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Advertised as "Nobody's Kid Brother," Chrysler's compact Valiant was originally intended to be its own marque. The story of how it became a Plymouth is a complicated one, going back to the origins of the Plymouth brand and its relationship with other Chrysler divisions.
This week, we look at the history of the original Valiant, its little-known Dodge twin, the Lancer, and the long and contentious relationship between Plymouth and its sister divisions.
SIBLING RIVALRY
If you hang around Plymouth fans, particularly since Daimler-Chrysler opted to kill the brand in 2001, you will discover a remarkable level of bitterness. Surprisingly, that animosity is primary directed not at Plymouth's rivals, or even Daimler, but at the Chrysler Corporation itself. Talk to Mopar loyalists of a certain age, and you'll find that their nostalgia is for not only what the brand used to be, but also for what they think it might have been, had it not been cut off at the knees by the corporation and by Plymouth's hated sibling, the Dodge Division.
To understand their rancor, we must go back to the origins of Chrysler. In the early 1920s, Walter P. Chrysler, a former General Motors executive, was hired to salvage the failing Maxwell-Chalmers company. (Fans of old radio comedies may recall that comedian Jack Benny supposedly drove an ancient and decrepit Maxwell, whose asthmatic sound effects were provided by Mel Blanc, best known as the voice of Bugs Bunny.) Walter Chrysler wanted to build a car of his own, and in May 1924, Maxwell-Chalmers unveiled the first Chrysler Six at the Hotel Commodore in Manhattan. Based on its success, Chrysler reorganized the company as the Chrysler Corporation in July 1925. The initial six-cylinder model (now known as G70) was soon joined by Chrysler's first four-cylinder car, the 52.
Chrysler's early products were aimed at the mid-price market, particularly Buick, but Walter Chrysler had ambitions of a GM-like model range. In May 1928, he incorporated two subsidiary companies, the Plymouth Motor Company and the DeSoto Motor Company. DeSoto would be aimed at the lower-middle-class range, while Plymouth was Chrysler's answer to the Chevrolet and Ford's Model A. The Plymouth's name was intended to evoke the Mayflower (a stylized version of which was used as the marque's hood mascot for many years), but according to Joe Frazer, Chrysler general sales manager at the time, it was actually named for Plymouth binder twine, a well-established brand with the rural customers Chrysler hoped to reach.
The first Plymouth, the Model Q, made its debut on June 7, 1928. Badged "Chrysler Plymouth," it was essentially a modest revision of the Chrysler 52, which was discontinued to avoid intramural competition. The Plymouth was more expensive than its key rivals, but offered features they did not, such as four-wheel hydraulic brakes, still uncommon on some luxury cars of the time.
Henry Ford allegedly (and probably apocryphally) warned Chrysler, that he would lose his shirt if he tried to compete in the low-priced field. Nonetheless, the 1929 Model Q accounted for a respectable 62,444 sales, followed by 108,335 of the Model U, introduced in January 1929. Based on the early success of Plymouth, Chrysler was able to purchase Dodge Brothers on July 30, 1928, subsequently transforming it into the corporation's fourth automotive division.
THE LITTLE BROTHER
In March 1930, responding to the economic downturn following the stock market crash, Chrysler decided to grant Plymouth franchises to DeSoto and Dodge dealers. This ensured that each of Chrysler's dealers had a low-price car to sell, and increased Plymouth sales outlets to more than 10,000. As a result, Plymouth quickly reached the number-three position in industry sales, ahead of all other makes except Ford and Chevrolet. Bolstered by a new six-cylinder engine, introduced in 1933, Plymouth sold its millionth car in 1934, and reached two million by 1939.
By then, Walter Chrysler had become a figurehead in the company that bore his name. He remained chairman until his death in 1940, but in 1935, he relinquished the presidency to K.T. Keller, president and general manager of Dodge Division. Keller was a good deal more conservative than Chrysler was, and during his tenure, the company's reputation for innovation eroded significantly.
Although Plymouth remained Chrysler's best-selling division, the Dodge Division controlled a disproportionate percentage of the corporation's labor and manufacturing resources. For that reason, Dodge tended to hold far more sway than Plymouth did in corporate politics. That was a sharp contrast with GM, where Chevrolet was acknowledged as the corporation's most important division, despite its position at the bottom of the GM price ladder. At GM, most senior executives would do a stint at Chevrolet before ascending to upper management. At Chrysler, for many years, most senior execs came from Dodge, including K.T. Keller and both of his immediate successors, L.L. (Tex) Colbert and Bill Newberg.
Plymouth's postwar styling was dowdy, but no worse than most bread-and-butter American cars of the time. Unfortunately, its early-fifties styling was no better, leaving it looking distinctly lackluster compared to its flashier rivals. With its1933-vintage flathead six, it was slow, too -- 0-60 mph (0-97 kph) acceleration took around 25 seconds, and top speed was only about 85 mph (137 kph).
Since the other divisions were paired with Plymouth at the dealer level, the corporation tended to regard Plymouth as a loss leader -- a basic model to lure buyers into dealerships, where they could be "upsold" into more expensive, more profitable marques. As a result, Plymouth tended to lag behind in features like automatic transmission, power steering, and V8 engines. Combined with the make's increasingly dowdy styling, Plymouth's market share began to shrink worryingly.
FORWARD LOOK
Things began to change in the mid-1950s. In 1952, designer Virgil Exner, who had been languishing in a special projects studio, persuaded K.T. Keller that the company's existing body shells could not be resuscitated for another model year. Keller relented, and allowed Exner to revamp the 1955 lineup, launching a styling trend that ads described as "the Forward Look." Combined with new V8 engines and the PowerFlite automatic, Plymouth's fortunes brightened considerably, with up more than 50%.
Things looked even better in 1957, when the smartly restyled Plymouth line put the fear of God into GM Styling. Plymouth was becoming so successful, in fact, that there was serious talk of ending its traditional linkage with DeSoto, Dodge, and Chrysler. Curtis Redgap, son of a prominent Chrysler dealer of the time (who has written extensively about Mopar in the late fifties and early sixties for Allpar), recalls that the Plymouth sales organization had promised to give Plymouth its own separate franchises if it regained the number-three slot in 1955, an extraordinary volte-face for the corporation.
THINKING SMALL
While this was going on, Chrysler, like Chevrolet and Ford, was weighing the merits of a new compact. Like its competitors, Chrysler had toyed with the idea of compacts for many years. Nothing had come of those products, but Chrysler was acutely aware of the alarming growth of import sales and of AMC's compact Rambler, which demanded some sort of response.
In the spring of 1957, Plymouth president Harry Chesebrough established the Special Corporate Car Committee, a study group to consider alternatives for small-car design. The committee considered finding a European make to rebadge, which led Chrysler to acquire a stake in the French firm SIMCA in 1958. They concluded, however, that their best bet was a scaled-down conventional car.
The committee originally concluded that the earliest the compact, dubbed Project A901, would be ready was the 1962 model year. By the start of 1958, Tex Colbert was well aware that both Chevrolet and Ford would have compacts on sale by late 1959. The project was placed on the fast track, with a task force of 200 engineers in Chrysler's Midland plant in Detroit. Security was so tight that many employees assumed it was a military project.
TAKING SHAPE
Project A901 was shaped by a series of product-planning meetings in early 1958, which set out the specifications for the new car. It was to ride a 106.5-inch (2,705 mm) wheelbase -- nearly a foot (305 mm) shorter than a big Plymouth -- but it was to have room for six, to which American buyers had become accustomed. A four-cylinder engine was examined, but never seriously considered; a six was more in keeping with American tastes.
Much of the compact's engineering was entirely new, including its unitized body shell. Unibody engineering was still something of a black art in the U.S. at that point, and the engineering task force, headed by Bob Sinclair and Otto Winklemann (formerly the chief engineer at Mercedes), made extensive use of early computers to optimize structural loads and eliminate potential sources of noise, a big problem for early unibody cars. That was a bold step at the time; when Ford and Chevy engineers first proposed the use of computers for this purpose a few years later, they were greeted with considerable skepticism. The compact would use Chrysler's recently introduced torsion bar suspension, accompanied by new Bendix duo-servo drum brakes and a lightened version of the excellent TorqueFlite three-speed automatic.
The legendary Slant Six engine, seen here in its original, 170 cu. in. (2.8L) form. Mildly tuned and decidedly under-stressed, it was a very durable engine, and it endured in some applications until the 1990s. One of the Valiant's minor but noteworthy novelties was the first use of an alternator, rather than an electrical generator, giving much better battery charging at low speeds. Chrysler was the first American manufacturer to switch to alternators, but it was soon widely imitated.
The compact needed an entirely new engine, which would also be shared with the bigger cars. Plymouth's existing 218 cu. in. (3.6L) flathead six was the same basic engine introduced back in 1933. Not only was it archaic, it was too big for the new compact's engine compartment. To replace it, the engineers developed the "G-engine," a new overhead-valve inline six. Because its OHV head was too tall to fit under the low hood, it was tilted 30 degrees toward the passenger side, earning it the enduring nickname "Slant Six." The tilt also allowed the use of longer, ram tube intake runners (described in our article on the 1960 Dodge Polara), which provided a healthy increase in torque. Despite a modest displacement of 170 cu. in. (2.8L), the Slant Six actually produced slightly more power than the old flathead, 101 gross horsepower (75.3 kW) at 4,400 rpm.
The A901's styling was also new. Virgil Exner had been looking for a new styling theme to replace the Forward Look and its prominent fins, which were becoming passé. In their place, Exner's designers opted for a long-hood, short-deck look, with heavily sculpted sides that also helped to make the car look bigger. Its gaping-maw grille was inspired by the 1957-58 Chrysler 300, and its false spare wheel decklid trim was borrowed from the big Imperial, but the compact otherwise looked little like any other Chrysler. Exner was very concerned that it not appear to be a miniature version of the larger Chrysler products.
The Valiant was initially offered only as a four-door sedan and a six- or nine-passenger wagon, all sharing the same 106.5-inch (2,705 mm) wheelbase. They were offered in base V-100 and deluxe V-200 trim; V-200 sedans, like this one, were the most popular, accounting for 106,515 sales in 1960. The V-200 can be identified by the chrome trim on the side sculpting, which the V-100 did not have; V-100s were also not available in red. This car's base price was $2,110, although with its heater, radio, TorqueFlite automatic, and other minor accessories, the final tally was probably just under $2,400.
NAMING NAMES
Originally, Chrysler had intended to call the new compact "Falcon," after a 1955 Chrysler show car, but Henry Ford II called Tex Colbert and asked if Ford could use that name for its own compact. Colbert consulted with Virgil Exner, who agreed to relinquish it. Officially, the name "Valiant" was the result of a marketing survey, but Exner's son, Virgil Exner, Jr., says it was inspired by Hal Foster's comic strip Prince Valiant, which was his father's favorite comic.
The Valiant, which was presented to the Chrysler Administrative Committee on July 8, 1958, and approved for production as a 1960 model, would not be called a Plymouth. Instead, it was registered as a separate marque, which brought the total number of Chrysler automotive brands to six.
This 1960 Valiant V-200 was not yet considered a Plymouth, so all its badges and identification say only "Valiant." The grille badge is actually the trunk latch, a clever touch.
The question on the minds of many Chrysler executives and dealers was whether the corporation would make good on its earlier promises to allow Plymouth to stand alone. In August 1959, Colbert announced that the corporation would reorganize its six divisions into three: Chrysler-Imperial; a new Plymouth-DeSoto-Valiant division; and Dodge. Dodge dealers would no longer sell Plymouths, but Plymouth would still be paired with DeSoto and Chrysler, and there would be no standalone Plymouth franchises. Valiant franchises, meanwhile, went to about half of the nation's 4,138 DeSoto-Plymouth and Chrysler-Imperial-Plymouth dealers.
This was hardly what the independence-minded Plymouth organization had had in mind. To make matters worse, Dodge got a new model called the Dart, which was essentially a lightly made-over big Plymouth, wearing Dodge badges. The Dart offered nicer styling and a more prestigious nameplate than Plymouth, for only about $50 more. Overnight, Dodge and Plymouth went from reluctant companions to bitter rivals.
NOBODY'S LITTLE BROTHER
The Valiant bowed with great fanfare on October 27, 1959. At the press introduction at the Commodore Hotel in New York (where the original Chrysler Six had debuted in 1924), Chrysler EVP Bill Newberg proclaimed proudly that the Valiant was not an imitation of any other car. Ads proclaimed it "Nobody's Little Brother."
The Valiant's styling is an acquired taste, to say the least. Close inspection reveals good overall proportions and an interesting body shape, marred by the overwrought side sculpture and an awkwardly shaped greenhouse. Prominent grille, inspired by the earlier Chrysler 300C, gives it a more aggressive character than later Valiants. Note the flush-mounted side windows, an unusual feature for this era. The Valiant does not have curved side glass, however, which would have been too expensive.
In most respects, the Valiant shaped up well next to its principal competitors: the Rambler 6, the Chevy Corvair, and the Ford Falcon. Although it rode the shortest wheelbase of the four, the Valiant split the difference in overall size and weight; it was longer and significantly heavier than either the Corvair or Falcon, but 5.5 inches (147 mm) shorter and over 200 pounds lighter than the Rambler. Car Life recorded a 0-60 mph time of just over 16 seconds for an automatic Valiant, with a top speed of 95 mph (153 kph), which compared well with a manual-shift Rambler 6, and made the Valiant somewhat faster than either the Corvair or the Falcon. With its firm suspension, the Valiant also handled better than either the Falcon or the Rambler, and it had none of the Corvair's swing-axle eccentricities. The three-speed TorqueFlite (a $172 option specified by about half of all Valiant buyers) was a real advantage over the two-speed units in the Corvair or Falcon, or the clumsy Borg-Warner three-speed optional in the Rambler.
Where the Valiant fell down, in the public mind, was its curious styling, which looks no less odd to contemporary buyers than it does today. Readers will naturally make their own judgments, but comparing sales makes it clear where the buyers of the time stood on the question of styling. Total Valiant sales for 1960 were 194,292, compared to 250,007 Corvairs, 314,440 Ramblers (not including the even smaller Rambler American), and 435,676 Falcons.
One of Virgil Exner's favorite styling gimmicks of this era, also found on the contemporary Chrysler 300F and Imperial, was the fake Continental kit in the rear decklid, which wags have dubbed the "toilet seat." The Valiant's spare tire was actually concealed beneath the trunk floor, like modern cars.
BECOMING PLYMOUTH
The 1960 model year was not a good one for Plymouth. Total Plymouth sales skidded to 253,432 units, down more than 200,000 from 1959. Dodge sales increased by a very similar mouth; the Dodge Dart was taking a big bite out of Plymouth's business. The year was also the last straw for DeSoto, which would die early in the 1961 model year.
It apparently occurred to Chrysler management sometime late in the 1960 model that if Valiant sales were added to Plymouth's, the total looked far more respectable, allowing Plymouth to cling precariously to its traditional number-three slot. In any case, being badged as a separate marque was not doing the Valiant any favors. Its lack of identity seemed to make dealers and buyers uneasy, and the kind of marketing push that would have been necessary to establish it as a coherent brand was simply not there.
The way the Valiant's body sides curve into the sloping tail looks remarkably similar to Jerry Hirschberg's later "boattail" Buick Riviera. Note that the leading edge of the decklid comes up to the base of the window, without the "Dutchman" panel between trunk and backlight that was common this era. The Valiant's long-hood, short-deck proportions were ahead of their time, and went well with the pillarless hardtop coupe added for 1961.
The Valiant officially became a Plymouth in the fall of 1960. With DeSoto defunct, in early 1961, the Plymouth division was merged with Chrysler-Imperial to become Chrysler-Plymouth.
SIDEBAR: 225 AND HYPER-PAK
Even in 170 cu. in. (2.8L) form, the Slant Six gave the Valiant and Lancer sprightly performance, but it was very mildly tuned, and was obviously capable of higher outputs.
In mid-1961, Chrysler stroked the engine by one inch (25.4 mm), bringing it to 225 cu. in. (3.7L) and 145 gross horsepower (108.1 kW). The bigger engine cut 0-60mph acceleration times to around 13.5 seconds, and raised top speed to around 100 mph (161 kph), with a very modest penalty in fuel consumption. It was a bargain at $47. (An "AG" engine was also available in modest numbers late in the model year, featuring an aluminum cylinder block that reduced engine weight by 76 lb (34.5 kg). Although the lighter weight benefited handling, the aluminum engine's output was identical to its iron-block counterpart, so buyer interest was low. It was also troublesome to produce, and it was quietly dropped in early 1963.)
The 225 was still a mild-mannered engine; the dealer-installed "Hyper-Pak" option was something else entirely. Designed mostly for competition use, the Hyper-Pak raised the compression ratio and added freer-breathing intake and exhaust manifolds, a hotter camshaft, and a big four-barrel carburetor. The Hyper-Pak 170 made 148 gross horsepower (110.4 kW), while the 225 was good for 196 horsepower (146.2 kW), very healthy increases on the stock output. Unfortunately, most of the improvement was on the top end, and Hyper-Pak engines were noisy, rough, and unhappy at low RPM. The option was also expensive: $403.30, plus about $125 of labor, about 20% of the price of a new Valiant or Lancer. Few were sold, and it was discontinued after 1961.
THE LANCER
Although they were doing good business with the Dart, Dodge dealers clamored incessantly for a compact of their own. The result was the Dodge Lancer, introduced as a 1961 model. Conceived as an afterthought, it was basically a facelifted Valiant, with the same basic body and running gear.
The 1961 Lancer had an attractive "waterfall" grille that was generally considered more attractive than that of the Valiant, which partly accounted for the sales the Lancer stole from its Plymouth sibling. The 1962 Lancers, like this one, got a new "Norelco" grille; buyers did not care for it, part of the reason '62 Lancer sales dipped significantly. The Lancer shared the Valiant's body, but its front clip made it 4.5 inches (114 mm) longer; the difference is not obvious.
Arguably better looking than the Valiant, only slightly more expensive, and wearing a marginally more upscale badge, the Lancer inevitably cannibalized Valiant sales. Valiant production dipped to 143,078 for 1961, while first-year Lancer sales totaled 74,776. For 1962, the totals were 157,294 Valiants and 46,549 Lancers. (Also in 1962, as we have seen, Chrysler attempted to apply the styling -- and indeed, the body shell -- of the Valiant/Lancer twins to its big Dodge and Plymouths, with disastrous results.)
The Lancer's rear deck was the same basic stamping as the Valiant's, but it omitted the curious "toilet seat" trim, another reason many found the Lancer more attractive than the Valiant. Plymouth finally deleted this feature for 1962.
SIDEBAR: VALIANT ABROAD
The early Valiants were also-rans in the U.S. market, but they were the first Chrysler products to be sold in large numbers abroad, often badged as Chryslers, or simply as Valiants. Although they were compacts by U.S. standards, the Valiant and Lancer were full-size family cars by the standards of other markets. Their solid suspension and rugged construction made them particularly popular in countries with poor roads, like Australia and the Republic of South Africa. Some of the overseas Valiant models remained in production as late as 1981, five years after the American Valiant was discontinued.
At first, overseas models were basically identical to the U.S. version, but both Canada and Australia developed unique versions, tailored for the requirements of the local market. Most of these shared the basic body shells of the contemporary U.S. cars, but had distinct styling, unique models, and, in some cases, even unique engines. Chrysler's Australian operation developed a hemi-head version of the Slant Six, based on a design developed in Highland Park for a proposed truck engine. Offered in 215 (3.5 L) , 245 (4.1 L), and 265 cu. in. (4.4 L) form, the hemi sixes were not as durable as the U.S. Slant Six, but were far more powerful, producing up to 302 gross horsepower (225.2 kW). Fitted to indigenous models like the Valiant Charger coupe, the hotter hemi sixes were formidable performance engines.
A full account of the evolution of the different non-U.S. Valiants is beyond the scope of this article, but you can find a good overview at Valiant.org.
AFTERMATH
The Valiant was redesigned for 1963 with more conventional styling. It was still a little fussy, but it no longer an oddball. Sales improved markedly, to 225,156. Naturally, Dodge got its own version, now distinguished by a three-inch (76.2mm) longer wheelbase. Since the Lancer name hadn't exactly slathered itself in glory, Dodge decided to transfer the popular Dart badge from its big cars to the compact line. Both the compact Dart and the Valiant sold reasonably well for the remainder of the decade, and then became some of Chrysler's most important products in the early 1970s. They survived until 1976, replaced by the undistinguished Dodge Aspen and Plymouth Volare.
The rivalry between Dodge and Plymouth only got worse, particularly in the seventies and eighties, when Chrysler no longer had the resources to differentiate their competing models. In 1979, Dodge outsold Plymouth for the first time (unless one counts the 1960 model year, without Valiant sales). By the mid-eighties, it did so routinely, a trend that continued into the nineties. In November 1999, about a year after the Daimler merger, Chrysler announced that Plymouth would be discontinued after the 2001 model year, joining DeSoto and Imperial on the ash bin of history.
Plymouth fans will tell you that the brand demise was a terrible waste that resulted from decades of corporate neglect. To a point, that's difficult to argue, but in retrospect, separating Plymouth from Dodge in 1959 was probably a mistake. The ensuing rivalry was inevitable, and it wasted resources that Chrysler could often ill afford, while resulting in more cannibalism than sales growth.
As for the Valiant, it's tempting to speculate what might have happened, had it continued as its own marque. It might have had a tough time in the sixties, since American interest in compacts was very fickle during that period, but U.S. models along the lines of the Australian Valiants (see the sidebar above) would have done very well here in the seventies. Like many things in the history of Chrysler, though, it's just another sad case of "might've been."
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NOTES ON SOURCES
Background for this article came from Charles K. Hyde, Riding the Roller Coaster: A History of the Chrysler Corporation (Great Lakes Books) (Chicago, IL: Wayne State University Press, 2003) and Curtis Redgap's "Insider's History of Plymouth" (date unknown, Allpar.com, http://www.allpar.com/history/inside/index.html, accessed 31 March 2009), as well as Richard Burns Carson's article "The First Chrysler" from Special Interest Autos #45, May-June 1978, reprinted in Richard A. Letinello, ed., The Hemmings Book of Pre-War Chryslers (Bennington, VT: Hemmings Motor News, 2002); and Arch Brown's "1929 Plymouth: Walter P. Chrysler Invades the Low-Priced Field," from Special Interest Autos #158, March-April 1997, reprinted in Terry Ehrich, ed., The Hemmings Book of Plymouths (Hemmings Motor News Collector-Car Books) (Bennington, VT: Hemmings Motor News, 2002). Our sources for the development of the Valiant included: "1960-1962 Plymouth Valiant by the Auto Editors of Consumer Guide (28 August 2007, HowStuffWorks.com, http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1960-1962-plymouth-valiant.htm, accessed 3 April 2009); Auto Editors of Consumer Guide, Encyclopedia of American Cars: Over 65 Years of Automotive History, (Lincolnwood, IL: Publications International, 1996); Arch Brown's "Nobody's Kid Brother: 1960 Plymouth Valiant," from Special Interest Autos #144 (November-December 1994), reprinted in Terry Ehrich, ed., The Hemmings Book of Plymouths (Hemmings Motor News Collector-Car Books) (Bennington, VT: Hemmings Motor News, 2002); and Arch Brown's "1962 Dodge Lancer: A Valiant Effort?" from Special Interest Autos #163 (January-February 1998), reprinted in Richard A. Lentinello, ed., The Hemmings Book of Dodges (Bennington, VT: Hemmings Motor News, 2002). Information about the Hyper-Pak came from Jerry Engels' "The slant six Hyper-Pak" (date unknown, Allpar. com, http://www.allpar.com/mopar/hyper-pak.html, accessed 4 April 2009).
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This is probably the first case of 'division rivalry' in the 60's, following in the sudden dwindling of the Big 3 during the 70's. GM, Ford, and Chrysler should have known that their divisions' cars ride and look so similarly.
Sigh... There will be no more Pontiac... Oldsmobile, LaSalle and DeSoto are gone... I really liked those brands and their cars.
Although I pretty much don't care for Edsel, Eagle, or Saturn,