There was a time when the late-60s/early-70s Dodge Dart/Plymouth Valiant sedan was the generic automobile in the United States, possibly the most invisible car on American roads. Swimming-pool blue and this queasy shade of green were the most common colors, and the cars were so cheap to maintain that they survived in everyday use much longer than most of their peers. You don’t see the old A-bodies so much these days, but enough remain that they continue to show up in big self-service wrecking yards. Here’s one that I saw in Northern California last week.
So far in this series, we’ve seen this ’60 Valiant wagon, this ’61 Valiant, this ’63 Dart, this ’64 Valiant wagon, this ’67 Valiant, this ’66 Dart, this ’68 Valiant Signet, this ’73 Valiant, this ’75 Duster, and this ’75 Dart, this ’75 Dart, and now today’s ’72 Valiant. Slant-6 engine, like most of them.
Plenty of indicators that this Valiant’s last owner was a young guy.
Back in the early 1970s, AM radio offered some decent music, but now it’s tough to find much other than right-wing talk radio and religious sermons in Cantonese.
From what I can tell, Driven Blackout is the Advance Auto house brand of car air-freshener.
This Valiant was on pace to hit 500,000 miles when this happened.
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Olive, my sister had one just like this in the early ’70s. The car’s name was Olive and you just couldn’t kill Olive, God knows my sister tried
The 70s were ruled by a triumvirate of colors that were slathered on cars, as well as kitchen appliances: Puke Green. P1ss Yellow. Shiat Brown. To this day I cringe when I see pictures of my mother’s kitchen, circa 1975, with the shiat brown stove/fridge combo and the puke green breadbox and similarity painted metal containers marked, ‘sugar, flour, coffee, tea’ sitting on the Formica counter top, set against the oh so classy dark wood paneling.
I never watched That 70s Show, I lived it.
/Thank Dog the 70s are over.
Don’t forget orange! My grandparents’ house had all that junk in the kitchen when I was a kid. Wood paneling in the den, and a CB radio setup too.
I’m looking forward to when we look back on things like iphones, tablets, granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances, roll our eyes up and wonder, “what were they thinking?”
Even more thought provoking will be what we’ll have then to make these things look lame
“This Valiant was on pace to hit 500,000 miles when this happened.”
Looks like it hit a telephone pole first!
That’s what I meant by “this.”
The styling was just awful, but those slant six motors would survive any amount of ridiculous punishment and just keep going. I once saw a guy do one of the longest (distance, not time) burnouts with a slant six Valiant I’d ever seen. It was with one tire, admittedly, but one heck of an effort.
I wouldn’t call it awful, but more appropriate for 1962 than 1972. By the 1970’s, the Dart’s styling was very long in the tooth.
I think the styling was contemporary for the time when this body was introduced in the late 60s and the subsequent updates kept it from looking out of place until the mid-70s. That being said, I don’t find it offensive, just plain.
The sheet metal maybe, but the flat side windows were dated by then. Most non-bargain-basement cars had gone to curved side and rear glass in the mid-60s.
The Dodge Dart and Plymouth Valiant adopted curved side glass for 1967, according to the sources I’ve found.
Agreed. A better choice to call it “dated”.
The fuselage styling of the 69-73 full-sized and 71-76 mid-sized Mopars never trickled down to the compact Dart/Valiant though it could be seen in particularly the tumblehome and rear quarter of the Duster/Demon.
I beg to differ on the styling. At least for the 70/71 (of which this one is one, I’m sure), the styling was terrific. It was clean and crisp, and had artistic integrity. they were exceptionally durable, the slant six was very peppy, and got very good gas mileage for the era. My parents bought one on my advice when I was 17 and my sister was 7. She remembers thinking at the time that the car felt like it would last a very long time (her other thought was, “oh, no, not another white car”). It was still going when she graduated from college.
I agree.
The Valiant/Dart twins were so much better than its contemporaries, especially the Maverick.
The AMC Sportabout was also nicely done.
ANY AMOUNT. We were poor. Lived in Montreal. Had a ’71 Dart with rubber floor mats and slant six. Did have a block heater. Added a quart of oil when the oil warning light was glowing all the time, not just when going around a curve. The car just ran. Started at -30F. It just ran. Forever. With no maintenance. You could fit a whole band, amps, drum set, people in one (and those were tube amps – big and heavy). You could cruise the 401 all day at 70mph. Never failed. Never rusted out either, and they salted the heck out of the roads. It did get good mileage for the time.
The money saved owning that Dart was probably a major factor in lifting my family from upper poverty to lower middle class in the ’70’s. I would buy another if they sold them new.
That blue bulb inside the left front turn signal is additional evidence that whoever had this car last was a real mental giant.
Ten bucks says the last owner had some scary tattoos… and I’ll bet her boyfriend had them too
LOL…no doubt.
My best laugh of the day so far!
I noticed the bulb too, just like the last generation Eclipse had in the back.
The owner appears to have gotten all his/her cultural identity from PepBoys. It makes me wonder which kind of hub caps he chose.
My grandpa still had one of these in the early 80’s identical to this one. Had an unmistakable smell to it. Remember when every make of car had its own distinct interior odor?
Ah I do… the smell of old volvos comes to me.
You can still smell the interior of 1990s Hondas on their owners, even when they aren’t in their cars. In the summer, I always get a good waft of them when they drive by. It’s by far the strongest smell of any car I’ve been around.
VW’s have a smell to them.
Hondas through about 05 I’ll say, did as well.
I for one lament the efforts in recent years to reduce the “new car smell” in vehicles due to fears of toxic off-gassing. Whenever I get a new car, I want it to reek of newness.
My theory is that the vaporized organic solvents in “new car smell” make it easier for the F&I guy to convince people to sign up for the paint protection package and VIN etching.
I want to be first in line for any new car that huffing it’s “newness” would make me feel so good that I would willing agree to dealer added BS
That would be right up there with a new DMC that included a couple of ounces of cocaine in the glove box to seal the deal
We had a ’71 Demon in our family. It was the Dodge version of the Plymouth Duster and was as basic as it gets–rubber floor instead of carpet, vent boxes under the dash for fresh air that were always full of leaves, and the indomitable Slant 6.
That car has been gone from our family for almost 30 years. I’d like to think it’s still out there.
Back in ’87 a female friend would drive one of these–same color, too. Pretty girl, she’d drive barefoot with one foot on the dash, and no seatbelt (not that anyone wore seat belts then–but the one foot on the dash was a neat trick).
Grand Theft Auto sticker? Hmmmmm.
Don’t forget the Newport pack inside.
The sticker is centered properly. That means something.
That might explain the telephone pole….
Kids, this is why you don’t act like your Plymouth is a Cognoscenti, OK?
The only American car that the APA recommended.
Unbreakable engine. A Chrysler transmission that was reliable. Seating for 6 in a smallish package.
In Canada I believe that bilious green and defecation brown were the preferred colours.
What more could you want? One of these would be the perfect alternative to the brown, diesel, manual wagon that we either can’t find or afford.
I would like to add an early 70’s, 2 door to my dream garage with the license plate BUNDY.
Were they ever available as a wagon? I can’t recollect any but it would seem a no brainer to make that style as they did have 2 and 4 doors with multiple engine packages.
No A-body wagons. You’d have to go to the later F/M/J bodies to get yourself an Aspen/Volare wagon. That should be close enough for the same net effect.
Thanks for the corroboration regarding wagons. You would think that a wagon version would be a top seller. Does anyone know why they never put one on the market?
The Dart/Valiant built an enviable reputation for durability and reliability.
The Aspen/Volare on the other hand built a reputation for the opposite.
What about this Valiant wagon? Dropped from the model range in 1967, according to the article.
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/05/the-ultimate-curbside-classic-a-body-1965-plymouth-valiant-daily-long-distance-driver/
My bad, I restricted my statement to this body style/generation.
South Africa had a station wagon/estate called the Valiant Safari if I remember correctly, because I pulled the motor and auto box out of a smashed one to put in a D100 truck. I think it was made about 1974 but it was very large and green. Valiants were very popular there and regarded as unbreakable. I was checking on this and an Australian said the S.A. one was made there from the front of one model and the back of another model – see http://www.stationwagonforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16901
Almost the same dimensions as a 1970 Mercedes 280S.
Except the Merc could only seat 5.
Sadly only the ’59-’66 Valiant/Dart cars offered a wagon body style; with the ’67 models, your Mopar wagon cravings could only be filled by the B-body behemoths.
Wagons got the heave-ho from other compacts of the era. The Nova wagon was dropped for the 68 redo and the Falcon wagon was dropped after 70 though it did share a platform with mid-sized Fairlane. There was no Maverick/Comet wagon though one would have been neat slotted between a Pinto and Torino. AMC kept the compact wagon market to itself with the Sportabout.
Those spark plug cables look like HDMI cables.
I thought that too, ha.
Cat 5e will make my Slant-6 go faster, right?
Really like these Junkyard Finds, particularly the older and more vanilla cars. Looking at this and the ’82 Fairmont Futura earlier this week, these seem almost impossibly big compared to the Escorts and Cortinas which were similarly ubiquitous cars on our side of the Atlantic in the 70s and 80s.
These days, the size difference between our bestselling cars and your best selling cars is much smaller.
Our best-selling vehicles are now full-size pickup trucks, which are the new behemoths. The top two selling vehicles in this country are the Ford F-Series and Chevrolet Silverado, with Chrysler’s Ram pickup usually finishing among the top seven.
Good night that front seat is trashed, don’t know that I’ve ever seen one that bad from just plain wear. (not counting those that were set on fire or left outside). Must be the complete poverty spec car, just a little bit of foam over the springs, I’m hurting just thinking about it.
This one is ripe for a Last Rides story. Can’t wait.
looks like the party ended after running into either a fire hydrant or one of those big red balls outside of Target !
Best and most reliable car ever made to date! The slant six is indestructible. Too bad Chrysler only makes junk now.
So many ways to debate this. There are tons of Chryslers and other makes on the road today that are ten years old and older, have 100,000 or even 200,000+ miles on them. They are safer, get better fuel economy, and have features you could only dream off in the 1960s-1970s; plus the good stuff like power steering, A/C, AM/FM radio, power doors and locks all standard.
Yes, they may be suffering from clear-coat failure, the inside looks scratched and faded, and the electricals are getting wonky; but what is there to go wrong or fall apart on this example? Someone already mentioned how bad the seats look.
Yes, there are still the occasional lemons, and today’s more complicated cars do not absorb neglect and abuse as well as these tanks did. But to call them junk is just flat wrong.
Yup damn those unreliable million mile pickup trucks, today’s Dodge dart swinger
My former boss and his college buddies in Colorado had a slant six Chrysler, probably a Dart/Valiant; I think for a summer when they were in college together.
When college was over and it was time to go home, they had the bright idea to drive it off a cliff; thinking it would burst into flames just like in the movies. My boss had the job of starting it rolling, then placing a brick on the pedal, then jumping out.
Not only did it not explode; but once it reached the bottom, the slant six continued to run even though the radiator was busted. So they just beat it up with rocks and sticks, while the motor itself eventually died.
All of which reminds me of when Chrysler drove one of their Airflows off of a cliff, then drove it away to prove how strong the body was. There were dents and cracked glass, but that was it.
Ah the slant six….
Never ran well…intake plenum with various lengths and the one barrel toilet bowl carb…with that said it was a rare day to find one that would NOT run well enough to propel the car forward with enough gusto to at least maintain city driving speeds.
Had a buddy in HS with the same green (73′ dart), it was weird we all had faster cars when they ran, but he was always available to take us the parts store or pick n pull. In his dart. The energizer bunny of cars/drivetrains.
That intake manifold was actually a huge advantage over the log manifolds and integrated manifolds of the competition.
The worst probably had to be the Ford 200/250. Such a gutless lump of iron.
Slappnnutts95 was a griefer.
“I need to get the fu$k up outta here.”, Slappnnutts thought as he dutifully constructed another Royal burger. He looked up at the clock, yelling “Damn!” His paper hat kept sliding off of his ‘fro, irritating him further. “Relax.”, Michael told him, slamming more beef on the hot griddle stylistically. “You’ll be home with a controller in your hand before you know it. Plenty of time left in the day to spend in front of your TV with your geek piece in your ear.” The snide comment only served to enrage Slappnnutts further. He responded, “Bit#h, it ain’t even about that.”, and downplayed other comments accusing him of being a gamer. But it was most definitely “about that”. Slappnnutts haphazardly placed a pineapple slice atop the patty as the cartoon robin seemed to mock him from the burger construction flowchart. Visions of the last time he played GTA filled his head. He giggled as he remembered the words coming up on the bottom left of the screen, filling him with delight “The mugger sent by Slappnnutts85 was successful.” This was followed by a highly perturbed voice of some newb yelling “Stop it Slapnuts! I never did anything to you!” Michael noticed him just staring off into space, giggling. He shook his head, bewildered.
His shift over, Slappnnutts emerged into the Newpark Mall. As he walked through the gauntlet of the Macy’s perfume department, the smell of boutique scents merged with the stink of a days worth of gourmet burger fumes. “Can’t wait to be out of these clothes.”, he thought, grabbing the unlocked handle of the battered Plymouth. With a swift jab to the gas pedal in unison to the twist of the key, the ol’ Slant roared to life. He quickly cued a Newport in his lips and worked the column lever. Slappnnutts made the right out of the mall and then slapped the gas pedal to the firewall to merge onto the Nimtz Freeway. Traffic was heavy. He spotted the faintest gap, backed off the throttle and established his dominance over the oncoming Lexus RX. The woman behind the wheel of the Lexus was enraged. Slappnnutts sensed her swift lane change and speed match, and expected a broadside of spite. He didn’t give a F, doe. The woman backed off anyway when she saw that the appearance of the Valiant’s helmsman resembled an Eazy-E Lite. “Yeh, that’s what I thought.”, Slappnnutts mumbled over the roar of the six and concert of metal on metal squeaks.
Slappnnutts exited onto Decoto with the quickness. He made the right, catching the light perfectly. Such things were a blessing with the Valiant. It maintained it’s energy, simply making a swift downshift to get back up to speed. The green slab approached Paseo Padre Parkway at the speed of haste. Slappnnutts noticed the light changing to red, it just didn’t register. He had blasted through many red lights…in the game. In the back of his absent mind, he was thinking, just watch out for cross-traffic to keep the Turismo R looking sharp. A BMW emerged from the right, and startled him back to reality. Slappnnutts’ heart skipped a beat as he swerved in front of it. The swift actions on the part of the BMW kept them from becoming a swirling ball of sheetmetal.
Slappnnutts whipped the right of the steering wheel down, the Valiant lost it’s front grip immediately, and maintained it’s course into the light pole. Slappnnutts grimaced, and then was relieved when the pole broke away as designed at the base after demolishing the Plymouth’s maw, just like in the game. The huge pole then fell to the ground behind him in a horrendous aluminum clatter. His foot still buried in the brake pedal, Slappnnutts wrenched for control of the useless wheel. The car skidded to the side in the grass, and was arrested by an electrical box that was jarred off of it’s concrete base by the impact.
“Hooooly Sh%t!”, said Slappnnutts as dust and dried grass wafted into the passenger window. He noticed the very expensive looking light pole laying on the ground that he had just laid waste to. He expected a horde of aghast onlookers to rush to the scene. There was nobody. Even the BMW guy had left to go on with his business. He decided to get out, placing the shifter in park, and leaving the engine running. His butt pillow followed him out of the door, and fell next to the humming electrical box. “Fu&k.”
“So then what did you do?”, Michael asked.
“I got back in the car, and got the fu&k up outta there. Ain’t paying for all that sh*t.”, replied Slappnnutts, while grabbing pickles.
“It was still running?!”, countered Michael, amazed.
“Yeah man, that thing was a tank! I found an Interceptor now, but she a bucket.”
He’s exactly the kind of d-bag that has a Turismo R in chrome/black, with red wheels.
Too bad I’ll get where we’re going faster in my Granger, cause he’ll crash on every rock and flip over while hitting the curbs on the way there.
And my Granger is brown.
Take the Granger to the race I made, “Family Truckster TwinLoop”.
BTW, my PSN is Crabspirits.
You can play with me and Slappnnuts.
I’ll add you next time I power up the PS4. Haven’t been on there this weekend.
I am CoreyDL-
Two thumbs up once again, CrabSpirits.
I keep swearing you must be Carl Hiaasen. :-P
Slap Nuts?
And here I thought that was just some insane nonsense catchphrase Jeff Jarrett had.
Great story! “Slappnnuts”–hilarious!
Excellent !
This is probably only the second toughest Plymouth Valiant in history…this has got to be the winner:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65gGrnprCwU
Well, at least Steven Spielberg thought so, anyway.
AHA!! I knew I wouldn’t be the first one to make a Duel reference!
Howard Stern drives one like this in the movie Private Parts. Apparently he owned one like it during his early days in radio which were the mid-late 70’s.
Could someone shed some light on why the Slant-6 has such a reputation for longevity, but reliability in LeMons races is middle-of-the-road? Is it due to oil starvation in the corners? High revs? It seems like these would be common reasons for just about all non-race spec engines.
Much like its Buick 3800 successor, it was a reasonably sturdy if plodding engine that was very unlikely to ever be driven in anger, or even mild agitation.
Any Valiant/dart that is still going is at least 40 years old. If 40-plus year old cars are doing middle-of-the-road in Lemons races I’d say that’s pretty d@mn good. I’m guessing that the average Lemons car is not much more than half their age. (There were some later slant sixes in Volares and Aspens, but those, and the slant sexes in the latest Valiant/Darts (’73-’75, I think) were compromised by new anti-smog equipment.)
Great, now I need to make some popcorn, and search netflix for “Duel”
We had the Valiant name here in Australia. It was the name used by Chrysler at the time, like Holden or Ford.
We had the Pacer, Regal and Charger. The Charger with the 265 and triple DCOE sidedraught Webbers in the E49 version was the quickest 6 cyl globally until Porsche came out with the flat turbo six.
It was a very good looking muscle car of it’s time. Able to beat many so called V8 muscle cars of the era. Not a bad effort from a 6 cyl.
This Plymouth Valiant looks very similar to one of our Valiants from the late 60s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Valiant
My mom bought a white 1969 Valiant 100. It was almost indestructible, even surviving my drivers license until I didn’t keep close track of my pants at a party and someone killed it on a fire hydrant. Try explaining that to your mom.
Thanks Murilee.
Great memories: had one of these after graduation in the Bronze Age when I had no pot to piss in, nor a window to throw it out of.
Nothing bad to say about this car whatsoever; got the job done.
I did most of my learning to drive in a ’73 Valiant or a Dart “Swinger”, a very odd name for a very boring car. The ones I drove all had 318 engines and were pretty well equipped with A/C and a AM/FM radio, etc. And none of them were this horrible green, most were black and I think one was blue. Due to my parents waning to delay me getting my license until I was 17, I took dozens and dozens of 2-4 hour lessons, a lot of them involved the instructor picking me up from school at 2pm, asking me where I wanted to go, and then going to some way out town I barely had heard of, and him buying me dinner, and then going home afterwards. He said he would be happy to let my parents buy all the lessons they wanted. When my dad wrecked his car and couldn’t drive any more, I got my license the next morning, taking the test in one of the black Swingers.
I never found the looks of these cars offensive, dated but I liked the styling. As for an affordable compact car that would last and do everything that it was intended for these cars checked all the boxes. As for what replaced the Dart/Valiant, Aspen/Volaire were horrible.
Before I got my license, my girlfriend at the time had a ’74 2-door, similar to this one. She let me drive her around it it… one foggy, damp morning, I hit the brakes at a yellow light, and the back end swung around in a sudden and unexpected 180. Now when I hear “Swinger”, it reminds me of how bad the shocks were and how the car would suddenly swing around if you hit the brakes. Fortunately there were no other cars nearby at the time!
Hey, it’s not “swimming pool blue,” the official term was “powder blue.” Or maybe it was “robin’s egg blue,” now I can’t remember…
Powder Blue is a great Ween song.
I’m surprised at how well that car seems to have taken the collision. It’s hard to tell from the pics but was there much damage from the accident aside from that corner?
Ahhh… the old slant six Valiant/Dart. The thing just never broke (except for its water pump). I wonder why Chrysler never used its platform (or at least its engine) to make a light pick up or panel van?
I think the old Dodge A100 van might have been based on it . . . it at least had the slant six.
They did not use the A body car as the basis of the A series van. Ford also did not use the Falcon Platform as the bases of the Falcon Station Bus/Econoline. Yes they both offered the same 6cyl engines that were offered in the cars but that doesn’t mean they used any of the platform.
Now the Corvan was based on the Corvair and of course like the Corvair it proved to be a pretty poor seller and they quickly copied the Ford recipe.
I’m pretty sure the A-series/Chevy Van/Econoline at least used the complete driveline of the Valiant/Nova/Falcon and maybe some suspension components…
The vans used an I Beam suspended by leaf springs up front while the cars used coil or torsion bar IFS. Outback they all used leaf spring suspended solid axles but at least on the Fords and Dodges the axles were not the exact same unit though they certainly shared some parts. The basic transmissions were shared but like engines that is something that manufacturers often share across different models.
It is akin to saying that a C10 is derived from the Impala because they are both powered by the SBC and both could be had with a powerglide.
@Scoutdude: Chevrolet sold a lot of Corvairs.
In today’s world the Corvair sales numbers would be more than acceptable but by the standards back then for a brand like Chevy it was a poor seller. It was also a poor seller compared to the Falcon and Valiant. Ditto for the Corvan and Greenbrier compared to the offerings from Ford. Which of course is why they rushed the Chevy II and Chevy Van to market.
In the mid-90s I had a friend that was driving a ’63 Valiant (it was a Colorado rust-free car). I don’t recall the mileage but it sure looked original in decent shape.
Great story Crab ! .
These were truly Roach Roaches in every sense of the words .
Not beautiful maybe but always , _always_ got the job done .
-Nate
Every time a Junkyard Find featuring a Mopar product is shown, I *always* see several LH cars (Intrepid, Concorde, et al) not too far away from the subject vehicle. It never fails. In this example, there’s two 1998-2004 Intrepids behind this Valiant, and it sits next to a 1993-97 Eagle Vision (the rarest of them all). Sad.
As a fan of the platform and a former owner of two LH vehicles which have been really great to me: a 1997 Concorde and, later, a 2004 Intrepid with the better 3.5 V6) I’m quite discouraged if not afraid about the reality: they’re slipping away. They’re great cars that look very nice if they’re looked after.
It seems like it is becoming a rare thing to see an LH on the road, first or second generation, and it’s been that way for about five years or so. As for the second-gen LH, they can’t all have the dreaded 2.7L engine. The transmissions will last with care.
Have the BHPH/Craigslist types taken possession of them all? If so, that explains why–BHPH cars are almost always one step away from the crusher, regardless if it’s a flimsy Hyundai or a sturdy Mercedes. Now they’ve moved on to the 300s, the Chargers and the Magnums–which will meet the same fate of a life cut short due to a lack of maintenance and care (oh well, I don’t like the LX as much as I do the LH).
I’d still have mine if the ’97 didn’t get totalled while parked on the street and the ’04 didn’t get traded for a Chrysler 200. I almost want to buy a gently used LH before they’re all gone, but I only have room in my garage for one car.
I can tell you from my junkyard experience that the Chrysler section is 80% K-derivatives, LH cars, and cloud cars, with about 10% Neons and the remaining 10% random stuff (the one I visit most frequently had two M-bodies and a f*cking Volare when I was there last).
I just saw my first picknpull Magnum, a V6 in running/driving condition without much wrong with it that was for sale out front for @$1800. No takers. http://row52.com/Vehicle/Index/2D4GZ47V87H636347
In Chicago it’s :
20%LH cars and 20%Clouds, then 20% K’s which are petering out. The bulk is now made up of a torrent of 30% PT Cruisers. I am watching them vanish from the road before my very eyes.
“30% PT Cruisers. I am watching them vanish from the road before my very eyes.”
Now that you mention it, these days I do see fewer of them holding up traffic in the left lane.
(I’m stereotyping.)
I see lots of cosmetically perfect PT’s in the Pick ‘N Save Junk Yards ~ apparently they have little resale value .
My buddy bought one when they first came out and pin striped it, did custom upholstery , custom exhaust on and on …. it was pristine right until the day the tranny died and he said it wasn’t worth fixing so off it went….
-Nate
The auto Transmission seems to be the main reason for all the Mopars in junkyards. They’re expensive to fix, if you can find somebody willing to work on them (and give you any kind of guarantee), and you can’t trust a junkyard one, since that’s why it’s there in the first place.