Having left the farm in the (hopefully) capable hands of sons Number One and Number Two, the wife and I are headed West for some R&R. I’ll be posting anything interesting that finds its way into my viewfinder, starting with this forlorn-looking 1963 Valiant.
I won’t be taking a lot of time to root out specs, facts and figures on these posts, so feel free to have at it in the comments. My chief comment on this particular car is that the trim and badging really look “cheap,” as in “this is a no frills car for no frills people.”
Ah, we did get at least one cast trim piece!
Thanks for telling me, I would never have guessed.
I shot this car in Burr Oak, Iowa, where we stopped at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum. It looks like it’s still being used… would be interesting to hear the story behind it.
I’m picturing some old fellow in a Pioneer seed hat that drives this on a daily basis. Bet everybody knows it too. “Oh, that’s Clem’s car.”
Quite different to our AP5 Valiant of 63 the grille & bonnet are US unique as is the rear end. the finlets are shaved clean on the local variety.
My cousin had one that looked exactly like this. It had a slant 6 and a radio. It ran forever, he got close to 300k miles on it before the rust took it away.
I had a ’64, White/tan. Slant 6. I liked that car.
To hear its story: Turn the key to hear the Hamtramck Hummingbird starter and the clickety-click of the mechanical lifters of its elderly slant six. The problem is it won’t shut up telling its story!
You, mister, are a HOOT!
Notice how much the quarter panel trim looks like the trim on the ’67 Charger.
Thank God he’s using a sunshade to protect that dash…….
Really at this stage, whats the point?
I never thought of sunshades as protecting the dash – more for keeping the interior cool on a hot day (and I bet this lovely example lacks AC and has vinyl seats, making it doubly necessary!)
Agreed, not to mention that those hard steering wheels were HOT when exposed to direct sun.
Ha! it never occurred to me that this one was still running!
The black lettering on the Iowa plate indicates that the car was replated in the last few months. Either the car just changed hands, or was just found behind someone’s house and gotten running again after standing for years.
Note then it’s from 1963 then the Valiant and the Dart (who replaced the Lancer as the compact model at Dodge) became a more serious cotender vs the Chevy II and the Ford Falcon (the Corvair was in a different league while the senior B-O-P compacts was on their last year before being replaced by the intermediate A-body).
It could be interesting to wonder what if Chrysler had introduced the design of the ’63 Valiant earlier?
Chrysler was almost always a day late and a dollar short.
What would be even more interesting than the ’63 Valiant coming out as the original in 1960 would be how it would have affected the styling of the ‘plucked chicken’ 1962 full-size Plymouths and Dodges since they were based on the 1960-62 Valiant.
If the styling of the 1962 full-size Plymouth had been based on the clean 1963 Valiant instead of the awkward 1960-62, history might have turned out quite a bit differently.
I will admit that I am loving this MostlyMopar week here at CC 🙂
Looks like what Laura Ingalls Wilder would drive…
at least it has trim,recent G M cars used “black chrome trim” which looked cheep. Saturn used no trim at all, they de bossed the word saturn into the cheep grey bumper
We don’t seem to have a very sympathetic group of comments here.
Forlorn? At 49 years of age many of you will no doubt have some rust spots too.
In defense of the ’64 parked outside in my driveway, let me say that real beauty is more than skin deep.
(Dont’ let ’em get you down Clem).
This 63 plymouth Valiant is my grandfathers car he had given me when I was 14 years old. He had gotten this car when i was 6 or 7 years old by a farmer in Cresco IA, he purchased it for get this $25! Last year we planned to start restoring it but my grandpa suffered a stroke and now diagnosed with alzheimer’s disease. I plan doing a full vehicle restoration and making it new again. As of now it only takes a little gas and it starts right up.