Why were the wagons banned?
I do not like that SA Valiant, its a fake, that's a Dart body line!!
Well no. Not a fake. There was political and financial pressure on auto makers in Australia to have as much local content as possible. So while the A body was redesigned for the US market for 67, there was also a redesign of the Australian A body with much more local content than previous models. Because the cowl, windshield and front doors were interchangable on US Darts and Valiants, it was decided to do the same on the Australian built 1967 A body redesign. By using the front doors, windshield and cowl of the American A bodies, they could save tooling costs up front on first year models by using the US Dart front end for the Valiant in Australia. Within a year, they had their own unique tooling for the front end as well. On the Australian Valiants, the similarity to any US built Darts or Valiants ended with the front doors, cowl and windshield. The roof, rear doors and the rest of the unibody were distinctly Australian on both sedans and wagons. Meanwhile, in South Africa, local content wasn't a priority. Valiant and Dart sedans that were assembled there, were virtually identical to the US versions except for the right hand drive. But, they also assembled Valiant wagons in South Africa using body shells imported from Australia. Again, since the front doors cowls and windshields were shared with US Valiants and Darts, they could use either front end on the wagon body. Since the wagon was in the Valiant line, they used the front end that matched the US style Valiant sedans that were assembled there. So, its a real Chrysler designed 67 and up A body wagon and is the only A body wagon Chrysler produced for that generation of A bodies. All were branded as Valiants in Australia, South Africa and in New Zealand. Incidentally, the tail lights on those late 60's wagons look alot more like 67 Barracuda tail lights than 67 Dart tail lights, and the rear doors (body line and all) are not interchangable with any U.S. built Dart or Valiant. So no, its not a fake, and is actually very likely the wagon we would have seen in the US if the decision was made to continue the A body wagons past 1966. Keep in mind that all the US built 63-66 Valiant and Dart wagons used the same body shell with only the tail lights and front end sheet metal as the difference between the Plymouth and the Dodge. There is no reason to think that Chrysler would have given any A body wagons their own unique sheet metal. By 68, all B body Dodge and Plymouth wagons shared all the same body panels from the cowl back, and that trend was repeated with the redesigned C body wagons in 69.
