My Garage

1973 Valiant Charger 770

owned by James from the UK

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT...

This car is pretty much off the beaten path for us... well, sort of anyway.  This is a 1973 Valiant Charger.  That's right, not Dodge, not Chrysler, and not even Plymouth, but Valiant.  I didn't know this car even existed until James sent me the pictures and little info a few hours ago--James is the newest active member of our forum and the Australian Chrysler Rep for the Mopar Muscle Assoc UK.  Anyway, James' car is an Australian Mopar.  I'll let James explain this one himself....

James writes:

Chrysler Australia used three main divisions (but all were built at the same factory); Chrysler was the luxury brand, Valiant was the mainstream brand and Dodge was mainly commercial utes and RHD conversions of US Plymouth models.

US Muscle is very clearly defined (2 door intermediate with a big block). But in Australia big blocks weren't available at all. The biggest engine in Australia was the Mopar 360.  Muscle was described as any of the performance options at the top of the big three's range.  That is, the Ford Falcon GT, the Holden Monaro and the Valiant Charger.  But the lines are blurred more than that. These three were all available as a race prepared homogenation cars for Bathurst, a big race in Australia.

There were also 4 door cars bearing the GT badge (in the case of ford), the GTS badge (in the case of Holden) and the Pacer badge (in the case of Valiant).  These were every bit as lethal as the 2 door versions!  Beyond this, the fastest car of the entire era in Australia was the Valiant Charger R/T E49 which was powered by a 265 Cu In straight 6 with a Hemi head and 3 dual 60 Weber carbs. This produced just over 300 hp and did the 1/4 in 14.2 secs, however there are people who have got them into the 12's with a bit of work!!!

Britain never really had muscle cars-- we imported 220 Valiant Chargers (in the luxury '770' model trim), a few Falcons and Fairmonts and no Holdens. We did use Mopar engines in various luxury cars of the day but no specific muscle. The problem was convincing anyone in Britain to buy a 5.2+ L car that didn't have a Rolls Royce badge on it, especially after 73.

My car is a VJ (April 73 - 75) model Charger 770. It was originally optioned with Air Conditioning but aside from that, has the same options as almost all the other Chargers in UK (Power steering, Console Auto, bucket seats).  It has had a number of owners over the years and in the early 80's was completely rebuilt to a high standard. This saved it's life from the harsh UK climate and it is in this state that I bought it in 2001. Then I blew the motor up!!! 2 years and a lot of learning later I had rebuilt a new motor (surprizingly coming out of the only other Charger in UK built on that same day in 73 and only 2 engine numbers out from the original!). It isn't spectacular in it's performance, but 15.2's at 88 are ok for a more or less orignial setup, including the 2.92:1 open axle and original 14" wheels.

click on the pics to enlarge

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