In July 2000, Drive’s Tony Davies looked back at the car that farewelled Chrysler out of Australia with barely a whimper.
Chrysler deserved a better swansong than to have a soon-to-be-unemployed production line worker scratch into the wet sealant under the carpet with a shaky finger, ‘Last Barstard’, spelling mistake and all.
But that’s the fate that befell the last ever Chrysler Valiant made in Australia, a white 1981 model year CM fitted with the legendary 245ci (4.0-litre) Hemi six.
That white Valiant CM signalled the end of Chrysler production in Australia, a sad end for a carmaker that had once formed – along with Holden and Ford – part of the ‘Big Three’.
While never quite scaling the heights of its Australian-made rivals, Chrysler nevertheless ‘kept the bastards honest’, as the old saying goes, making its scrawled epitaph all the more poignant, even if the spelling left a little to be desired.
Drive‘s Tony Davies felt no such poignancy when he penned his ode to the Chrysler CM Valiant back in 2000, almost 20 years after its demise, remembering only an old and bloated barge that left Australia with barely a whimper. RM
Story below by Tony Davies originally published in Drive on 21 July, 2000
Of the many exciting things happening in the Australian car market in 1980, none involved a dinosaur known as the Valiant. Holden’s new Euro-style Commodore was well and truly established, Ford had recently launched the Falcon XD (which made more use of plastic than any mainstream Australian car before it) and even small cars were showing previously unimagined performance and refinement.
And Mitsubishi – yes, Mitsubishi – was building the Chrysler Valiant CM, based on a car that was nothing special when launched nine years earlier, and which still lacked such basic things as flow-through cabin ventilation.
Launched by Chrysler Australia in late 1978, the CM was the final derivative of the VH model of 1971. Brochures boasted “improved styling features – plus full colour co-ordination”, whatever that was.
The reality was the CM – with a new grille and tail-lights and various changed body mouldings and badges – was as new as beleaguered Chrysler could manage.
Bulky, dated and downright boring, the CM had one thing to commend it: its Electronic Lean Burn System (ELB) six-cylinder Hemi engine. With the very early electronic engine management system good for fuel savings of up to 25 per cent over the previous model, the engine could hold its head high against all local rivals (which is not saying that much).
As well as getting long in the gear-teeth, the Valiant range was shrinking. The CM range’s main casualty was the Charger coupe which briefly had been the company’s white knight. The ute and panel van also were dropped.
The base Valiant (which Chrysler called the “medium-line” model) gave unrivalled metal for money with a price of $6850. The Regal was $1700 dearer and the range-topping Regal SE a hopeful $12,002.
Chrysler’s advertising thrust now centred on fuel efficiency, one stunt involving a Valiant being driven from Sydney to Melbourne on a single tank of fuel (the ads didn’t mention that the car failed the first attempt).
Dearer variants were fitted with a “Fuel Pacer”, a vacuum device that flashed a light when the driver was using too much throttle. Oddly, this light was mounted out on the right-hand guard, beneath a chrome shield.
Chrysler in the US was haemorrhaging and Mitsubishi was poised to swoop on its assets here. In 1979, it bought one-third of Chrysler’s Australian operations for $27 million. In 1980 the rest went for a bargain $52 million.
Chrysler Australia was renamed Mitsubishi Motors Australia Limited on October 1, 1980 and the strong-selling Chrysler Sigma small car was rebadged accordingly. Mitsubishi would have happily dropped the Valiant but, with 97 per cent of it made in Australia, it was needed for the company to meet local content targets. In any case, the tooling was paid for so even a small number could be produced profitably.
Mitsubishi was prepared to keep building a Valiant, but didn’t want its name on it, hence the Chrysler badges were retained. In 1981 Valiant was 20th on the local top-sellers’ list, something of a tumble from the third place it held through much of the ’60s. Prices started at $7821, less than some small Japanese cars.
The final blow for the Valiant was increasing difficulty in finding small imported parts such as headlight surrounds and wagon tailgate mechanisms. The tiny number of Valiants being produced meant there was no case for making such parts here and Chrysler’s US warehouses were nearly empty.
On August 28, 1981 the last Valiant was driven off the Tonsley Park assembly line. It was Valiant number 565,338; the CM had added just 16,005 to that tally in three years.
Valiant, once an innovator, died with a whimper, the badge representing a car years behind its competitors.
Do you, or have you ever owned a Chrysler CM Valiant? What are your memories of it? Let us know in the comments below?
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