1962 Plymouth Fury

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Curbside Classic: 1961-1962 Plymouth Valiant – No One's Kid Brother

Nice article on an often overlooked car.

The Valiant’s styling didn’t help sales, but there were other factors that hampered its ability to compete in the marketplace.

The first was its build quality, which was the worst of the compacts on the market. Chrysler had major problems with body fit and inconsistent build quality in this era. A driver taking his or her Valiant out in the rain could expect to find puddles – or even pools – of water in the trunk or back seat floor.

The second was how Chrysler marketed the Valiant in 1960. It was marketed simply as the Valiant – not the Plymouth Valiant. People didn’t know how to react to it, or where it stood in the corporate lineup. At least the Falcon was the Ford Falcon, and the Corvair was the Chevrolet Corvair. Buyers knew where to find those cars, and where they stood in their respective divisional lineups.

Chrysler also took away the Plymouth franchise from its Dodge dealers that year. Until 1960, Plymouth had been dualed with other Chrysler Corporation makes, an arrangement that dated back to the Great Depression. In the booming postwar market, this was seen as a handicap, as dealers wanted to sell buyers maybe one Plymouth, and then encourage them to “trade up” to the more profitable Dodge, DeSoto or Chrysler next time.

In 1960, Chrysler gave Dodge dealers the Plymouth-like Dart as compensation. Two Chrysler Corporation cars were competing directly with each other. Dart ads even encouraged prospects to compare the Dart to “Car C,” “Car F” and “Car P”! It didn’t help that the 1960 Plymouth was considered unattractive then – an assessment that holds true today.

Even worse, long-time customers who went to what had been the friendly Plymouth-Dodge dealer discovered that it no longer sold Plymouths. The dealer wasn’t about to direct them to another dealer to buy a Plymouth or a Valiant, especially with the low-cost Dart right there on the showroom floor!

Looking back, it’s amazing that Chrysler sold as many first-generation Valiants as it did.

That would explain, considering about 500K of the 60-62 Valiants alone were produced, that they’re so thin on the ground now. Compared to the 1963-66 Valiant (Or Corvairs and Falcons for that matter), there’s remarkably few left. I always chalked it up to how weird they looked and that fed into them being unloved. I guess a fair bit of rust damage took their toll on these first series cars.

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