My 1965 Valiant Wagon Resto FINALLY BEGINS

I got this car way back in 1995 . It should have been crushed and I was thinking "parts car" but while driving it to home twenty miles from where it was I fell in love.

It was a real basket case with rust everywhere and dents in every body panel on the entire car but I was in love. At first I looked for a better one and soon realized they just aren't out there close enough to home for me to get so I dove in and made it a decent driver by fixing all the issues in the frame, floor,and drive train. Then I put on decent buy repaired front fenders, 4 used doors I had, and a set of Barracuda quarters turning her into a presentable car to use for work.I'm a carpenter so a wagon is just the right car for most of my work. Used her like this until right now !


After about a year or so I had the car in white epoxy primer and she was a driver.Then in went the 7 1/4 323 sure grip , the 4 speed,and the 170 . I love this set up ,it's fun to drive working the gears to make her work and getting somewhere around 25MPG . She started to rust some again living out doors and being in service but I figured I
d use her up seeing as she was already on borrowed time.After a time I slapped on a brush & roller paint job to keep her looking ok going down the road to keep the cops off my *** and kept using her for another five or six years.

Over the past two years I have chased down all the body parts that I still needed to make my little wagon a nice ride again.I found a set of doors from a guy (claydart) on this site and a set of quarters from a 65 Barracuda to section in and fix the rust there.I had a nice rust &dent free front clip ,rocker panels ,and a 65 Barracuda front valance & complete grill so she is going to morph into a Barracuda wagon !

So now it begins ! I just bought new tires and am about to do the brakes and mount those new tires.Going to take her on her last work trip 400 miles up to my camp in the woods and upon my return I start working on the underside of the car as the ground up resto starts to happen

It was a rough start and most would not have tried to bring it back. Good luck and keep posting as it progresses.

One more thing.....turn that stack of wood on the roof rack into a surf board and you'll fit right in at any Good Guys show. For some reason, EVERY wagon must have a surf board.

KosmicKuda said:

...turn that stack of wood on the roof rack into a surf board and you'll fit right in at any Good Guys show. For some reason, EVERY wagon must have a surf board.

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n.s. even in iowa...this is going to be a nice build. not nearly enough A wagons around

Sweet car!

Good luck with your project! Long journey ahead, but it will be worth it!

Good luck with your wagon. I really like the look of Barracuda quarters. It gives the car new lines!

There really isn't any other way to do these cars unless you get real lucky and find one that was crashed in the front end with good quarters.I have looked for years for wagon quarters and never came across any.Watch,now that I have these as soon as I hang them wagon ones will start raining down from the sky. But, it does give the car a unique look and I like that especially with a Barracuda grill up front .It should be a pretty cool driver and at 70 years old that's all I'm really looking for.