was known as a Duster. It was dark purple metallic with a 318 V8. He ended up with a new Aspen wagon that had all the options, but it was a very bad car, that he was forced to dump.
These cars were good ones. They went from being out of style, then back in style as Detroit shed its bloated larger intermediates and full sizers. It was a big laughable that what was a dated dowdy design in 1969, ended up looking quite acceptable by 1976.
Looking at the clean lines of this car, I wonder whether they really needed to replace it then. Aside from the passe hop-up in the rear door, and the curiously-shaped rear window, I don’t see anything that makes the design look out of date. Just over-familiarity, I guess.
Both the passe hop-up and the curiously-shaped rear window weren’t even originally part of the Valiant’s design when this generation was new (in 1967). They were added because the Dart was that way, and at some point earlier in the ’70s Chrysler didn’t want to spend the money on different styling anymore so the Valiant took on the Dart’s fenders, rear, and C pillar treatment.
Australian ones got an even-weirder rear window. Guess they were making up for the flat rear glass they gave us on the local adaptation of the previous body.
Volare and Aspen, the Plymouth Reliant and Dodge Aries replaced the Volare/Aspen in the 1980s
Chrysler’s 1970’s trajectory would have been very different if some of the dartiant magic had rubbed off on their bigger and more profitable cars. It’s a shame the bigger cars seemed so haphazardly built and out of lower quality components than even the GM 71-73 full size cars. And there was the Chrysler Quality Lottery component which dragged down the bigger cars; you could get a really good car or a really bad one.
Chrysler has a strange history of building One Good Car at a time and a lot of below average to mediocre cars. In the 60s and 70s, it was the Dartiant; in 1978, it was the Omnirizon, in 1981 it was the K car, from 1984-the early 1990s it was the Minivan, now it’s the Wrangler and Ram Truck.
The Valiant/Dart had the good fortune to be the last of the three major spending programs after Lynn Townsend took the helm. The 1965 C body, the 1966 heavy revision of the B body and the 1967 A body – each of these cars represented peak post-Keller cars in terms of the quality baked into the designs.
The C body was replaced by the 1969 Fuselage and the B got replaced by the 1971 version. While both maintained the stout mechanical stuff Mopar had become known for, both got bodies and interiors that came off as cheap. Fortunately, Chrysler’s deteriorating financial condition in 1969-70 put off A body replacements for a few years. As the last of the older cars standing they stood in stark contrast to most of the rest of stuff in ChryPly and Dodge showrooms.
If I recall correctly, the A-bodies were supposed to be new for 1972, but they were selling so well that Chrysler postponed their replacement. The corporation’s brush with financial disaster in 1970 – in the wake of the June 1970 bankruptcy of Penn Central – made that decision much easier.
In 1974-75, my parents bought a subscription to Consumer Reports. The Mopar A-body sedans were the darlings of the magazine’s road testers during the early and mid-1970s.
“Chrysler has a strange history of building One Good Car at a time ”
I am laughing as I read this, but there may be something to it. Ford, on the other hand, made the job harder buy building some good models and some awful models all at once (but with very little quality variation within each set). The trick was to be able to know which was which, something that was not always possible.
Sometimes the difference between Good Ford and Bad Ford came down to powertrain options. 3.0 vs 3.8 V6 in the earlier Taurus, manual vs. PowerShift DCT in the recent Fiesta/Focus, etc.
That feature photo is fantastic. Great find, William!
As above, this could be a 76, but they are almost impossible to tell apart. They changed their light green color from 75 to 76, but they were really close and hard to tell apart. 76 supposedly had orange light bulbs behind the clear lenses, but who knows how many times those have been changed in a car this old.
This was the best beater you could get around 1980-85. They had been produced a long time and there were still gobs of them on the road because of how so many buyers had been elderly people who took care of them. I much preferred the pre-73 versions, but the older you got the bigger the rust problems.
This is what is missing from today’s carscape. Something that is cheap to buy, cheap to fix, and durable as hell. These days you can get one or two of these things in an older car, but getting all three is about impossible.
Someone brings a very nice, all-original 1975 Dodge Dart sedan to the Chryslers at Carlisle show. It is well-equipped with the 318 V-8, vinyl roof, power steering, power brakes and air conditioning. He purchased it from the elderly original owner about a decade ago. It’s a sharp car in a no-nonsense sort of way.
That would be interesting. When new, these seemed to be about 48% strippers and 48% middle-trim cars, with the remaining 4% being high end luxury or sporty. In my northern Indiana region A bodies were found with a/c in far lower numbers than most everything else.
That was a big problem for Chrysler. Not only were its most popular models not extremely profitable, but customers tended not to load them up with popular options.
During the debate over the (first) bailout of Chrysler, many critics claimed that the company made too many gas guzzlers, and this was why it was in trouble.
As Iacocca correctly explained, one of Chrysler’s big problems was that it didn’t have the equivalents of the GM B-, C- and E-bodies selling in large numbers to people who loved to load them with profitable options.
The well optioned (V8, Torqueflite, power steering, power disc brakes, A/C, upscale interiors) Darts and Valiant models were much more enjoyable than the base strippers were.
How about a ’90’s J-body ?
My favorite would be a 1967-72 Canadian model Valiant 2 door sedan with a 318 and A-904 trans. Truly one of Chrysler’s greatest hits!
I like the reference to the Corolla, it is so acurate when talking about these cars. they were the most reliable thing on the road for many years.
Same color as dads bought new ’74 Duster stripper, it had the 225. Put around 100k of trouble free miles on it in about 4 years, cheap to buy and cheap to run, simple to work on. Mom got tired of no AC, tree shifter (I did put a floor shift conversion and AM/FM cassette player in later). Was replaced by a loaded ’79 Aspen, also with 225 engine. Trouble free it was not, and very underpowered. Last Chrysler product for them, the ’75 Dodge shorty van with 225/torqueflite, PS and AM radio served his tool business well for many years.
I rode in a couple of these on Long Island in the 1970s, including a memorable trip to Brooklyn with a friend of my dads’, who drove his 3 on the tree Dart sedan (same color as featured car) 80 to 85 whenever traffic allowed, and being a lazy Saturday afternoon, traffic allowed!
I was 13 or 14. My father typically drove 60, maybe 65, on the Long Island Expwy, so 30 over the limit was a thrill for me. I wondered if he had a 318 or a 6; I figured a 360 wouldn’t have 3 on the tree.
Another family friend had one–we met them in 1977, but their first (and only, until 1982) car was a 68 Dart bought new. Plain, but effective.
These were good cars!
When I started reading Consumer Reports in 1977, CR was all about the new Caprice. They rated a Nova as the best compact, but then continued “the Caprice gets the same mileage, and doesn’t cost that much more, but is much better”. But at my library, looking at older issues, up until 1975 (when the redesigned Nova came out), the Dart/Valiant were CRs top pick.
“up until 1975 (when the redesigned Nova came out), the Dart/Valiant were CRs top pick.”
It is my memory that tightening emissions controls hit Chrysler engines hard. All of the American companies struggled a bit with drivability but Mopars seemed the worst. More than one person I knew who owned a 74-76 version complained of stalling, hesitation and occasional hard starting. Which was nothing like my 71 Scamp that ran beautifully.
It seemed as though GM did a better job of making engines run smoothly with the emissions controls than either Ford or Chrysler did in the mid- and late-1970s. In particular, I remember people complaining about stalling with the Mopars. With the Fords, the complaints centered on rough running and stumbling during acceleration.
Whatever their long-term reliability, the better ability of GM cars to start reliably and run smoothly when new was undoubtedly a major selling point during this era.
From what I recall, in the late 1970s, many, if not most, of the cars Consumer Reports tested were afflicted with “stalled once after a cold start; stalled repeatedly until warm; surged and hesitated”. The fuel injected cars did better. By the 1980s, this issue had faded.
As far as the 75 Nova, it was quite reworked. The 1974 Nova and variants were typically as austere as the Valiant/Darts, and felt claustrophobic. The 75s had the nice glass house, much nicer trim (our Ventura certainly did), and felt richer. Nice power steering. I just think it was a better car. In 1976, the Volare regained the top spot…and thanks to it’s “predicted repair” record, lost it to Nova in 1977, but CR said ‘skip Nova, skip mid-size, get an Impala instead, it’s very similar to top-rated Caprice, and gets same fuel economy”
Also, I must say, our 75 Ventura, with catalytic converter Olds 260, displayed none of the maladies I’d read about in Consumer Reports. When I started driving it in the early 80s, I’d depress the gas and hold, take foot off, engage starter, and it started and ran. No rough idle or hesitation (well, it was a little hesitant with but 110 hp at 3800 rpm, but it was smooth and brisk enough for the traffic). No rotten egg smell. Even by today’s standards, that was a good, reliable car.
We had a ’75 Duster with a 225 slant six. I think the emission controls really effected the driveability. My mother bought it brand new and that thing never seemed to run right. Hard starting, no starting and stalling are memories I have of that car. It also rusted like crazy. Holes through the tops of both front fenders, and rear quarters rusted through to the trunk. She sold it in ’84 and it was shot. I was surprised to learn that these were considered to be reliable cars for their time. There were four other Dusters in the extended family which were older models and presumably more reliable.
All of that being said I still search the internet from time to time for slant six equipped Dusters for sale. The sound of that starter and engine are permanently etched in my memory from childhood.
In 1978 I got transferred from an air base in Maryland to an air base in Iceland. For such a small country, Iceland had an eclectic blend of American and non American cars. For some reason I expected to see few to no American cars. Anyway, the first week there my shop supervisor offered me a ride to the barracks. I don’t know what I expected by way of transportation but I figured it had to be 4WD. Imagine my surprise when we got to the parking lot and my boss directed me to a car that was VERY similar to the featured car, though I seem to remember that it was a darker green. Joe’s Valiant was built in Belgium, and had a 318 with automatic transmission. I never heard of that car not starting in the year that I was there, or getting stuck in the snow. I guess the only thing that ever stopped that 3 year old Valiant was a “whiteout”, which stopped EVERYTHING.
Fantastic photos! We used to have a ton of these Valiants and Darts on the street when I was growing up. Stripper cars like this were not uncommon, and they were the proverbial old lady car. They seemed to hold up and last much longer than the GM and Ford competition from the era.
I found the 318 and transmission to be solid, but body integrity and electrics to be worse than the equivalent GM. My car was only seven years old and already needed a complete body job, not to mention both torsion bars ripping away from the k-frame, both rear spring shackles going through the trunk floor, and about four other “terminal” repairs. I managed to limp it to 1988 (as seen in the picture) before the scrappy came around to collect it.
I used to visit it in the yard (bringing flowers of course), before she was recycled into an ’89 Camcord!
. . . and now, a moment of silence.
You will get no argument from me that the bodies were never as good as what GM was doing in those years. It was, however, rigid as can be (at least before the rust got to it so badly). But yes, the materials and body hardware quality was always something you traded away to get the good stuff these offered.
Ahhhhh! How sweet!
A lot like the AMC Matador, it’s a shame these looked so dated by the mid 70s. As they offered great value, in a practical size. I can understand why the Aspen and Volare sold so well in their first couple of years. With their fresher styling and luxury amenities, combined with the perception the new F Bodies would continue the Valiant/Dart’s solid reputation for ruggedness/longevity. This formula was assured to lure many compact buyers in 1976. Especially with the additional availability of a wagon.
It was not embarrassing to drive a Valiant/Dart, in spite of their dated design. And frugal image. They were a domestic version of owning a Volvo. Others saw you as a smart shopper. Very understandable, in an era of indifferent domestic quality, and gas guzzling mid and full-sized cars.
As a kid at the time, I noted my parent’s rural mail carrier trusted Valiants and Darts as their delivery car of choice for over a decade. From around 1974 through the mid 80s.
No coincidence the Reliant got its name. And details on the K-cars like dashboards, and very practical design, echoed the Valiant/Dart.
JP
I think that you might have a point. I was walking around today, looking at some bad rot on “newer” pick-up trucks. Perhaps the damage was already done with the first five years of the Valiant’s life being driven in one of the worst salt-laden climates before I got it. I should really shift myself and write a COAL on this one whilst I still have some hair to pull out of my bald head!
Enclosed is the final picture of the Turkey carcass almost fully gone!
That appears to be a Hyundai Stellar in the background. For a brief (and immediate) moment in time, they flourished in Canadian junk yards. 🙂
Much like the Pony.
I’ve owned several A body mopars.
1970 340 Duster
2 – !972 Dart Swingers
1973 Valiant
1973 Scamp
1974 Duster
All of them lived up to their reputation for reliability and rust!
A Valiant with a Dart body. It’s really amazing that through 1973, Chrysler had separate bodies for their two compact brands, a distinction that went back to the first 1963 redesign. I’m not talking about different front and rear clips, or even door skins.
Compare the Valiant in his post with the ’73 pictured below. The Dart body Valiant has a longer wheelbase, achieved senior Pontiac-like behind the rear doors. And the roof is different, too – the ’73 is upright with straight rear glass, while the Dart is more sloped, with concave rear glass.
Chrysler introduced the Lancer, later Dart as a “senior compact” in 1961, along with GM’s BOP triplets and the Mercury Comet. And while all of those would migrate to intermediate status, Dodge kept the flame alive, even while its own intermediates and full size cars shared the same bodies.
The weird thing is I don’t remember Chrysler making much of this difference in its marketing; have to do some trolling through oldcarbrochures.com. I’d love to know the backstory on the whole thing.
This an earlier Valiant where the shorter wheelbase is apparent: https://flic.kr/p/vgbPnx
Great shot. Also shows how this era of A bodies was spared the awful late-Engel front and/or rear clips, at least until the final 1974 redesign.
All true. The 67 Dart got a hardtop and convertible but the Valiant did not. The cross-pollination began in 1971 when Plymouth added a Dart Swinger they called Scamp and Dodge got in return a “Valiant Duster” that it renamed Demon.
Most amazing to me is that I had never noticed this until I was roaming a junkyard looking for a pair of rear wheel lip moldings for my 71 Scamp. Every one that would fit came from a Dart of some kind. The Valiant ones were completely different. Light bulb.
Yeah, the ’67-’70 Valiant was a rump series with only 4 and 2 door sedans, and they didn’t even have the latter after ’69. The logic being the sporty hardtop and convertible models were the province of the Barracuda, as Ford had done with the Falcon, and GM would do in ’68 with the Nova. Dodge didn’t have a competitive pony car, so they got to keep the sporty models, but that all became moot with the E-Body Challenger in ’70.
Both Plymouth and Dodge were given funds to refresh their A bodies for ’71. Dodge did just that, with new front fenders and hood, and the tapered rear fenders and deck lid. Plymouth, of course took the money and developed the semi-secret Duster – in my mind the real inheritor of the original Mustang model.
Sharing the hardtop and Duster bodies made sense, and was ahead of the move to compacts following the oil crisis. Compacts really were Chrysler’s shining star in those days.
Valiant is the definition of “determination” – I mean, literally. A rare case of a car that is utterly faithful to it’s name. Their stout hearts meant they could be driven until the driver was perched upon a mere lacework of rust flakes linking the slant and Torqueflite and wheels, and it would be his courage that failed first and ended the loyal service, not the Val’s.
Here, we got a cobbled collection of variations on the (I think) ’66 US body through to ’71, about 220K being sold. By comparison, the mechanically-inferior Holdens across that time sold 850K, and yet I’d swear there’s at least as many Vals as Holdens remaining now.
Americans, being a polite people, would say these are valiant machines to the last days of their making, and still useful servants as second-hand vehicles well after that.
Australians, being what they are, would say without malice that you just can’t kill the bastards.
Whichever is chosen, these here are postcard photos of survivor which proves it.
Israelis would third that – these cars were legendary for their reliability, IDF ones clocked ridiculous mileages during their 15 year service and civilian ones if properly maintained were not far behind.
Most cars and Valiant lost their sex appeal after 72 is my opinion . But all cars styling changed then, and each to their own after that.
I will keep my 67 till death do us part.
My first car was a 1970 Duster, the body was so rusted. Had it from 1981 until my father killed it, after I joined the Navy, in about 1984.
These cars and their intermediate brethren ruled the streets in NYC. It was Mopar country.