Thread: 1968 Plymouth Valiant 1st Gen HEMI

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I’ve been hunting for a body to put the First Gen HEMI I built for a while now. Originally I was looking for a 50s Dodge or Plymouth, but due to some recent back problems I decided to look for something more suitable to being able to handle daily driver duties. I settled on a late 60s-mid 70s dart or valiant.

Surprisingly they’re fairly plentiful out here, it’s not even unusual to see stock survivors being used as daily transportation. I got leads on 3 to look at this week. As it turned out they were all 68 Valiant 2 door sedans. At a glance none were exactly what I was looking for, one was way over priced for what it was. Another is basically a parts car. The last one was a turn-key “street/strip” car that was far more race than street and a lot more than I had wanted to spend.

valiant 2 by M Patterson, on Flickr


I did go over and look at it, it’s got a 508 stroker 727 combination with 8 ¾ rearend end with 4.11 gears on ladder bars and coil overs. The suspension including the mini-tubbs and sub frame connectors were very well done and being set up for the Big Block I know it will handle the weight of the HEMI.

Valiant 5 by M Patterson, on Flickr


The down side to using it as a daily driver would be getting in and out of the 6 point roll cage, trunk mounted fuel cell, open hood scoop, and the paint has enough issues that it will need to be repainted.


I did love the stance of the car.

valiant 8 by M Patterson, on Flickr

And the more I thought about the suspension work that was already done I thought it would save me a lot of time and expense building the car.

I did go for a ride in it and think I can live with the ladder bar/coil over suspension.

Long story short the seller and I came to a price and I pulled the trigger yesterday.

Plans call for pulling the engine and trans and installing my 354 HEMI and 46RH (will need to do the transmission tunnel stuff and trans mount work). I’ll probably make the front two legs of the roll cage removable. Convert back to a flat hood and original fuel tank. I’ll also probably tint the windows to make the roll cage less noticeable. I’ll put the left overs up for sale to recoup part of the cost of the car.

Going to try and go look at the parts car that is on FB market place this weekend might be a good source for a hood and odds and ends. Besides you can never have enough cars






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