Who doesn’t love a little red convertible? How about this red 1963 Plymouth Valiant convertible? It’s great to see a car with so many possibilities priced so reasonably. The asking price is only $1500. There’s no rust showing, but there could be lots of rust hiding underneath of course. This could be a fun car to drive as is, but with all the parts available, who could blame a guy for dreaming of a high performance engine and suspension upgrades? For about $3500 you can purchase a complete bolt in front end, including everything from disk brakes and rack and pinion steering to engine mounts if you want to get really crazy. This little red convertible is near Chicago and listed here on craigslist. So would you make this Plymouth a good drop top driver or would you get a bit crazy with it? Let us know in the comments below!
I think that motor is a replacement, I believe in 63 they were red not blue.
Probably a good thing, considering that the odometer reading isn’t mentioned. But what a neat car! I disagree that hotrodding it would be an acceptable thing to do with it, considering the condition and rarity.
keep it looking “stock” drop in a 440!!
this is a slant six with a 3 on the tree ( not an automatic ) so i too would check for rust as car is located in the rust belt. make it safe and have fun driving it. nice find
This looks like a nice solid car. Could their be rust hiding underneath? Check the floor also. Otherwise, I would get the car safe then paint the car. I cannot tell if this is a 170ci or a 225 ci slant 6. When the exhaust needs replacing, use a larger diameter pipe than stock. This is a choke point on these cars. Drive and have fun.
Looks like a Nice little cruiser ! My older brother and I shared one of these, a 63 Valiant 4dr. when I was 15 & 16. It was a Pushbutton Drive, located on the left side of the dash beside the Instrument cluster. It had a under dash add on air and was a great gas saver….Two Tone Blue, with Blue interior. It also had only AM radio with a factory ‘Reverb’ control for the rear speaker… LOL…that was a weird option and sounded ok till you turned it up.
The one pictured above, has back up lights right beside the Tail lights,… mine had them mounted on the valance below the bumper and they were round. The straight 6 in ours was the 225cu.in. and was the light blue color… Believe it or not, that thing had loads of power and would smoke the tires and haul ass…
A couple of years later my Dad bought another one, a 65 Station wagon. It was a Kool little car even back then…it was an almost exact copy engine and drive train wise… They were good durable cars too.
Why is this still for sale? A running convertible for $1500 and it wasn’t been scooped up? Even if it does have some rust, still a deal. Wish it was 500 miles closer.
Holy crap. This is somewhere within a few miles of me. I think I may bring home another project
Go for it, Daniel! Let us know if you bring it home :-)
I hope Daniel scoops it up! For those who aren’t aware of it, the 225 is used in a specific racing class very successfully. Chrysler really got it right with these engines, along with the 318 and 360.
I don’t know the value of these (at all), and maybe I’ve been watching too many car-flipping shows, but how is a RED, TWO DOOR CONVERTIBLE, with a well-loved (many would say legendary) running, in-line six, not worth $3,000., the same day one buys it for $1,500.?
Were they torsion bar front suspension? I believe some ’60’s Chrysler-products were, and the “torque boxes” would rot out of the unibody, making much $adne$$. But to me, there must be something like that going on, or a couple of gallons of body filler in this thing, to be going so cheaply. (Just my .02–again, not familiar with this market–so you can quote me to your wife, but don’t tell her how to find me, if you buy it, and I’m wrong). ;-)
Peter
All US built Chrysler Corp. cars had torsion bar front suspension from model year 1957 until 1978 when the Omni/Horizon twins appeared.
Ed P.,
Thanks for the clarification. That’s a lot easier to remember, especially when you point out the arrival of the “Omni/Horizon” twins, and their transverse, FWD layouts–that’s a handy “mental bookend” (for me, at least). Much appreciated.
great little cars We have owned several. We had same car, auto, bucket seats red interior. bought it for $200 in 1970 long gone..
This red 1963 Valiant we are talking about, My wife and i bought it.. With the car came the original title from 1963 and the ad from when the guy we bought it from, bought it… The story on the car goes like this… Eight years ago a gentleman in Ohio was selling a car a 1963 Valiant and he told me that everyone was trying to beat him down on the price and he was asking 2800.00 for it and during this time a young man came by and said to him “Mister” one day I’m going to buy this car from you because i love these cars, During this time with the car for sale the seller decided to take it off the market and during that time put a new conv top on it and did some other thing’s to it.. Then one day there was a knock on the door and it was the young man with cash in his hand to buy the 63 Valiant conv which he said he was going to buy one day, The orig seller told me that the buyer and his Uncle showed up at 2am to pick the car up, Now the story from the person we bought it from– After he bought the car and brought it home he parked it in a climate control building and it sat for almost 8 years, he would start it and clean it and so on.. My wife and i bought the car and had it delivered aprox 1500 miles and when the truck showed up i couldn’t believe my eyes ( we have 14 other car’s) i went under the car while it was on the truck and it was as clean as a whistle and not a drop of oil, New exhaust , shocks, front end etc.. The truck driver told me that it runs perfect, so with the excitement of buying this car ( as i have been looking for years for a 63 to 65 Valiant or dart conv) I wanted to get behind the wheel. When i started the car it purred and i put it in to reverse and drove it into my warehouse with my other auto’s and Van’s.. I was very surprised the car was still for sale — I had called up to 6 or 7 times a day for day’s and never could reach anyone – so the day i was able to reach him i called him at 5:30am his time and woke him up…. I found this car on Barn Finder and I’m glad i did, Btw the top on the car is mint and it’s the top the prev owner put on over 8 year’s ago.. And I’m not going to change a thing besides restoring the car back to factory specs and condition …. There is still Awesome deal’s on great car’s as i found in this one…….Peace
Something I can relate to here. My second car was a light green ’63 slant-six two door Valiant. It had only 28K on the odometer when my parents gave it to me for Christmas in 1965 to replace my first car, a ’55 Belvedere which I mention elsewhere on this board. I drove the Valiant from until 1973. It was on its second motor by that time, out of a ’62 Dart. I really loved driving that one and still miss it.