Just a few days ago, J.P. Cavanagh shared with us an immaculate 1961 Ford Falcon. The Falcon was a tremendous success for Ford and, while it wasn’t the first domestic compact, it helped popularize the segment. It faced competition from the Chrysler Corporation’s compact, the Plymouth Valiant. The Falcon and Valiant may have been “compacts” in North America, but imagine for a moment a market where a Falcon or a Valiant was a standard-sized car, even a full-sizer, and where anything larger was a much lower volume product perhaps bought only by your wealthy uncle or a livery company. Welcome to Australia.
For those in European or Asian markets, even considering a Valiant as a standard-sized vehicle would be quite a surprising concept. For someone in 1960s Europe, a Valiant might seem extravagantly large. For an Aussie in the 1960s, a Valiant probably seemed just right. For an American, it was small. Flash forward to today and, while subcompacts and compacts remain vastly more popular in Europe and moderately more popular in Australia than in the US, something like a Toyota Corolla or RAV-4 is considered respectably sized no matter which continent you live on. That classic American excess is now reserved more for pickups.
To stay in shape, I’ve taken to going for long, meandering walks after work. It’s good exercise and it has allowed me to see parts of my city I’ve never seen before, from the gorgeous old homes of West End and Highgate Hill to the quiet streets of apartment complexes in St. Lucia. The featured Valiants were photographed in the latter two suburbs, respectively. This verdant Valiant was a curious sighting on a street dominated by student accommodation and much newer cars. It would appear to be an AP5-series Chrysler Valiant, produced from 1963 to 1965. The white Valiant, meanwhile, is a VC-series from 1966-67. While the Australian Valiant received crisp new sheetmetal around the same time as the North American Dart and Valiant, the two markets’ Valiants then diverged.
If you haven’t already read it, John’s two-part series on Valiants in Australia is definitely worth your time. The dissimilar perception of size and the different positioning made for two very different Valiant lines. You say to-mate-o, I say to-maht-o. You say compact, I say standard-size.
The white one looks almost the same as an American Valiant, but a different tail light design and the rear side window opening looks smaller. Don’t know if the front grill design is different.
Doesn’t the white Valiant have a NZ plate? Or is it a really old QLD tag?
That’s an old QLD plate.
To me, the green model looks like an attempt to give the U.S. designed Valiant a bit of a “euro” look, almost as though it had been mildly customized for the Italian market….or some other fashion conscious market.
The white Valiant, on the other hand, looks like a 60s design that has had a “tail lift” to incorporate tail lights designed for a 50s model car. The tail lights look like they would be at home on a smaller version of a late 50s Chrysler products.
Interesting your remarks on sizing. While reading the Ford Falcon piece earlier in the week I couldn’t help noticing how it was quite similar in both size and appearance to the Vauxhall PB Velox/Cresta, what would be a large car in the UK (though obviously not quite the very large types like Rollers and Mk.X Jags). The Valiant is around that size too and very briefly imported by Chrysler UK to replace the big Humber Hawk/SuperSnipes. Ironically what were the middle-sized cars of old have grown to this kind of size or bigger now.
In the sixties the Mopar compacts were also built in Spain, Switzerland and the Netherlands. To today’s (Euro) standards the Valiant would have been a typical D-segment car (“middle-class sedan”). Think VW Passat and Ford Mondeo.
Here’s a Swedish Valiant police car from that era.
In the great Per Walhoo/Maj Slojwall mysteries from the late 60s early 70s, the Stockholm cops are always driving Valiants.
I’m trying to imagine what the Valiant would look like pursuing a vehicle at high speed. Those tiny 13″ tires would really be tucked under through a tight curve.
Applying older cars to today’s classifications is an interesting concept, and perhaps a bit tricky Johannes. I wonder if the Valiant wouldn’t have more interior space than some D-segment cars, particularly width thanks to thinner doors.
Also what would a D-segment car have been in the 1960’s? The predecessors of the Passat and Mondeo (eg Cortina) were a lot smaller than the Valiant. Even considering the Mark 3/TC Cortina/Taunus instead of the Mark 2 Cortina, the Valiant is significantly larger.
I looked up the length of the Valiants from the sixties, it’s roughly the same as the overall length of today’s D-segment cars. But you’re right of course, back then the Cortina and German Taunus were much smaller / shorter. Cars like those Fords and something like an Opel Rekord were the typical European “middle-class cars”, the D-segment designation for this class followed much later. And boy, did they grow over the years !
And people (far) beyond the middle-class ? Before circa 1970 they often bought a Chevrolet, Buick, Mercury or Chrysler. A Cadillac was a bit too flashy. Now these folks drive an E-segment car (Mercedes-Benz E-Class, for example) or an F-segment car (Audi A8, BMW 7-series, MB S-Class, and a few others).
Valiants arent quite as common as they used to be in NZ but theres a greem/white V8 VC around here I see regularly its never parked and always being driven when I see it, several VH-VKs on the roads in regular use, Valiants were well reguarded in NZ rather than being derided as wog wagons like Australians referred to them as.They were similar sized to the much more popular Vauxhalls and Zephyrs here with not quite the performance of the Vauxhall sixes but they went quite well, in Australia GMH and Ford quietly dropped their UK models to remove any obvious in house competition to their locally produced offerings.
I always thought it instructive that the British big Ford, the Zephyr, was apparently not big enough for the Aussies, so they brought in an American “small” car instead – the Falcon.
Now things have converged to the point that the Fusion and Mondeo are the same car, although as stated in the article, the “big is beautiful” crowd go for trucks rather than cars now.
It also amuses me that while fuel prices have gone up over the years (or at least people whine about them more) European cars seem to have got bigger. I saw a Mk5 Cortina recently – it looked amazingly dainty and probably the size of a notchback Focus.
Size wasnt the reason Ford AU deleted the Zephyrs from the lineup, Ford AU actually put up a proposal to restyle the MK2 but was knocked back as the loline was ready for release and the MK3 was already in the pipeline, they got the Falcon as a consolation prize and while it looked great on paper and performed well in the US it wasnt really a Zephyr grade car in Aussie and required extensive re engineering to suit local conditions meanwhile in 62 the vastly better MK3 arrived on the market it was an instant hit in NZ four speed standard stylish comfortable it was put on the back burner at Ford AU though they did assemble them the Falcon got all the publicity. GMH did the same to the PB Vauxhall never upgrading it from its 63 launch spec and building it until 1967 by which time it had evolved into an upgraded model in NZ and been replaced by the PC Cresta those cars were never marketed in Aussie they would have eaten into Holden sales.
I’m not sure who was in the driving seat on that, Ford Australia did not have design facilities in those days, and it was on a visit to Detroit in late 1958 that the Managing Director of Ford Australia Charlie Smith saw the model of the facelifted Zephyr and said he didn’t like it, it would not beat the Holden. Ford Aust. was already in the process of tooling up for the new car so it wouldn’t have been a decision to take lightly.
tonito – the Fusion and Mondeo may be the same vehicle but they don’t occupy the same position in their respective markets.
The size of people, not just in America, is one factor driving the size of cars.
My first car was a 1970 VG Valiant Regal. I also owned an ’81 CM Valiant GLX which was the last model ever produced in Australia before the Mitsubishi Sigma usurped the Valiant on the Tonsley Park production line.
Here’s a photo of my old CM GLX.
What surprises me is how many AP and VC series Valiants are still in use as daily drivers. You just don’t see that many Falcons or Holdens from that era on the road anymore.
BTW, William, take the Riverwalk down to New Farm one day and there is an old, almost perfect Olive Green Valiant ute, complete with original canopy lurking in one of the streets off the city side Merthyr Rd…
“You say to-mate-o, I say to-maht-o”
Which reminds me… I got ‘slapped’ exactly because of that
interesting thoughts on the variations on car sizing around the world. as you know, american sizing has always been somewhat inflated. i would argue that it’s a logical reaction to cheap gas prices. i don’t think the valiant was considered “compact” when it was introduced by anyone but the marketing people at the car companies. “midsize” would be more like it. today, it certainly would be considered a full size car by most people just as a toyota camry or a ford fusion is considered full size now.