Wow. Those taillights and that snaggletooth rear bumper make it look like the butt-end of the car is... is... some sort of demented alien snake just staring at you and waiting to strike. Demented awesomeness.

The rest of the car looks like melted poop.

You heard it here first.

Greetings! The jaunty red Valiant shown here is in fact a 1961 model, not a '62. In its first two years, 1960 and '61, the Valiant featured the cat's-eye taillamps, spare-tire deck lid, grille badge hood release, simulated engine-turned aluminum instrument cluster (actually injection-molded plastic, vacuum metallized), and was available only with the 170 cubic inch slant-6.

For 1962, the final year of this body shell, the taillamps became round and were mounted below the tailfins (where the reversing lamps are located on this '61 - the reversing lamps flanked the rear license plate in '62). The grille became shorter and flatter and lost its central badge/hood release. The instrument cluster grew less grandiose but a great deal more legible. The 225 cubic inch slant-6, which had become available in limited numbers late in '61, was a full-production option. Automatic transmissions were still pushbutton-controlled, but the manual transmission shifter moved from the floor to the steering column. A great many engineering improvements were made to the steering, suspension, electrical and fuel systems.

But there's still nothing quite like a '60-'61 original Valiant!

Love it. Apart from the toilet seat.

Love it. Mostly because of the toilet seat.

Just WHAT were they thinking?

That is batshit insane that a car company approved this design on purpose.

Not to be a yutz, but it ain't a 62. It's a 61. One of my first cars was a 60 V200 sedan, and I have always craved a 61 V200 hardtop. 62 was the transition year, paving the way for the soulless 63 remodel that dragged the Dart onto the A-body. (Lancers rock, BTW). 62 had no toilet seat (Exner's most brilliant design feature EVER), had stupid round taillights and a lot less chrome.
Too bad the toilet seat never carried the spare, as Exner intended.
Valiant was the styling king of the compacts - set it next to a Falcon and you'll see what I mean.
Sigh. 1960 was a brilliant year. Chrysler had as many divisions as GM - Valiant, Plymouth, Dodge, DeSoto, Chrysler, Imperial - and styling that set the pace for the world.
What the hell happened?

This was one of the last designs that Virgil Exner did before ChryCo management screwed him over with their panic attack in 1960.

Read Allpar.com's detailed history piece on the Valiant, as well as their historical pieces on the William Newberg (Chrysler's prez for about 3 months in 1960) "panic attack" that downsized the big Plymouths & Dodges, left ChryCo sales in shambles & GM in hysterics, as this was about when Pontiac blew past both Dodge and Plymouth in the sales race, and stayed there for years.

All that said, Murilee's found another gem in the urban diamond fields of Alameda.

Chrysler had cornered the market on weird design since the 50s.

When Engel (designer of the '61 Lincoln Conti) replaced Exner as Chrysler design chief, things went from weird to wacky.

The '63 Plymouth Fury and Dodge Polara are fine examples.

It reminds me of the contemporary Studebaker Lark, as fallen-upon by an entire ugly TREE.

It's such a mishmash of shapes it's like a Chrysler Sebring from days of yore.

Back when I was a little kid - oaky, two, my parents bought one of the first 1960 Valiants in San Diego. they drove it for several years. It had the 3 speed floor shift, which inadvertently led to my first accident. Mom parked on a hill, left the kids (my now 5 year old self and my 3 year old sister) in the car while she ran into the cleaners. Clever lad that I was, I managed to get it into neutral and joyfully steered down the hill. A brief encounter with a parked trailer brought my joyride to a halt. Small ding on the fender (those things were made with a lot of metal) and a generous ass whupping ensued.

And I loved the 63 Plymouth Sport Fury - first car in high school. I've been looking for a decent one for the last five years.... can't find much here in the Northwest...

There's a '61 Lancer where I work, MM should drive on by and check it out, only a mile from Alameda...

C'mon, just by the Laney football field, you know you want to!

It had an alloy slant six that sadly succumbed to water jacket rot, so we found an early 225 to put in.

Push button shift, natch.

I'm amazed how similar the Lancer is to this V200, obviously I think the Lancer looks WAY better, but both are clearly Super Exnerized.

These early Valiants could be ordered with the
dealer installed Hyper-Pac. This package souped
up the leaning tower of power 6 cyl. It consisted
of a high lift cam, long ram intake manifold with
a Carter 4-barrel carb, and long tuned tube headers.
These little 6's could kick the shit out off the
average small V-8 cars of there time

I really liked Exner's work in the mid-50's and the early idea cars that he did with Ghia. But his later designs were, to be polite, visually busy.

As for Engel, the 64 Chrysler Imperial (especially in convertable form) gives him a limited free pass in my head.

Well, I guess it is a '62- sorry, folks. I was going by the Standard Guide To American cars, which didn't have a good shot of the taillights.

Wait, I mean '61!

'61! My bad.

I'm entirely unused to seeing cars made before 1985 in my day to day life. Even with the internet, this is my first time seeing a lot of these DOTS cars. As such, I went through the first half of three different explitives before giving up on expressing myself about this thing. Sweet zombie Jesus, that's one freakishly-something automobile. Spotted it from several blocks away? I'm suprised I can't see it from here.

I used to live in Australia and I think they used to build these somplace down there too. You would see one at least once a day, sometimes hot rodded up!

@BlackIce_GTS: There are two other Toilet Seat Valiants I see regularly in Alameda- just haven't caught them in good photographing circumstances yet. It's the Island That Time Forgot!

It makes me think of something you guys would link to from EnglishRussia. Like somewhere under there is a Lada.

If you're fortunate enough to find a '60-'62 Valiant or '61-'62 Lancer that you want to have more than a little fun with, check out this project-car build + related Leaning Tower of Power history:

[www.moparmusclemagazine.com]

Enjoy!

My ex-fiancé had a badly-rotted '61 V-200 that she bought for 400 bucks, drove for about six months and then towed it around for the next couple of years. I desperately wanted to turbo it. Then she broke up with me.

Wow, that car changed quickly. There's a mid-60s one near me which is small and a little more boxy. Painted flat black and has a little chrome on it, but nothing like this one and those taillights.

@IamZardoz:
This was Australia's first Valiant ever! It was facelifted so soon that only 1008 of the original 'R' series cars were sold. They were subsequently built at Tonsley Park factory, in South Australia, until Chrysler Australia's demise (bought by Mitsubishi) in 1981.
By 1970, Valiants had become very un-fashionable, slabby and awkward-looking cars. But with HEMI 245 and 265 engines, they went like all hell!