Forty years on, Valiant’s very cool coupe still gets the thumbs-up. NEIL DOWLING reports Aug 2011

ONE Australian car cut through the 1970s cultural cringe of Farrah Fawcett hairstyles, tan-coloured flares and looking cool with a ciggie.
Chrysler’s Valiant Charger was a hip phenomenon, prompting colourful dancing graphics in magazine advertising, monochrome TV ads of smiling kids and a hirsute Graeme Blundell flashing the “V” sign shouting “Hey Charger”.
In retrospect, the corny — and blatantly sexist — TV ads were extremely successful in relaying the fun aspect of the car that single-handedly put Chrysler’s Australian image on a higher plane.
Despite the intervening decades, that addiction lingers.
John Urquhart caught the Charger bug at age 33, buying a new R/T in early 1972 — the build date was September 1971 — for about $3600. After 39 years, he still has it.
“I bought it because I intended it for motor racing,” says the retired lawyer, now living the quiet life in southwestern WA.
“But it became the family car right up to the 1980s and I never entered it in an event until 1991. It really lives up to its name — R/T for road and track — because it was comfortable and roomy for my two children as they grew up.”
The beige coupe, with its blacked-out bonnet panels, pressed steel wheels finished in graphite to look like alloys, the golf-club head gear knob and serious “265 R/T” badges, is as aesthetically pleasing today as it was when Chrysler Australia penned the body shape atop a chopped sedan platform.
Urquhart pressed it into service in 1991, entering hill climbs, sprints and regularity trials and campaigning it around the country venues and even using it to tow his other car, an open-wheeler, to eastern states events — among them a Mopars on the Murray show and the Shannons 2001 National Motoring Tour.
“I drove it to Adelaide for a supporting race for open-wheelers that preceded the main event at the 1985 Adelaide Grand Prix, the first one,” he says.
The Charger hasn’t avoided incidents. A bushfire in 2006 that devastated forests around Urquhart’s home left the house intact but destroyed the sheds in which the Charger was stored, damaging the car.
Later, a motorist in the city failed to stop in time and wrote off her small car on the back of the Charger. You can still see the scratch in the Charger’s chrome bumper but the minor sheetmetal damage has been repaired and the tail-light replaced.
The 265 cubic-inch (4.3-litre) “Hemi” six has a new block — Urquhart has the original — and there are extractors with 2-inch pipes, a meatier cam profile and the Carter carburettor has been replaced with a Holley 500.
The original three-speed manual gearbox has given way to a four-speeder.
Dyno testing shows it has 163kW at the flywheel and 123kW at the wheels at 4950rpm, just shy of the engine’s 5000rpm redline.
“I had power brakes fitted. It doesn’t stop any better, but the pedal pressure is a lot less,” Urquhart says.
“It has also had the steel members replaced around the steering box. It is a common problem that this area is weak and prone to rust, so it’s now reinforced.”
Urquhart is an original member of the Charger Club of WA so he knows its value and indicates the car could be for sale. “I retired from events in June,” he says, “so the car won’t be used much now.
“I estimate it’s worth $47,500 and I was analytical in arriving at that because when new it was about half the price of Bathurst-specced Chargers that are now going for $80,000-$90,000.”
Chrysler Australia built the Charger from 1971 to 1978, creating a coupe body from the windscreen-pillar back. The VH sedan platform lost 152mm from the wheelbase.
The coupe was 333mm shorter than the sedan and 54kg lighter at 1352kg.