We are all subject to self-imposed rules, and one of mine is the “90% rule.” Through some swampy combination of genetics and environment, our temperaments are fixed at an early age, and any effort to fight them results in internal conflicts and phantom medical maladies. Therefore, if you try to be someone you’re not (as in straying more than 10% from your personal paradigm, hence the 90% rule), discomfort results. You can, however, be the best person you can be within your idiom, and that’s why I like this Valiant.
It hasn’t been that long since the sight of a ’65 Valiant would leave me puzzled. How, I complained, could anyone buy something so mundane when presented with the visual cornucopia that constituted that incomparable model year. There were Mustangs, Corvair Corsas, Rivieras, Comet Cyclones, Catalina 2+2s, Corvettes, BOP intermediates, and Impala Sport Coupes on dealer lots in 1965…and someone chose a Valiant?
Well, yeah. It was inexpensive, for one thing. There were Mopar people back then (for another), as there are now, and the Valiant is a clean example of a ’60s compact. It’s arguably less cluttered than a Falcon or a Comet, and at least as well-proportioned as a Chevy II. Few could claim that it’s anywhere near as attractive as a ’65 Corvair or a Mustang, but those cars have long been regarded as automotive art. So what changed my mind on the Valiant?
Clearly, it was the Dirty Dart (which is fundamentally a Valiant from the A-Pillar back): I became one of those people who were once the focus of my derision. Living with something for a while can change one’s views considerably, and the Dart is a reliable, slightly quirky old car. And as I mentioned before, it was inexpensive.
Our featured Valiant is a top-of-the-line Signet, which is the Plymouth equivalent of a Falcon Futura, a Nova, or a Corvair Monza. In essence, like the others, it’s a run-of-the-mill compact dressed up with bucket seats, a console, some fancy badging, and some sportier wheel covers.
These minor updates made a significant difference to the appearance of any of these compacts. Throw in a little extra trim on the dashboard and doors in the case of the Signet, and its almost vulgar cheapness becomes more akin to European minimalism. Sometimes, a little change or two makes all the difference.
To me, the exterior of Valiant Signet emits a pseudo-European compact vibe, perhaps because it eschews the extraneous trim one might expect from a fancier nameplate, and the trim that did make it past the drawing board is tasteful, such as the brightwork between the taillights. The sheetmetal stampings cleverly allowed other A-Body front clips to be affixed without modification, which made for an expedient Dart wagon. Plus, the Valiant is indeed fairly tidy for an American car, coming in at 188.2″ in length, about five inches longer than a Corvair.
I have a Swedish brochure for the 1965 Valiant line, and its moody illustrations fit the Valiant’s lines perfectly; one need not possess much imagination to picture a Valiant as a background extra in an Ingmar Bergman film from the era.
Unfortunately, the Signet’s clean lines and rugged Slant Six or LA-series V8 durability didn’t translate into groundbreaking sales, especially in the convertible line.
The availability of those previously-mentioned compacts certainly ate into potential sales of sportier Valiants, as evidenced by the sales numbers of convertibles in the segment.
Valiant Signet convertible: 2578
Mustang convertible: 101,945 (all versions, extended model year)
Falcon convertible: 6615 (Futura and Sprint combined)
Corvair convertible: 34,819 (Monza and Corsa combined)
Comet Caliente convertible: 6035
Even the hardtop Signet only sold 10,999 units, although the Barracuda certainly siphoned off some sales with its sportier image, selling 64,596 in 1965 (not a bad number until you compare it to the Mustang). Total Valiant sales were 167,153.
Clearly, the Signet had its hands full in 1965. But it’s honest and vaguely elegant, like we all should be when looking in the mirror. We are who we are, but I’ve become just a little bit better by reevaluating my relationship with 1965 Darts and Valiants. There’s nothing wrong with being practical, and the Signet manages to have a little fun while doing it.
P.S. One of the downsides of taking pictures of so many cars and writing for this website for over 10 years is the danger of covering the same ground. After finishing this one off, I realized I had hit upon a similar theme for a similar car back in 2014. Still, I hope you enjoy the lovely featured Signet.
A ’63 Valiant convertible I owned was not much different than the ’65. I don’t remember the trim level, but it was probably the lowest available as it had a completely manual top. I drove it regularly from SF to Monterrey weekly while attending language school in the Army and coming home only on weekends. It was a pleasant car to drive. Not much to look at, but stone cold reliable as Valiants were to become known for.
Like the idea of the “manual top”! My “twenty year old”, convert always worries me..lol
Oh but it’s a fun though!
A manual top is great; my Corvair has one, and it takes me less than a minute to roll down all the windows and get the top lowered.
A fancied-up Valiant seems like it would be a tough sell in 1965. The Barracuda was in the same showroom (albeit not with a convertible) and the Dodge dealer up the street would be happy to sell you a Dart GT drop-top for an insignificant amount over the Signet Convertible.
I rather liked the Dart’s protruding front and bulging headlights in ’63, but it got old pretty quickly, and by ’64 and especially by ’65 I’d have picked this Signet over the Dart. The Valiant’s proportions (and styling details) are right on; the Dart’s not so much so.
You are correct. The Dart had contemporary styling, and the Valiant had classic styling with a longer shelf life.
Chrysler had the best compact cars for the first 15 years. It was unfortunate that the first generation was so bizarre looking. The “leaning tower of power” was a great engine.
I will add/amend that slightly: the Dart’s longer front end worked pretty well with the longer rear end it also had on the sedans, coupes and convertibles, but looking at that picture of Aaron’s Dirty Dart shows that it’s out of proportion to the shorter station wagon body it shared with (and was clearly designed for) the Valiant.
I look at the Dart quite often (since I own it), and I’ve always thought the exact same thing: it has a bit of a proboscis.
In this case, looks are deceiving – the Dart is only 1.4 inches longer than the Valiant, although I don’t know how…It looks like so much more than that. Regardless, if I had to pick between a Valiant and a Dart wagon when new, I think (at this point in my life) I’d choose the Valiant because the proportions LOOK a little better. And I like the smaller taillights better.
I like your initial premise of you are who you are, but personally I prefer the Dart styling. The unit construction on both was far ahead of the Chevy II and somewhat ahead of the Comet/Falcon.
Didn’t the early Chevy II rip off the Falcon’s front end design? I noticed that when I was younger; I saw the shell of a fenderless Nova and thought that it looked almost identical to the undercarriage of my Mustang.
As the song 🎵 says, I am what I am! That is applicable to me and this Valiant Signet. Even at a young age, I loved the luxury liners and still do. But recall an advertising jingle, A Valiant Gives You Value with a capital V. IMO, Valiant was the best of the compacts. Is Signet a reference to Imperial Crown 👑? The rear end styling is very similar to 63 Imperial. The interior is luxurious for a compact. Another great example of Chrysler engenuity.
Nice car, many of the Valiants I see advertised locally are convertibles. Low initial production but much better survival rate, probably more likely to have been garaged and well kept.
Yes, I always keep looking for Valiants. I am who I am.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaalq3RYAyw?si=TeZFisQIUJ6pEM1j&w=560&h=315%5D
*Very* nice ! .
I think this is the same model A body as has my long time friend Brendan ~ his too is good looking, easy and comfy to drive and as reliable as an anvil .
-Nate
Of course the /6 and trans combo couldn’t be beat for reliability and durability, but styling sells sporty (and other!) cars and I’d take either the gorgeous Corvair, one of GMs best designs ever, or the ‘Stang, a modern American classic if ever there were one. A neighbor that my Dad used to commute with had a plain Jane 4 dr sedan ’65 Valiant in a boring beige, and that configuration to me really suited the true nature of that car. Cheap, dependable, functional, but definitely not sporty.
My favorite high school teacher drove one, red with a white interior and convertible top. It seemed a bit unusual then, the early Seventies. But not in a bad way. The other English teachers drove an older Beetle and a Saab 96.
I truly love this car! Without the V8 badging, it looks as if it has the ever-faithful 225 six in it, great combo for summer fun. I do often wonder why Plymouth didn’t slap a Barracuda grill on it and market it as a Barracuda convertible. They did this for the Mexican market, labeling it as the Acapulco.
Purty cool “factoid”!
I had no idea!
My first car was a ’65 Dart 4 door. After some poor experiences with other cars in the 90s-00s, I chose to go back. I have owned a ’63 Dart 270 ragtop since 2008.
I like the overall shape and especially the rear styling – as noted above, a miniature 63 Imperial. The front grille is a bit overdone. You didn’t see many of these Valiants in my area of northern IN when they were new. No doubt because the Dart was thought to be more “modern” and very popular – saw them everywhere. Both good cars for the time.
I am still kicking myself for not pulling the trigger in the late 80’s when a guy I knew tried to sell me his very presentable 64 Valiant convertible. His was a black car with red interior, and the classic 6/TF combo. It would have made a lovely little hobby car, far nicer than the 61 ThunderTurd I tried so hard to polish.
I guess my higher willingness to own one of these now says that I am comfortably in my 90% now.
You are NOT lying about preferring a Valiant/Dart to a T-Bird. Sure, the T-Bird is more glamorous, but the Valiant is so much better as a hobby car.
I’m sold on this Valiant, Aaron – thank you for this concise presentation of its virtues and the overall automotive landscape of the day. I see the vaguely European minimalism thing you described, even if it’s nowhere as pronounced as with a Corvair. It’s still there.
Another reason I like this Valiant Signet is the same reason you alluded to – it’s just not a common site, having been clobbered in sales by the cars you mentioned. I love all of those Chrysler micro-touches all over this car’s styling.
As far as your longevity at this site (I’m not far behind you), think about it this way. If you said something similar about a similar car, it only means that your thought process is that much more authentic and reliable. Sometimes, I’ll read a rerun of a piece ready to comment, scroll through the old comments, and see that Inwss going to say almost the exact same thing as I had like eight years ago. To me, that’s comforting.
Great, little piece.
Thank you, Joe.
I usually look at the comments on an old post and agree with past me’s take on a subject, but occasionally I’ll wonder how much bourbon I had that day. My lovely bride often mentions that I’ve mellowed out a ton over the last 10 years, which is one of the benefits of middle age.
So, I’m still me, which is nice, but perhaps a better version than I was before. Another benefit of CC – time traveling to see where your head was back in 2013, 2014, 2015………
I have a thing for this generation of Valiants and Darts, likely stemming from the fact that my parents owned 1964 and then 1966 Dart wagons when I was young. Looking back, it definitely fits my father’s sensibilities to a tee, as Aaron65 has so ably described here.
This Valiant convertible in beautiful condition seems to strike all the right early-mid-Sixties styling cues to my eye, though I agree with Paul above that the Dart looks best as a Sedan. These would have been an easy sale to me had I been of age back when it was new, as the Chevy II never did much for me, and, while I liked the Falcon, the Valiant/Dart seem more a more sensible compromise in terms of size and power, especially in six-cylinder form.
Wow, two Dart wagons! What did your parents move on to after that? They must have been disappointed when the Dart/Valiant wagons were cancelled after ’66, even though it made some sense. A Coronet wagon wasn’t that much more expensive and it was quite a bit roomier.
This Valiant is so much more interesting to look yet compared to the shoe boxes that came afterwards in 1967.
My late cousin had his grandfather’s 1965 Dodge Dart 270 wagon, a kin to the Dirty Dart. I removed the heads from the 273 to have them rebuilt, and put them back. Years later helped remove the entire engine for a rebuild and put it back, too. Had he told me he was selling it (his wife, who is a BMW groupie, thought it was ugly), I would have snapped it up! But sadly, no…though by now in my hands, it would have outlived more than one of their BMWs.
That’s a heartbreaker! A 273 version of my Dart would be about perfect, even with a 2-barrel, and the 270 had a little nicer interior.
It’s interesting that BMW has finally come up here in the comments, since I can see a definite early 1960s BMW Neue Klasse vibe coming off of the front end of the Signet, definitely a pseudo-European thing. It’s particularly evident in the lede front-end photo.
It’s an attractive car to me. I’d gladly have one for its size and simplicity.
You’re not wrong, Jeff.
Those were the cars I always saw blue oil burning smoke coming out of the exhaust. I wasn’t sure if it was the slant 6 or the bigger V8 318? All Chrysler’s that I saw were oil burners. The Newport or Monaco’s didn’t. It just seemed the basic models up to mid models.
I own a 1962 plymouth Valiant Signet.
Sitting in my barn for 25 years.
I own a 1962 Plymouth Valiant Signet, 2 door hardtop with a slant 6 pushbutton automatic.
Sitting in my barn for the past 25 years.
My first car was a 15 year old 1955 plymouth to commute to high school and onto college. The halfway through college upgraded to a 64 Valiant hardtop with slant 6 and pushbutton AT and bucket seats. Both reliable and economical cars with little fanfare . I still own a 55 Plymouth but keep looking for 63-65 Valiant because it was fun and simple.