1960 Plymouth Valiant vs Chevrolet Corvair Dealer Promo Film
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- Опубліковано 24 сер 2024
- 1960 Plymouth Valiant vs Chevrolet Corvair Dealer Promo Film
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We had several Valiants through the years. My dad had a 61 when I was born. He later bought a 67. That lasted until the late 80's when he finally sold it. I have owned several myself. Today I have two running, a 63 and a 65, a third being rebuilt and one hanging around that needs some TLC. The 63 has a trailer hitch and I haul stuff with it. One of the best cars ever made by anyone. Oh, and I very much like the looks of the early Valiants.
My grandmother had a '60 or '61 Valiant station wagon which she replaced with a 1964 Corvair. As I remember, this Valiant was the first time I ever saw windshield wipers that went in the same direction instead of opposing directions, which left the center of the windshield unwiped.
Where is my local valiant dealer? I need to get one of these now.
Definitely the best overall of the 1960 Big Three compacts. Conservative in layout and basic engineering, but innovative where it mattered, like the Slant 6, the AC charging system, torsion bar front suspension and so on. For the first time Chrysler actually took some anti-corrosion measures. They had to. Their reputation in that area was lousy, and it was necessary to protect the Unibody from rust a little longer than the 3-4 years it took to completely rot out a typical 1950s car in the Rust Belt. Styling, well...very controversial. While the Corvair looked fresh and clean, a closer look revealed how bare-bones and cheap it was, de-contented to the hilt to offset its rather high engineering and manufacturing costs. Ford was playing it safe, safe, safe with the Falcon's styling and ultra-conventional engineering. It was inexpensive to develop and build, allowing Ford to spend more money on trim and features, making it a more appealing car than the polarizing Valiant or the austere Corvair to most prospects. Falcon was the biggest seller by far of the three compacts.
I like the looks of the Valiant sedan, but can't stomach the wagon. It's a very subjective...subject. Corvair styling was extremely "new" and such a departure from the established Detroit norm, it became the most copied of the bunch. But all those copies were overseas (NSU, BMW, Hillman, Mazda, Fiat, Saporoshez etc.). The Corvair was, in concept and spirit, an American interpretation of a popular European small car layout. As such, it also inherited all the failings of that layout, like the crappy heater, small/impractical trunk or the tendency towards treacherous handling. The Valiant was a decidedly more "grown-up" car than the Corvair and much more interesting than the Falcon. The Slant 6 was basically indestructible. You had to pour sand into the crankcase to break it. Interestingly enough, both GM and Chrysler "falconed-up" their compact cars later in the decade. The Chevy II was basically a GM-built Falcon in styling and engineering concept (with very successful results) and the subsequent very conventional-looking Valiants were also a great success. American economy/compact car buyers ARE conservative by necessity. They need - first and foremost - reliable, dependable, low-cost transportation. Whoever provides that and has the broadest styling appeal, wins the sale. Then and now.
My mother bought a new Valiant in early 1960 with an automatic transmission (a $400 option). In 1962 my father sold his unreliable, rust-eaten 1958 Ford Fairlane convertible and got a steal on a 1960 Corvair 2-door coupe. They only kept the Valiant until 1963 or 1964, but the Corvair remained in the family until 1971 and aside from fishtailing in rain/snow, it was a great car.
never got stuck in mine radials a must
We must agree that the Corvair is a beautiful car. Low and sleek and pretty modern all round. Damn that Ralph Nader 👊👊🙄🙄
The Valiant really was a good car. Only drawback it was a rust bucket, but then so was the Corvair.
This actually is a comparison of the Valiant and the Corvair. Plymouth and Chevy names weren't used on the cars. They were separate makes from Chevy and Plymouth
I currently have a 1960 valiant and the car is great
Great car..Plymouth and the name goes on...
The '60 Valiant was a separate make, not a Plymouth. Chrysler put the Plymouth badge on the Valiant starting in model year 1961.
The Ford Falcon kicked both their butts in sales.
The slant six kicked butt!
UA-cam ad was for Kia Telluride. :>)
Unlike a lot of these comparison videos that seem to nitpick items (Look! The Fury has chrome around the door handles! Try getting that in an Impala.) this video is very convincing, and history bore out a lot of the flaws they cite. Most telling was the 35 mph emergency maneuver,. It both showed why Ernie Kovacs died and why Ralph Nader wrote his famous book.
Alright alright I get it, I’ll buy it already 😂
Between the two cars, I find both attractive. The only thing I'd do with the Corvair would be to install a water-cooled boxer engine, rather than the air-cooled engine.
Wait a minute!!!
9:11
...the guy looks like he is talking on a cell phone!...this was made in 1960!...I mean, what other activity could he be doing that looks like he's talking on a cell phone???
I think marketing had the model pantomime talking on phone on purpose to 'imply' the guy in top photo needed to call someone because the tree didn't fit in the Corvair...(they did not need to include a phone because the sublime implication was communicated to viewer just the same)...it just looks funny to us because the technology they had back then was "Tin-can-and-string Ma-Bell" so the guy talking into his hand comes off as some 'time traveler' to us today but is really simply pantomiming the use of a land-line as instructed by the film director as a sublime suggestion you'll end-up calling for help if you drive a Corvair.
What do you think?
I think he's shaving...
He's phoning his wife to come with her Cadillac and pick up the tree.
I'm gonna blame Trump...
OK you convinced me. I'll get a valiant. Still, the corsair oops more modern, and is more popular with classic car folks. You hardly see valiants anymore.
I guess fake spare tires and galloping goose looks are beautiful, per the old Chrysler Corporation
Do you think a corvair was good looking?
I like both but the Corvair shape has held up better.
6:45 note that a manual transmission is shown, but there is no clutch pedal.
Well the Corvair did have some serious draw backs. However it was certainly a more revolutionary car than the Valiant . The Chevy 2 was definitely the real competitor, the brialliance of the corvair was it's a VW competitor. It wasnt going cannibalize sales from other Chevy models.
Looking back I remember the Valiant the ugliest economy car ever. However the slant six engine was pure genius. I saw the slant six a few years later while in the Army being used in the Commercial Non Tactical Trucks in the motor pool. I had a friend who owned a Valiant and he hated it. However viewing the Valiant in todays light I can see it was way ahead of its time, Much like the Ford Edsel was in it's day. The Corvair was a more fun car to drive and very affordable to own.
Can get a corvair with the slant 6?
A car that was so odd looking (ugly) it ended up being cute. And, it's hard to beat that slant six engine for reliability and efficiency. Someone in the late 90s made a custom intake manifold mounting two progressively linked two barrel carburetors and was getting 40 MPG. Beat that!.
True Fact: The Plymouth Slant 6 engine was the precursor of the BMW six. The Germans bought the rights in the early 70s.
Interesting. Never heard of that. Do you have any links to more information on that?
Tuve un valiant 1960, husado,lo atquiri en 1968 y ya en ocho años estava completamente ixidado y lleno de huecos..osea que eso que lo sumerjen en liquidos para anticorrosivo no sirvio...de lo demas muy bueno....
The Corvair looks european (few years later, the NSU Prinz, the Renaut 10, the Hillman Imp and the Fiat 850 were similarly styled).
I find the Valiant a bit tacky.
If all these Chrysler corporation cars were so superior, why did they never sell many of them ?
Robert Heal It's like McDonald's, they sell more burgers than a fancy steakhouse.
Actually, The Plymouth Valiant WAS America's BEST-SELLING Compact Car for many years. That's why, by 1970 , VALIANT was still around, while it's original competitors, Falcon and Corvair, were long gone...
A lot of us buy cars more for their appearance
Valiant should have been tested against Chevy ll, that would be more of a apples to apples. Corvair was more like a Volkswagen in some aspects.
Chevy brought out the Chevy ll in the first place, because the Corvair couldn't properly compete against The Valiant. Neither could the Falcon, for that matter. Valiant was the world's first production car with a ALTERNATOR ...far superior to the GENERATOR that it's competitors had. It's Torsion Bar suspension system was superior , too. Plus, with the Hyper Pak option, Plymouth Valiants blew the doors off Ford and Chevy's compacts in competition.
www.allpar.com/slant6.html
www.allpar.com/mopar/hyper-pak.html
The Chevy II wasn't available in model year 1960.
The Corvair reminds me of a 4/5 scale imitation of a Tucker, and a poor imitation at that.
Dynamic or Classic or Sporty styling! Bold words for the ugliest car of the decade.
The Corvair was much better-styled than the early Valiant, and proved highly influential especially in Europe; that and winter traction were its' biggest advantages. Its' biggest drawbacks were unfamiliarity and some pretty drastic cost-cutting which this video scratched the surface of (left unmentioned were the front sway bar and rear camber compensator deleted from the spec before production, although the handling test shows the effects of their absence). Bold engineering ruined by overzealous cost-cutting would become a recurring theme at GM...
Not to mention that ,in the Snow Belt states, the Corvair's engine would fall out of the back of the car , and hit the ground . (I know....it happened to ME !! (No frame under the rear engine.When it rusted out..it DROPPED out !!!
Third place behind the 61 Plymouth and 62 Dodge
Just to show how little Detroit cared about safety this dealer information presentation never mentioned the danger of the Chevy’s having the engine in the rear. Mentioning this would have been a huge Valiant selling point for this dealer information presentation. That the Valiant marketers missed this huge opportunity indicates to me that no one in Detroit really cared about safety even when it was a benefit.
De-looks models. 00:51
As a Corvair owner I have to say "Lies, all lies!". 🙄 As for styling, I'm not saying the Vailant is the ugliest car I know of, but I can't think of any that are worse. A Corvair seen in person is awesome. The most copied American car in Europe. Google NSU. They don't really pull it off,
The valiant was a great car, the corvair was basically a piece of junk. GM was real good at selling junk even back in the early 1960’s. The slamt six wasa great engine. Torque flitevtransmission was far superiorbt GM power glide
I loved the Corvair. The Valiant was a typical MOPAR rattle trap.