Valiant Charger

An aspect of vehicle restoration that comes up frequently is the simple question of whether a particular car should be restored or not. It’s an easy question to ask but not always an easy one to answer. After all a car is only original once. When it has been repainted or rebuilt it will never have that claim of originality.

Which brings me to a very rusted and mistreated vehicle where literally everything was in a state of disrepair. A 1971 Valiant Charger. It is essentially a Plymouth Duster with a Dodge Dart front end.

This vehicle is of specific interest as it’s a truly South African creation and the first to carry the Valiant Charger name. The Australian Valiant Charger (although it has a different body) lays claim to be the original Valiant Charger. This is however a misconception.

As it turns out this car was originally registered in Pretoria and in later years used as a taxi. Eventually it was confined to a farm where, if it wasn’t rescued, it would’ve probably remained forever.

I still remember the first time I saw it advertised online. Somehow it found its way back to the city again. My friend Philip, my son Marco and I quickly headed out to have a look at it.

We met the owner and his brother in Pretoria. Despite the car’s dilapidated condition, we were impressed that virtually all of the original parts were still there and that it had a straight body. After a bit of haggling we eventually settled on a price. We were excited to take this project on although we didn’t fully realise at the time what we were getting into.

Once we collected the car and took it to the shop, we soon discovered the magnitude of this project. A nut and bolt restoration. Now the real work would begin. True to the definition, ‘nut and bolt restoration’ is where every single piece of the car would need to be restored, refurbished or detailed. Nothing would be left untouched to bring it back to the condition it was on the day it left the factory.

Disassembly progressed so we could get down to bare metal. Rust issues were dealt with. However, the car had seen one or two collisions in its life. After we had finished the bodywork we decided not to go the factory spec route. The engine was upgraded to a 440 ci together with automatic transmission, new drivetrain and 83/4 inch diff, twin exhausts and a new specially made rack and pinion steering. Although all these changes were done we didn’t do any modifications to the bodywork, firewall or transmission tunnel.

The car was completely rewired and every single major and minor component on the car was either restored or replaced. The interior was completely gutted. We installed new carpets, seats, door panels, roof lining, dash pad and restored the dash and console.

The entire process took about a year to complete from start to finish. Today this 1971 Valiant Charger, despite all the changes still appears to be stock standard, that is until you turn the key.

View the Gallery to see the progress made.