Erstwhile Taswegian CCorrespondent Oldschool Gav has sent me pics of this lovely bundle of woodness. It’s a 1971 Valiant VG Wayfarer, with an applied finish that I don’t think came from the factory.
This body first appeared stateside as the ’67 Dodge Dart, before undergoing some cosmetic surgery down under. Then we called it a VE Valiant. Then we made a ute version. Then we changed the front clip for the VF. And then we changed the grille and headlights for the VG. But we kept the VE rear lights on the ute.
JohnH gives us a fuller rundown of these generations here.
Most of our Chryco utes were called the Valiant Wayfarer, although there was also a slightly more strippo’ed version called the Dodge ute. But that story is for another time.
Right now, sit back and enjoy this glorious example as it finds its own way back to nature.
Needs wooden artillery wheels!
For a moment, I thought those taillamps might have been recycled from the ’67 Plymouth Barracuda, but after a quick comparison online, they appear to have different (though similar) shapes.
The ’68 Satellite & Road Runner are similar too. Somebody in Highland Park
must have liked that shape.
Good call on the taillights. Closest seems to be 1967 Barracuda (back-up lights were in the rear bumper instead of the middle of the lens) but the red part was more equal in size as it went around. This lens is much larger at the outer-most part, sort of like a cross between the 1969 and 1967 lenses.
The effect is even more uncanny on the Australian VE (’67) Valiant Safari (station wagon). If it weren’t for the ’67-’69 Barracudas being the only ’67-’72 A-bodies that won’t match up the bodylines and contours with swapped front clips, it’d be fun to mess with people’s minds by creating a Barracuda wagon. If I had money to burn, I might spend for the custom metalwork to carry it off.
Very nice. That’s how pick-ups should look.
I will go against the grain and say that I like it.
I was about to say that Chrysler should have offered something similar here, but I can appreciate Lynn Townsend’s likely analysis that these were a niche market here and that neither Chevy nor Ford was setting the world on fire with their versions. I do enjoy seeing the Aussie Mopars.
Agreed, odd that Chrysler never offered one in the US market. Even had it sold in small numbers, it would have been cheap to do the tooling and run this down the line with the sedans and coupes. I can just imagine the version sold with a factory hemi and 4 speed in Plum Crazy. That would make the auction houses drool with envy today!
If we take 1967 as an example, El Camino and Ranchero combined only sold a little over 50K units in the US. Chrysler typically grabbed about 15% of any market it entered in those days, so even if we assume a Chrysler entry would have grown the market for an American ute to 60K units, Chrysler would probably have moved under 10K of them in an average year. After Chrysler’s disastrous 1958-62, Lynn Townsend was looking for manufacturing volume. Any segment that wasn’t going to result in serious sales was nothing Chrysler was going to enter on his watch. If Chrysler was willing to drop the A body station wagon in the US by 1967, one of these had not a prayer.
Oh, oh, you and all your “reality”, you’re like some…lawyer or something.
JFrank,
They *did* come with a factory hemi – the Hemi 6! That’s the main difference between this model – the VG – and the preceding VF, which had the slant 6.
Still no 4 speed though. Dunno about the Plum Crazy.
Definitely “Dare to be Different” – I’m reminded of the few custom cars I’ve seen where someone had the dash painted to look like the whole thing was wood. Of course that only works on those old metal dashboards.
It is also something that is done in some buildings from I’m guessing about 80-110 years ago, for skirting boards and door architraves, even sometimes ‘timber’ paneling.
The first photo led me to think that is what we had here, but not so!
Funny, I looked at this on my phone this morning and it just looked flat black. I’m thinking “what is he talking about woody?”
Now it makes sense. Love that parallel Australian Chrysler universe thing..
Needs a bit MORE wood.
I went and looked at the write-up on Australian Valiants and can understand why they made the switch from VE to VF front sheet metal. (VE Is a cheese sandwich to a VF’s bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich.)
Ah, “Woody”, formerly of Ballarat, the perfect surf board UTE for the fictional “Weld”, NZ., said in less than 800 words. Well done, Don. Cheers.
Lol, I see what you did there GeelongVic… 🙂
Woody Wayfarer? Nah, ‘e wouldn, he’d be orff like a bucket o prawns in the sun mate. She ain’t wurf it.
Eh Justy, LOL, LMAOROTF.
Wonderful.