Junkyard Find: 1973 Plymouth Valiant

Chrysler A-bodies are much like VW Type 1 Beetles when it comes to junkyard populations— they've been showing up in self-serve junkyards in a steady stream for more than 30 years, and you can usually find one or two in the larger yards. Like old Beetles, I don't photograph most of the ones I see (though we have seen this '68 Valiant Signet sedan, this '64 Valiant wagon, and this '66 Dart sedan in this series so far. The make-your-neighbors-hate-you band stickers on the decklid of this one caught my eye during a recent trip to my favorite Denver-area yard, and so I broke out the camera. This generation of Valiant/Dart sedan was once among the most common motor vehicles on American roads, which made it a natural choice for Dennis Weaver's car in the 1971 film Duel. You still saw quite a few of them around, well into the 1990s, but at some point the beater-Valiant demographic switched over to beater Corollas. You could get the '73 Valiant sedan with a 318-cubic-inch V8, or even the 340, but almost every A-body sedan shopper went for the good old quadrillion-mile Slant Six engine. Come to think of it, there were no bad engine choices for this car. Slant Six A-bodies with air conditioning were rare indeed, and someone had already grabbed the AC compressor by the time I found this car. I don't bother getting 5-digit odometer shots, especially when you can't tell an 80,000-mile car from a 480,000-mile one. In honor of the musical tastes of this car's last owner, let's hear one of my favorite Melvins songs. from The Truth About Cars http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com

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