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As the thread title states, this was a 65 Valiant Signet that I owned previously, going back almost 15 years now, before I bought the 68 Cougar. I had been out of old cars for a while, at this point my daily was a 95 F-150, and I still had my 5.0 Mustang racecar, but it was disassembled, to be sold that way shortly after.
My first car was a 67 Dart 270 with a 273 2-bbl. V8 that was totalled when an old fogie made a left in front of me at an intersection. So I still had a soft spot for old Mopars when I guy I worked with told me about his neighbour having this car for sale. I wasn't too crazy about the 63 - 66 A-body Mopars, but the price seemed right for $500 when I took a peek at it. It was a nice old gentleman selling it, the car had belonged to his aunt originally, he got it when she passed away several years before. He had two other cars, and no real use for this one. The odometer showed as 27XXX miles, but it had been inoperative for an unknown time ... but the maintenance records in the glove box showed that the car had less than 10,000 miles on it in the early 70s, the lady only went a few miles in to town and back three times a week apparently. My guess is that the actual mileage was probably in the low 30s, from the condition of the interior.
The body definitely needed some work, having suffered through so many Ontario winters, but the porno red interior was almost mint, except for a cracked steering wheel, a few cracks in the dash pad, and a small tear in the edge of the drivers' seat. Rear seat looked totally unused, and the dash still had the blankoff plate where a radio would go. Because it was a Signet (top model Valiant that year), it had buckets with a floor shift in a mini console. If the car had been a year earlier, it would still have had the pushbutton tranny. Under the hood was the optional "Super Six" leaning tower of power 225 CID. The car was still sporting an old set of weathercracked 7.00 x 13 bias ply tires, probably the only replacement rubber ever put on.
An interesting point about the car is that it looks quite different than a U.S. sold Signet for the same year. In Canada, Dodge Darts were not sold between 63 and 66, so the top Valiant model here actually used the U.S. Dart GT body style with the 111" wheelbase, and had Plymouth and Valiant emblems swapped on.
So I got the car down to the dealership, and had one of the guys do a checkover for the safety certificate. To my recollection it didn't need much, patch a small hole in the floor, replace the muffler and tailpipe, and some brake shoes and wheel cylinders. Also did some quick filler work on the rear quarters that were in tough shape. My buddy Stu lent me the Kelsey-Hayes Magstar wheels he had set aside for his 64 Marauder (they were OEM from a 69 Merc Marauder X-100). Strangely enough for such a large car the wheels are only 6" wide, with 4" of backspacing. Since the early A-body Mopars are 5 on 4" pattern, I got a set of Trans-Dapt bolt-on wheel adapters to the regular Ford / Mopar / AMC 4-1/2" pattern. Normally I wouldn't use those cheap cast adapters, but I figured that the 225 didn't have enough grunt to hurt them. :P
Scavenged around for some used 195/50 and 205/60R15 tires, the car had small wheel openings, so I couldn't go too big under there ... especially after we cranked down the torsion bars, and put 1" blocks in with the already saggy rear springs. With a grand total of about $1200 invested, I was back in to the old car hobby with a neat, reliable, go anywhere ride.
By the next summer I decided to try to sell the car. As I mentioned, it wasn't my favourite Mopar body style (although it did grow on me), and it was going to need a full resto. I didn't see the point of spending $4-$5K+ restoring a car that might be worth $4K when I was done, if I didn't have a real affinity for it. So I advertised it in a southern Ontario publication called "Triad" that always seemed to have lots of Mopar stuff in it. A few weeks later a guy came from about an hour a way to look at the car, and loved it. I had put the price as $2700, leaving lots of bargaining space. By that point I had probably $1700 in the car, including getting a set of small-bolt pattern 14" Rallye wheels and tires to throw on, since I couldn't sell it with the Magstars I had borrowed from Stu. Well, I could of, but I like Stu better than to do that. :D Ended up getting $2400 for the car, with the proviso that I deliver it to the guy's place, which wasn't a problem.
I have to give the car credit for being a good little driver, and getting me back in the hobby. Within a few days of selling the Valiant, I also sold the Mustang. The lease on the F-150 was done (I had got that for towing the Mustang, but that was in pieces), and I had found the 95 T-Bird SC that I ended up having for 11 years, sold in late 2008. With the money from the Mustang, it was time to look for an old Ford or Mercury, and I bought the 68 Cougar that I also owned until the fall of 08.
This is probably the only car that I have actually driven for a year and then sold for a profit ... wouldn't mind finding another one at some point, something more solid with a 273 and 4-speed. There were some nice Dart GTs at Moparfest last year that caught my eye.
cheers
Ed N.
My first car was a 67 Dart 270 with a 273 2-bbl. V8 that was totalled when an old fogie made a left in front of me at an intersection. So I still had a soft spot for old Mopars when I guy I worked with told me about his neighbour having this car for sale. I wasn't too crazy about the 63 - 66 A-body Mopars, but the price seemed right for $500 when I took a peek at it. It was a nice old gentleman selling it, the car had belonged to his aunt originally, he got it when she passed away several years before. He had two other cars, and no real use for this one. The odometer showed as 27XXX miles, but it had been inoperative for an unknown time ... but the maintenance records in the glove box showed that the car had less than 10,000 miles on it in the early 70s, the lady only went a few miles in to town and back three times a week apparently. My guess is that the actual mileage was probably in the low 30s, from the condition of the interior.
The body definitely needed some work, having suffered through so many Ontario winters, but the porno red interior was almost mint, except for a cracked steering wheel, a few cracks in the dash pad, and a small tear in the edge of the drivers' seat. Rear seat looked totally unused, and the dash still had the blankoff plate where a radio would go. Because it was a Signet (top model Valiant that year), it had buckets with a floor shift in a mini console. If the car had been a year earlier, it would still have had the pushbutton tranny. Under the hood was the optional "Super Six" leaning tower of power 225 CID. The car was still sporting an old set of weathercracked 7.00 x 13 bias ply tires, probably the only replacement rubber ever put on.
An interesting point about the car is that it looks quite different than a U.S. sold Signet for the same year. In Canada, Dodge Darts were not sold between 63 and 66, so the top Valiant model here actually used the U.S. Dart GT body style with the 111" wheelbase, and had Plymouth and Valiant emblems swapped on.
So I got the car down to the dealership, and had one of the guys do a checkover for the safety certificate. To my recollection it didn't need much, patch a small hole in the floor, replace the muffler and tailpipe, and some brake shoes and wheel cylinders. Also did some quick filler work on the rear quarters that were in tough shape. My buddy Stu lent me the Kelsey-Hayes Magstar wheels he had set aside for his 64 Marauder (they were OEM from a 69 Merc Marauder X-100). Strangely enough for such a large car the wheels are only 6" wide, with 4" of backspacing. Since the early A-body Mopars are 5 on 4" pattern, I got a set of Trans-Dapt bolt-on wheel adapters to the regular Ford / Mopar / AMC 4-1/2" pattern. Normally I wouldn't use those cheap cast adapters, but I figured that the 225 didn't have enough grunt to hurt them. :P
Scavenged around for some used 195/50 and 205/60R15 tires, the car had small wheel openings, so I couldn't go too big under there ... especially after we cranked down the torsion bars, and put 1" blocks in with the already saggy rear springs. With a grand total of about $1200 invested, I was back in to the old car hobby with a neat, reliable, go anywhere ride.
By the next summer I decided to try to sell the car. As I mentioned, it wasn't my favourite Mopar body style (although it did grow on me), and it was going to need a full resto. I didn't see the point of spending $4-$5K+ restoring a car that might be worth $4K when I was done, if I didn't have a real affinity for it. So I advertised it in a southern Ontario publication called "Triad" that always seemed to have lots of Mopar stuff in it. A few weeks later a guy came from about an hour a way to look at the car, and loved it. I had put the price as $2700, leaving lots of bargaining space. By that point I had probably $1700 in the car, including getting a set of small-bolt pattern 14" Rallye wheels and tires to throw on, since I couldn't sell it with the Magstars I had borrowed from Stu. Well, I could of, but I like Stu better than to do that. :D Ended up getting $2400 for the car, with the proviso that I deliver it to the guy's place, which wasn't a problem.
I have to give the car credit for being a good little driver, and getting me back in the hobby. Within a few days of selling the Valiant, I also sold the Mustang. The lease on the F-150 was done (I had got that for towing the Mustang, but that was in pieces), and I had found the 95 T-Bird SC that I ended up having for 11 years, sold in late 2008. With the money from the Mustang, it was time to look for an old Ford or Mercury, and I bought the 68 Cougar that I also owned until the fall of 08.
This is probably the only car that I have actually driven for a year and then sold for a profit ... wouldn't mind finding another one at some point, something more solid with a 273 and 4-speed. There were some nice Dart GTs at Moparfest last year that caught my eye.
cheers
Ed N.
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