1966 Plymouth Valiant vs. Chevrolet Chevy II Dealer Promo Film Mopar is a registered trademark of Chrysler Group LLC. Master Tech series training materials are the property of Chrysler Group LLC and are used with permission. MyMopar.com
Mopar guy from age 16 in 1970. 1st car, '63 Valiant convt, next, '32 DeSoto rumble seat coupe, 63 Valiant 2 door, 63 Valiant 4 door, 67 Dodge Dart 2 door, '71 Dodge 340 Demon, 63 Dodge Dart convt, '74 Valiant 4 door, '89 Dodge Caravan, '96 Dodge Caravan, '91 Chrysler New Yorker and last but not least, in 2001 while in New York to have heart surgery, 9-11 occurred and no flights back to California were possible. A 1941 Dodge Luxury Business mans coupe was located sitting in a barn since 1951!!! 50 years! After brake work, a tune-up, new rubber and a good bath, my service dog Sara and I headed to California. 7 day's later we were on the beach in Santa Barbara, CA. Not a single issue with the Dodge. Flawless trip with no breakdowns. Now that's a MOPAR for ya!
As much as i love the vids, my heart skipped a beat when i saw that black Chevy II, My Mom gave me her '63 Nova in the mid '70s. Dependable even with the powerglide.
Well I'm sold, I'll take the 1966 Valiant with the available v8 engine, manual transmission on the floor and the heavy suspension package with disc brakes.
Except for sports cars, like the Corvette, and some European cars like Volvo, and Mercedes-Benz, most cars offered during the 60s didn't have features like disc brakes.
I'm a dedicated Mopar guy, but I was curious how they would spin the idea that Valiant looked better. Valiant was indeed a better built car, but the Chevy II was better looking, hands down. The 67 Chevy II and 68 Dart would have been a closer comparison on looks.
I can tell you all,that growing up in the 1950's and 1960's. The Chevy's were hands down more popular than Fords or Chrysler's. Mom had a Valiant. Body quality was crap. I always remember the unplesant sound of the Bendix starter with her Valiant. I had a 63' Impala and loved design but hated the stupid, dumb,idiotic,and moronic two speed automatic. That was the most boneheaded transmission ever put into an automobile!!!!
I had a couple of Valiants, '64 & '75 Duster (same as Valiant). I bought them as "beaters" because they were the "cheapest of the cheap", would NEVER waste my money on a NEW Mopar (FCA)!!
The first few years of the Valiant were mud ugly. After about 1963 they improved and got more engine choices. The 225 Slant was hard to beat as was the 273 V8 and 318. I knew of Valiants and Darts that went well over 200k miles with just regular manintenance.
ojars zvaigzne a lot of those old cars from the 50’s and 60’s were prone to rust. Not just Chrysler products but all of the big 3. And you guys pour the salt on the roads up there. That damn salt would rust a tank.
Now if in-the-day say T.V./radio personalities Harry Vonzell and Arthur Godfrey, and others recomended a certain product or service, America largely paid attention and bought or patronized accordingly..amazing. Robert at 68.
Everyone talked about how Mopars rusted but my dad owned a 1959 Bel Air a 1965 Bel Air and a 1968 Chevelle, they were washed and waxed on a regular basis and kept in a garage, and every time we got a new car it was because of body rust on every single one.
Outside of Consumer Reports, all these magazines were swayed by advertising dollars. Clearly Chrysler/Plymouth just gave Popular Science more money for the test.
How could you possibly get an UNBIASED test in a publication that accepts advertising. If I was looking for an "honest" review of these cars, Consumer Reports would be my ONLY choice!
Chevrolet should have come up with a more exciting name than Chevy II. Chevy in later years gave us Camaro, Cruze, Chevelle, Chevette, Citation, Celebrity, Corsa, Cavalier, Corsica, Cobalt, Captiva, Calibra, or Cheyenne. The Chevy II was designed primarily to compete with the Ford Falcon, but the Valiant was also good competition and really had some improvements over the Ford and Chevy compacts. The Chrysler 3-speed automatic was way better than the Ford or GM 2-speed. Thanks for uploading this video.
I'm a Mopar Man to the core..but, by buddy bought a new '66 Nova SS..327/350 hp 4-speed..that car screamed..every bit as fast as a Hemi Belvedere..Valiant..top motor 273/235 horse..no comparison
But in Valiant, you still get only a warning light for oil pressure that still doesn't give an accurate indication of what's going on in that still important engine function!
My country was filled with Valiants, Ramblers and mostly Falcons. Extremely successful vehicles. Yet no Chevy II's, NONE! So much so I thought the Chevy II was never sold here until... I saw one garaged in a client´s garage! I wonder why they sold so few here.
On those body joint panels.... yes sir the Val ain't got them. But my Dart sure does, I'm not complaining it's just that twin.. both A-bodies differ in some cases. And in 4door. The Mopar looks better. I know I know. Too many doors. But whatever i have 2 1968 Darts. One with a slant6 hers, and mine with a get to work 318.. peace and thanks always for the post. Just great.
The Plymouth was several notches BELOW the Chevy, build quality of Chevy was SUPERIOR! There was a REASON why Chrysler products Never equaled the sales #s of GM or Ford. Lack of Quality!
@@TheOzthewiz but Chrysler products in general had the best Motors and Transmissions of the early to late 60s... Slant 6 was Bulletproof and so was the torqueflite transmission
I was wondering where all these old mopars went, while there's still many chevys out and about. then it occurred to me. the mopars were more reliable and more dependable. so people used them up. and most of the chevys and fords sat in garages and repair shops. maybe that's why there's hardly any low mile mopars compared to chevy and ford.
krazi77 uh, no. The Chevys are out there because people cherished them enough to care for them and keep them around. Those Mopars are flat out ugly and people didn't want to keep them around. That's why there aren't any today. Not all of them. I had a '72 Dart Demon that I wish I'd kept. But these Valiants were butt ass ugly.
There is a better after market selection for most GM vehicles. Chrysler/Dodge owners, until recently, had to either slog through junkyards, or develop some sort of networking system. Part of it seems to be a bit of a bias within the collectors communities. Older GMs were considered collectable. Older Dodges were just considered old. Though this has changed a lot during the last 10 years, or so.
Hard decision... The Slant-6 was superior to Chevy's inline, but in 1967 the Nova could be had with the smallblock V8 as could the Valliant. Both worthy of purchase.
The chevy II\Nova got a V8 in 64' and by 66' it got the 327 with 350hp as it's top option. In 68' the car was completely redesigned and the top engine became the 396\375 and in the Nova you had a high 13 second car.
Chevrolets inline sixes were all pretty damn good reliable long lasting as well as were just about all American inline sixes. 194, 230, 250 cu. in. I almost forgot the 216 cu. in. all of Chevrolet six displacements.
Always like these valiants but I couldn’t help but notice the marketing game being played here comparing the signet offerings against the Chevy 2 but leaving out the nova that would have been a heads up comparison when pointing out suspension and center console availability etc etc 😂, well it is a marketing film
Too young to critique these, i was little and they were old cars. But the valiant had a great slant 6 and a great transmission. However Chevy usually had a more comfortable suspension, coil springs vs. a torsion bar and leaf springs. Combine a better suspension and a higher car (which today’s crossovers give us) and the Chevy had to have a better ride and a better seating position, with legs not stretched like they’d be in any lower car. Anyone experience this? Or maybe popular science is right, Chevy saved the best comfort for the impala. Instead of copying the exact relationship of the steering wheel to seat to pedals, they purposely made it less than ideal so that only the impala shined on the test drive.
Chevy II was basically a downsized Biscayne. I like the way they looked and would like to have one. I liked all the '60 compacts. The 904 torqueflite was the best automatic transmission of the era.
What Chrysler saw as a limitation on the Chevrolet six was actually an advantage. Enthusiasts found that the three-port intake manifold allowed each cylinder to breathe through a double-sized port, as opposed to the slant six's small single ports. The valve train of the Chevrolet engine was superior as well because they all had hydraulic lifters that didn't require readjustment at 12K miles, and the camshaft was directly gear-driven off the crankshaft (unlike Chrysler's timing chain that would stretch over time). The slant six is a great engine, but Chrysler never invested much into making it truly bulletproof, in my opinion.
Honestly all American inline 6's got it wrong. They were all built for torque for people who couldn't afford a V8. At the time nearly every other inline 6 was built as high revving performance engines. While you can say so what we had V8's for that which is true but it's also the reason we never made any sexy V12's.
@@GlassTopRX7 The best low buck upgrade for the slant six is a 2 barrel. The few extra dollars was a big issue for marketing, dealers upsold to the 273 v8. The 170 slant six can rev, it would have thrived in the lighter 2,200 pound 1960-62 Falcon, the Chrysler A-body was too heavy for the 170 to shine. I wish Chrysler had built Valiant more like the size of the '70s BMW E-30 and focused on the Dart for the larger compact. Originally Dart was called a "senior compact", GM's name for the '61 Tempest, Buick/Olds compacts. In the '70s the BMW E30 sold 2 1/2 million E30s which were similar to the low budget American cars when the BMW was upgraded to be more than the sum of its economy car parts. I own an E30 and think its similar in many ways to the '60s U.S. compacts, but upgraded in just the right areas.
@timothykeith1367 if I'm thinking right wasn't there a 6 cylinder circuit in Nascar in the early 60s with the chevy 2 the falcon and the valiant. And from my understanding the slant 6 spanked them all in the plymouth I could be wrong about the Nascar circuit but I'm pretty sure someone had a 6 cylinder small frame car racing circuit if you know what it is let me know
That 273 could be a nasty bastard in the right hands. I have seen Valiant slant sixes with no power adders run 11.00 flat in the quarter. been going to drag strips watching my Brother-In-Law race since 1965.
Chevys were sexy and Mopars were meh. I always found Mopars had a lot of idiosyncrasies but they were tough. Especially on a really cold morning hearing an old slant 6 fire right up. That's gratifying.
Had three slant six Mopars with slant sixes. 1970 Dart Swinger, A 1977 Plymouth Volare'. and a 1980 Dodge Diplomat, the game warden car as my coworkers called it. All very good cars and great winter starters sitting outside in winters that you would not survive if caught outside overnight. Yep, they fired right up.
The Valiant has 6 "pipes" for the induction system. Probably a BETTER term would be "intake runners"! BTW, the build quality of a Chevy(Citation excluded) will ALWAYS be better than ANY Chrysler (FCA) product!
Chrysler has only been FCA in the last few years. Fiat had NOYHING to do with Chrysler during this time, Chrysler was a good car until the arrival of the K Car. went downhill from there.
Who the fuck is cornering fast enough to lift a wheel off the ground? Seriously, commercials from back in the day make people look like friggin idiots. There's no comparison here, the Chevy II is the only choice. Beautiful cars.
I read "POP Science " regularly for the interesting science articles, to gain more knowledge. I read the "car tests" for the ENTERTAINMENT value, same for the "car" magazines!
I had driven both of those cars, compare to the average car of today, for example a Toyota, there is no comparison. Those cars cost roughly 14 months wages at the time. The bodies of both of the cars tested rotted out after about three winters in a northern state with salt on the road, some people believed they could hear the cars rusting. Steering, handling and ride on both were crap, useful life was probably around 75K miles before they were junk. The brakes were barely adequate in either car, braking shouldn't be exciting. The engines were reliable, especially the slant six, the rest of the car was primitive compared to current cars. And there were the joys of changing the plugs, points, condenser and distributor cap every 7K miles, my Toyota needs new spark plugs at 130K miles. Life has gotten much better.
Are you fucking kidding me? You're comparing a modern Toyota to a pair of 52 year old cars! The new car is more reliable? Holy shit! Totally unbelievable! You are a goddamn idiot.
As always, MOPAR divulging videos that are so subjective, so biased and not very objective. When I was young I saw how the Nova V8 beat the Dodge Dart and Plymouth Valiant from 1966-67, both in acceleration and in maximum speed. Years later, I bought a 1975 Dodge Dart with 360 cubic inch V8 engine and Torque Flite 727 transmission. Excellent car. But even the Chevy Nova 350 Turbo Hydramatic won me far. Car buyers are not that stupid. Why do you think the Chevy always sold much more than the Valiant and Dart together?
1, It's a film strip, not a video (converted to mp4 for RU-vid}, 2, Of course it's "biased", It's an internal sales film strip made by Chrysler Corp. for Plymouth Dealers, It's by design to highlight the best of the car, so the dealer can point them out to shoppers.
