It’s not unusual here to see sights and sites like this.
That’s a clean-lookin’ ’60 (per the grille) ’61 (per the grille badge) Valiant there, and I do favour 4-door cars, but it’s a base-trim V-100 and…
…I also favour high-trim cars, like the ’62 Signet over there:
Guess I’d happily take both out for spins. Which one(s) for you?
My fave of the ones that can be clearly identified is the ’61 Chevy Impala sport sedan. My 5th grade teacher had a similar one except it was blue. We had a lowly Bel Air 2-door sedan as the family car back in the day.
It’s a nice lineup, my choice is the Ranchero because my wife wants a small low riding pickup.
I’ve always liked base model cars.
Probably stems from the many miles I sat in the back seat of Dad’s 1962 Mercury Comet sedan. Plastic seat covers, Ugh! A plain Valiant would be just fine. Nothing collectable in the garage right now. Sigh….
Happy Canada Day!
Ah, the Ranchero would be my choice – unique, utilitarian and stone simple!
The Valiants are nice, but I have to go with the ’72 Cutlass convertible
which is strangely a decade newer then most anything else here. Probably my choice too, with the 61 Chev next
Same here. Sell the Olds and buy a couple three of the others.
I’m pretty familiar with the ’66 F100…
I’ve always had a soft spot for the ’61 Chevy, so that would be it. But the ’62 Signet is a sweet number too. If I really had to chose between them, I’d…need a bit more time to mull it over.
-For the experience, I’d like to try on either Valiant for size, as I’ve never driven or even been a passenger in a Slant 6 powered Mopar. My preference would be a 225 and manual trans, though Chrysler’s well executed automatic probably isn’t a slouch behind the larger engine.
-For keeps, it’s prolly the Ranchero. My lifestyle sees me needing a pickup bed much more often than a back seat, and it would be nice to have those capabilities wrapped in a package that might return something resembling fuel economy.
My family had a lot of Slant Six cars growing up. (Darts and Dusters mainly) I had a ’74 Duster with the 225 Slant six and the automatic. It was kind of like driving a locomotive where it took off fairly slow but once you were up to interstate speeds could keep up with the traffic of the early 1990’s. If I had kept it longer, I would done the conversion to a two barrel. It was a neat car with the Space Duster fold down rear seat/trunk panel, bucket seats with console, factory AC and manual front disc brakes but it also had about three gallons of bondo and a ’75 VIN/data tag screwed over top of the ’74 original. I sold it to someone who wanted it for the interior.
Put me down for a Valiant, I like em.
Would be a toss-up between the Nova and the Ranchero.
I like Valiants, and even owned a 69 Signet, but I also like Novas as I owned 1 of those, too, a 77 .
Definitely the ’62 Signet with the 225 and a Torqueflite preferably.
A nice collection, I wonder if a feature or T.V. production ? .
hard t choose just one ! .
-Nate
Whichever one has the manual transmission, even if it’s a 3 speed behind the slant six.
I’m guessing “here” is Vancouver BC Canada based on the background. Yes, it must be a film production because of the choice of four-doors and other basic models. Long live four-doors!
The Valiant has a most unusual body. I recall standing next the the driver’s door of one, centuries ago, and having an unusual feeling—something about the minimal thickness of the door, the flat glass of relatively large size, gave the impression of openness—as if I were simultaneously inside and outside the car.
What do you suppose led to the upper corner of the windshield missing its expected alignment with the side windows ? One thinks of a comparable if less drastic example on the DS 19 . . . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citroën_DS#/media/File:Bornholm_Rundt_2012_(2012-07-08),_by_Klugschnacker_modified.jpg
I think it’s an artefact of the windshield’s horizontal curvature/wraparound, together with the radius of the windshield’s corners forming what is effectively a compound curve abutting a straight A-pillar, and the effect is accentuated by the camera angle here. We also see it in the subsequent-generation Chrysler A-cars; see the lead pic in this post. I don’t think it would have been possible to bring the windshield’s upper corners closer to alignment with the upper leading corners of the windowframes on these two generations of cars without creating much greater awkwardness in the confluence of lines in that area. The ’67-up A-cars’ windshield and doorframe corners matched up much more closely, as there was very much less horizontal curvature/wrap to the windshield’s left and right sides.
Much was made in the engineering papers of the extraordinarily, revolutionarily thin doors on these first Valiants. And yes, these are very open-feeling cars, with extremely good sightlines in just about every direction. Not like today’s high beltlines and bulky pillars and miniature quarter windows and backlights, further obstructed by giant head restraints.
See a corner of a Chevy II next to the yellow Valiant.