As I was driving out of the MG meeting I wrote about here (and here), I took a wrongful right instead of left at the end of the street, something I realized when I reached a dead end after some fifty meters. So, a three-point-turn was duly negotiated and as I was finally heading on my (right) way, I caught a very familier glimpse on the left, as you can witness from the dash-cam video above.
A bona-fida CC parked to the left, hidden behind the Hyundai IX35 and clearly having nothing to do with the aforementioned meeting I just left. This needs an up-close inspection. Time to park.
First look focuses on that nasty scratch-turned-dent on the front passenger door, but other than that it looks quite clean. Comparing it to other much younger car shapes around has you thinking how the world’s changed.
At the back the license plate reveals this car is an original import from 1973, plus you see the usual reflector strips mandatory in Israel on all cars older than 1995. The Hebrew emblem on the left says “A. Aharon’s Garage LTD.”. Notice how close the Valiant and the IX35 are parked next to each other…
… Which meant I could only photograph it from the Valiant’s right side. Here’s that nasty dent again, and it seems that the roof, including A and C pillars, was resprayed at some point.
Inside (in the failing evening light) it looks to be fairly common, nothing exiting or different- just the unavoidable marks of time and neglect.
And as usual for these cars, you can see the common holes that rust opens up in the body. I have no idea if this Valiant is parked outside at this spot regularly, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
Now there’s a fix for scratches, just paint over them with a brush. This reminds me of the “fixes” I used to do on my 1974 Firebird back in 1991. I was 19 and in the midst of my military service so access was limited to the same means of repair…
Last look of this Valiant is at the front, and I dare say it looks its best from this angle. Even the bumper seems to have been untouched.
In previous posts on CC I wrote that US made cars were mostly considered in Israel as more high-end than in the US, if for their size alone. The Plymouth Valiant (and its Dodge Dart brother, for that matter) was very successful in Israel, especially the”last” generation of this featured car (specific years would probably be 1969 to 1976). What was considered a compact car in the US was essentially a large car in Israel, and early Seventies cars would even serve high ranked IDF and police officers, no doubt spurring the public to purchase yet more Valiants. It was a good solution for people who wanted a large (for Israel) car, fitted with power-steering, automatic gear and perhaps other amenities such as power windows and/or locks – essentially an “executive” car (for lack of a better word), but were unable or unwilling to purchase German alternatives, which really, at that time, were the only rivals this car had.
As you might expect, survival rate of these cars (again, also their Dart brothers) was rather high, and many were photographed by myself at various classic meetings throughout the years. I will stick to Valiants in the coming photos, and leave the Darts for another post:
First two photos are of this 1969 Valiant, although I’m not entirely sure about that front bumper that carries huge overriders.
A later, 1972 Valiant “sporting” obviously not original two-tone paint. I believe this is the last year the difference between the Valiant and the Dart was clearly visible – especially looking at the car’s fascia.
On to 1973, as the featured car in this post, and at the front, the Valiant starts to look much like the Dart. The back will have to wait another year for the 5mph bumper, so the square Plymouth rear remains.
The two Valiants above are from 1974, and I think from this year on (until the end at 1976), an untrained eye will have a hard time distinguishing these from same model year Darts. What were once quite hansom cars were now transformed for the worse by those huge bumpers.
While still in 1974, I’ll include a photo of this Valiant Scamp with a somewhat modified paint job and some tasty wheels (with much fitting diameter). Well, basically a Dodge Dart Swinger as you know.
* Daniel at the comments corrects the model year to be from 1973, and I humbly agree.
I’ll finish off with this photo of another 1973 Valiant, much more neglected than the featured car of this post but at least, at true CC spotted near a curb and not at a car meeting. This was taken some years back, so who knows if it’s still there.
As an old A body guy, I could stare at these shots for hours. In the top car, I believe that it was originally a vinyl roof car (the chrome pieces at the bases of the A and C pillars were not on slicktop cars). The owner seems to have guessed wrong on the right color of beige when he went to paint the roof. Or maybe the mixing was off or the original had faded badly. It is clearly 2 different colors.
The 1974-76 Valiant sedan was actually a massive change which ditched the short 108 inch wheelbase body and took up the long 111 inch wheelbase Dart body. Both cars shared a common character line up through the front door but the short Valiant resolved it at the back with a sharp downward kink while the long Dart did so with a gentle indentation over the rear wheel well. Note also the much thicker “dogleg” between the rear wheel and rear door on the new-style red car. The Scamp hardtop was Dart all the way from the beginning (1971).
The lead car has the very same color interior that my 71 Scamp had – beige with a gold dash/wheel. What great cars, and I could see where these would have been good solutions in your country, really quite close in size and concept to the later model Studebaker Larks that had also been very popular there a decade earlier. Here they were seen as very good honest cars but lacking a bit in refinement.
A good explanation of the very subtle difference between the Valiant and Dart sedans through 1973. It’s not that hard to see where the difference came from, either. It’s readily apparent just by looking for the space between the front of the rear wheel wells and the rear doors. It’s where the 3″ went between the Valiant’s 108″ wheelbase and the Dart’s 111″ can be seen.
I know it shaved costs by merging the two models into a single body style but, still, it seems like it marked the beginning of the end for the Plymouth brand.
Honestly, I am not sure I would have really picked up on the differences between the Valiant and Dart had I not owned one. The different Chrysler lines had that problem a lot. Those different body lines became apparent to me only when I spent hours trying to get the subtle and complex contours right on the rear wheel lips of my Scamp when I was doing rust repair. The light bulb came on when I was in the junkyard looking for better rear wheel lip moldings and realized that pre-74 Valiant sedan pieces would not fit but Dart sedan pieces would.
Thanks very much for the explanation – this will have me searching for the “dogleg” whenever I’ll see a Valiant from now on…
That’s a ’73—note the rear bumper configuration.
A correction was inserted in the post, thanks.
I still see these around in Cape Town but so many of them got drafted into the metered taxi business later in life, and were still tootling around into the 1990’s, a guaranteed life shortening exercise. The Valiant was considered a great tough car and would make a cool offbeat classic today.
I rode in a Valiant taxi in Cape Town in 2001. I was shocked to see it in South Africa. Later found a musician named Valiant Swart leading me to believe the car had a deeper history in South Africa.
In the late 1960s-early 1970s the Valiant was the best selling car in South Africa. Around 1972 they switched to the Aussie Valiant body and sales dropped. https://www.allpar.com/world/south-africa.html
In the mid 70s I had a 2 door version of the yellow Valiant pictured. Mine was a top-of-the-range Signet (as the yellow car appears to be), a sedan with pretentious of being a hardtop. My car even had (faux) bucket seats up front, with white upholstery and green carpets (to match the bottle green exterior).
One tough “little” car.
Was it US-spec? I think the Signet’s last year was 1969, with the 2-door sedan’s swan-song being 1970.
From 1971 forward, all US Valiant 2-doors were simply Dart Swinger hardtops with a Valiant doghouse and ‘Scamp’ emblems.
I would argue that the Duster is what replaced the basic 2 door sedans, as the Duster was still on the short 108 inch wheelbase. The great swap was Dodge getting the Duster (Demon/Dart Sport) and Plymouth getting the Swinger (Scamp).
I believe you are correct. I’d forgotten about the Duster and cannot find a single reference or image of a 1970 Plymouth Valiant 2-door sedan. 1969 must have been the last year for it. I only thought it might have existed as Plymouth’s 1970 low-rent answer to the Dart Swinger.
Yeah, when the 1970 Duster proved to be a runaway success, it was a no-brainer for Dodge to get their version in 1971. Plymouth getting their version of the Dodge Dart Swinger in exchange hardly seemed like a fair trade-off.
Great cars. I haven’t been in one for over 30 years but I have nothing but good memories of the ones that I owned.
The mismatched Dodge/Plymouth wheel openings is strong in this post. I much prefer the original Valiant body, even beyond that cost saving blemish, the roofline looks a little more light and airy compared to the Dart body’s more chunky C pillar.
It’s a shame the F-body ever happened, by the end of the 70s with cars like the Fairmont representing a “new” “European” style, this core bodyshell could have passed as totally contemporary with very modest updates, and avoided all the perils and recalls that sunk the company.
I give Chrysler a pass on the Aspen/Volaré. The A-body sedan had been without anything other than grille and taillight changes since 1967, and by the mid-seventies, it looked it. With GM and Ford having brand-new (at least on the surface) compacts for 1975, well, Chrysler really didn’t have a lot of choice. In that market, I can’t imagine the basic A-body going forward, even with drivetrain advances like the lock-up torque converter.
As it was, if it weren’t for the half-baked F-body’s introduction, it might not have fared nearly as badly. When the bugs were ironed out, it wasn’t that bad of a car (as the follow-up M-body would show) but the damage had been done.
This post, with all the photos of these Valiants, makes me want one again…and in my years, I’ve had several of them (no Dodge Darts but if one turned up, I wouldn’t say NO to it!)
I always love your pictures, Yohai, and the lead-off car was an awesome find. I love the context you provide of your finds (especially in this case), given that these were considered higher-end cars in Israel.
I’ll agree with JP and Matt that the early Valiants had an exceptionally clean shape. I’ve never appreciated the non-Duster/Dart Sport A-Bodies as much as I do in 2018.
Great post – thank you.
Thanks, it’s greatly appreciated.
:thumbs-up:
And once again, thanks for all your comments.
🙂
I owned a dark green 1973 Valiant 4 door (with no options on the window sticker) for a time many years ago. It was purchased new by my father-in-law. It had less than 100K miles on it but already had bar stock welded to the crossmember and torsion bar anchors due to rust.
About a year after I bought it, the 198 C.I. slant six started making a knocking noise. After tearing into it, the crankshaft had a substantial groove worn in the thrust bearing face. The crankshaft has so much end play that the flywheel bolts were hitting the back of the block casting which was the knocking noise I heard.
I bought a crank kit for it and it ran fine until I sold it.
Very nice post! A couple of questions:
If the Valiant/Dart was considered a large car, was there a presence at all of larger B or C models?
That is an interesting point you made about Israeli buyers being understandably reluctant to purchase German cars. Is that still the case at all?
Yes, but those were for the filthy rich or government officials. As for German cars, way back then there were still a few people who lived through WWII in Israel; a lot of those did not buy German on principle. Also, big German cars of the time were very sensitive to the “wrong” kind of maintenance and proper maintenance was a lot more expensive than the equivalent US-made car. The advantages of the Germans were not that obvious during those pre-malaise era. Nowadays it’s all very different – the best selling US “cars” are the big pickups and the muscle cars… If you want a performance sedan, you buy German or Japanese. Cadillacs are for eccentrics.
So I’ve heard that Israeli (high) government officials at the time often rode around in Mopar A-body cars, even prime ministers such as David Ben-Gurion or Golda Meir. Was this true?
In the 1960s-1970s they rode in Mpoar B bodies, specifically in Dodge Polaras of various model years.
Here’s Golda Meir near one, this was taken in the 1960s when she was foreign minister:
The big Plymouth, Dodge and Chrysler were the C body. The GM counterpart was B body in GM-speak. Chrysler’s B body was the Satellite/Coronet (which lined up to the GM A body Chevelle, Cutlass, etc.). Chrysler’s A-B-C was one size down from GM’s A-B-C.
Right you are, thanks for the correction.