Speaking of Plodges, canadiancatgreen posted this Plodge Valiant at the Cohort.
It’s the first time I’ve seen one of these A Body Plodges, and the effect is a bit disorienting. But the A Bodies were classic plug-and-play cars, and there are lots of home-brew permutations of the same kind of thing. We should have a showcase sometime. Who wants to spend some time with Google to find them all?
(For those of you not familiar with the elements of this car, it’s a Dodge Dart body with a Valiant front end).
Growing up in our neighborhood, someone had relatives who used to come down from Canada and visit each summer, using a Plodge Valiant. Always made me stop and circle my bike around the car a time or two, and I never adjusted to the look. I like the look of this car, but I liked the Dart at that time anyway.
I wonder if this isn’t a Canadian car? Our Valiants were actually Dodge Darts with Valiant front clips. I had several over the years. I don’t recall ever seeing a 2 door sedan though.
Look closely and you will see that the Front is Valiant and the back is Dart. So is it a Valiart or a Darliant?
Or a Valdart?
It’s a Variant.
Of course it’s a Canadian car; it’s a Dart with a Valiant fron clip. But I’m confused as to the rest of your comment. When you say “Our Valiants…” are you referring to Canada?
Poor wording on my part. Yes I meant Canadian cars, but I wonder if this one or not. I don’t recall ever seeing a 2 door sedan version. Lots of 4 doors around, and I had a ’64 Signet hardtop one winter. Maybe I just never noticed the sedans.
I’ll back you up as two door Valiant sedans just don’t seem familiar to me. hardtops certainly and some convertibles. They were very popular as four door sedans growing up in Edmonton.
This piqued my interest so when I got home from the airport last night, I did a little checking. I found a brochure on somebody’s site that shows a 2 door sedan in the base V-100 series only, so apparently they were out there.
Another article yielded the information that the Valiant was Canada’s 4th best selling car in this time period with almost 30,000 a year sold, but it didn’t break the numbers down by body style. I doubt many 2 door sedans were sold though.
When I was coming of age Valiants were just cheap used cars that seemed to run forever and no one really cared about. I wish I’d been a little nicer to my ’64 Signet V-8 winter beater now though!
Well, earlier there were the pictures of a Barracuda with a Dart front clip, so THIS is what you do with the leftover parts?
Seems this was a common Chrysler ploy, designing the A-Body so the front clips could be interchanged and the character lines would more-or-less line up. These cars were the first examples, followed by the 1971 Dodge Demon, which was a Duster with a Dart nose, and then the Plymouth Scamp, which was a Dart 2dr. hard top with a Valiant /Duster nose.
They did it years prior in the full-size body. That was how Chrysler was able to quickly create the Dodge 880, with 1961 Dodge front fenders on a 1962 Chrysler body, to give Dodge a full-size car in mid-1962 when their regular line had been shrunken. Common doors and cowl are all that’s needed.
The new-for-1967 Valiant front fenders survived as identical stampings, with only differing holes for marker lights and trim, to the end of Valiant production in 1976. The Dart front fenders differed but again, the cowl and doors were the same.
Several yeas ago, I photographed one in my neighborhood – a ’63 Falcon and Comet spliced together. Or was it a ’63 Comet and Fairlane? If only I can find those pictures….
Happy Motoring, Mark
Paul, I’ll see that ’63 Plodge and raise you a ’62 De Soto.
Wha…?
…”This must be one of the most desirable cars of the year”…
What a find ! An ad in South-African Dutch.
… Or you could go “krusing” in the ’62 DeSoto Rebel… Gotta love Mopar for badge-engineering a Lancer with a ghost brand.
Call it whatever you want, but the results are pretty attractive. I love A bodies anyway, but the C pillar donated from this style of Dart always grabs my eye. If only it were a hardtop….
My parents drove home from their wedding in a ’63 4door. Two years later I was brought home from the hospital in that same car during a record snow storm. The car had to be abandoned four blocks from home because of waist deep snow on the side streets. A short time after that the car is one of the main characters in some of my earliest memories. My brother and I had car seats in the back while mom and dad rode up front. Remember those tubular steel framed seats that hung over the seat with umbrella hooks with a swing down padded “safety bar”? We used to crawl out of them and dad would shout “POLICE!” and we would scramble back in them.
That Valiant may be the reason I love a white car with a red interior. Canadian car too!
510: my 63 Valiant is white with a red interior. Great memory of your Dad !
+ 1
My car seat had a steering wheel too!
Lucky you – you had the deluxe model!
A Plodge Vart?
Plymouth or Dodge, or whatever. There is something very cool about these cars, especially in this color combo. I can picture it with a 31 8 and a four speed, a nice street sleeper that you can drive everyday.
As with the Custom 880, this mix worked better than the original. The proper Dart front end had big eyes and an indented grill which didn’t match the sharply slanted rear.
Now to really mess with someone’s mind, just transplant a grille off of an Australian-market Valiant…
Hahahaha! That would be funny…
While my personal preference is for the Engel-modified rear end of the Exner ’63-’66 Valiant (particularly the 1964 Signet hardtop and convertible), I can’t disparage anyone who likes this Canadian Plodge over the American Valiant. The sheetmetal lines up perfectly and it does look good.
Rudiger: I think it’s a little short in the front, in profile, but it all works well.
I’d choose 65 as the best Valiant rear of that period. My own 63 has those pointless aluminum ends that wrap around the side. They always look like a tail light should be there. The 65 seems to have the nicest details followed by the 64 [which I have always found to mimic the 63 Imperial’s tails. A nice touch.
Nah, I like the ’64’s square backup lights better, as well as a more cohesive grille. But the ’65 did tighten up those big front fender swoops.
Those rear bumper extension moldings on the quarter panel were optional. The quarter panel ‘bump’ was still there in 1965 but gone for 1966. The square backup lights came back for 1966, too.
If I were able to create a ‘perfectly’ styled, mid-sixties Valiant, I might go with a ’66 aft section (Signet convertible or hardtop), ’65 fenders and hood, and the ’64 Barracuda grille.
I think DweezilAZ is talking about the tail light bezels, and you might be referring to the arrow shaped moulding on the fender bulges in front of the bumpers? I don’t know that they were in the catalog in ’63.
Those cheap looking, stamped tail light bezels almost seem to be a case of the tail wagging the dog, as if they were there as a nod to the wagons, with their more substantial chrome plated cast light fixtures covering the same area around the corner of the fender, completely filled with lenses. The sedans might have looked better with those lamps, but Chrysler cars had been using (IMHO) flimsy stampings here and there since 1957, especially on their dashboards.
The white Plodge would look better to me with the newer, ’65 fenders; With the extra modeling above the rear wheel arch from the American Dart, it’s a bit too busy.
In Mexico, they put the Barracuda clip on the Signet to make the Valiant Acapulco.
You’re right. I misunderstood about the ’63 taillights versus the bumper/quarter panel molding, and DweezilAZ is correct: the wraparound ’63 taillight molding is pointless. I wonder if it’s an Exner carryover that Engel managed to miss. In fact, maybe it’s a leftover from Exner’s original design which didn’t have the stubby finlets, which was supposedly Engel’s only contribution to the styling of the ’63 Valiant.
And that Valiant Acapulco is a pretty cool car. I’d imagine if they’d tried to sell it in the US, it really would have killed Barracuda sales. In hindsight, Chrysler should have just sold the Barracuda as a Valiant fastback (which is what someone said they actually did in Canada), used the Barracuda grille for all three upper trim Signet models, and waited until 1967 before they used the Barracuda name for a model with entirely separate sheetmetal from the Valiant.
The more I stare at it; the more it “grows on me”.
I’d like mine equipped with the 273 V8 engine and push button TorqueFlite automatic transmission.
A little known feature that coincides with the push button Torqueflite is an additional rear transmission fluid pump. It was there specifically to facilitate push starting, just like a car with a clutch. Sadly, Chrysler discovered it was rarely used and the feature was discontinued for 1966, a year after the push button shifter was discontinued.
The pre-’67 Canadian Valiants were neither Plymouths nor Dodges. Like the first-year ’60 models in the States, they were their own make: Valiant. In Canada they were sold at both Plymouth and Dodge dealerships. Nowhere on such a car will you find a “Plymouth” or “Dodge” badge. The nose badge on this ’64, unless it’s been replaced with a US part, reads “VALIANT” (US cars had a same-size, same-shape badge that reads “PLYMOUTH”). Some of the early cars, ’60-’62, had an interesting “By Chrysler” callout just below the “Valiant” script on the trunk lid.
The US-Valiant-front-clip-on-US-Dart-body configuration was ’63-’64 only. The ’60-’62 Canadian Valiants were, sheetmetallically, the same as the US cars. The ’65 Canadian Valiant range was enormous; one could get Valiant-shaped Valiants (106″ wheelbase, same sheetmetal as the US Valiant) and Dart-shaped Valiants (111″ wheelbase, same sheetmetal as the US Dart) in a full range of body styles—including one not offered in the US. For ’66 the Valiant-shaped Valiants were deleted from the Canadian range and only Dart-shaped Valiants were offered. The Auto Pact took full effect for ’67 and Canada got Plymouth Valiants and Dodge Darts just like the ones in the States, more’s the pity.
There are some interesting mechanical differences in the pre-’67 Canadian Valiants, too.
These unique Canadian Valiants were a common site when I was growing up in the 60’s and well into the 70’s, too. You still see them every once in a while, including a burgundy ragtop, likely a ’63, that I parked behind about two months ago while shopping at a local supermarket here in Vancouver; not in the greatest shape but still a serviceable driver.
BTW, ‘sheetmetallically’? This might be my favourite new word, Daniel.
Haven’t seen the burgundy convertible, but there’s a medium-blue-with-black-top convertible ’65 Signet (111″-wheelbase, Dart-shaped) I’ve seen on Commercial Drive from time to time, a burgundy ’64 in that same vicinity, and a white ’66 and a yellow ’66 I see around town from time to time. And there’s a primo ’62 near Delta. Plus others I’m sure I’ve forgotten.
“Sheetmetallically” flew forth from my fingers almost before the thought formed in my head!
That these Valiants still pop up with this kind of frequency is some kind of testament to their durability. I don’t see Chevy IIs or Falcons of this vintage so maybe they are more sheetmetallically challenged than Valiants.
Definitely. All cars of that era were more or less water-soluble, but Chrysler’s multi-stage dip/spray anti-rust treatment was quite a lot more thorough and durable than the other (North) American makers were generally doing at that time.
I imagine that some of the reasons Valiants of this vintage were so popular in Canada was that not only were they cheaper than the so-called full size Plymouths and Dodges of 1962-64, they were not substantially smaller, making them a better value.