Junkyard Find: 1964 Plymouth Valiant V-200 Sedan
We haven't seen a 1960s Chrysler A-Body Junkyard Find since 2014, so the time seemed right to share this well-preserved '64 Valiant V-200 sedan that I spotted recently in a Denver-area boneyard.
Chrysler sold Valiants in North America from the 1962 through 1976 model years, with the sales of the Down Under versions continuing through 1981. The Valiant's Dodge-badged sibling on our shores was the 1960-1962 Lancer, then the 1963-1976 Dart.
Not every Valiant sold here was a Plymouth. Valiant was a separate marque for 1960 and 1962-1963 (though it was sold through Plymouth dealers) and then became a Plymouth model for good in 1964. Chrysler did the same thing with the Imperial over the decades, so perhaps it was a corporate tradition.
Valiant logos are all over the place.
In 1964, the Valiant was available in three trim levels: the stripped-down V-100, the mid-grade V-200, and the somewhat luxurious Signet.
The list price on this car was $2,044, or about $19,713 in 2022 dollars. The very cheapest possible '64 Valiant was the V-100 two-door sedan, which started at $1,921 ($18,526 today).
The interior in this one is in distressingly nice condition. These bucket seats and their tall headrests came from a much later car, of course, but the door panels and carpeting are original and look great.
The paint is faded, the body is a bit dinged-up, and there's some rust in the usual spots. Still, it wouldn't have taken much to clean this car up… if anyone cared to restore a cheap mid-1960s Detroit compact with four doors.
This car's owner or owners took good care of it for most of its 58 years.
Still has the original hubcaps.
The engine is a member of the incredibly sturdy Slant-6 family. 1964 was the first model year in which the factory would install a V8 engine in your new Valiant (a 273-cubic-incher rated at 180 horsepower).
In 1964, the base engine was a 170-cubic-inch Slant-6 with 101 horsepower. This appears to be the optional 225-cubic-inch version, with 145 horses. Of course, we could be looking at a 225 air cleaner from some other Chrysler, and this could be the 11th engine swapped into this car during its life; I wasn't feeling sufficiently ambitious to check block casting numbers, sorry.
Most of these cars got the very affordable three-on-the-tree column-shift manual transmission, but this one has the optional three-speed Torqueflite automatic. The price tag: $172, or around $1,659 now. If you wanted a four-on-the-floor manual, the cost was $180 ($1,736 today).
This Prozac pen will join the car at The Crusher.
Perhaps this car would have had a shot at avoiding this fate in the Rust Belt, but things didn't work out for it in Colorado.
Here's a dealership promotional filmstrip presentation.
Even wins over Ebenezer Scrooge!
[Images by the author]
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Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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Not a 64.
Did you do any research before submitting this article? The car you are showing is a 1966 Valiant.