Please allow me to introduce myself. I been lurking Slant Six forum for a couple of years and learned sooo much!
I have been a A-body fan for most of my life. A couple of years ago I realized I got to have one of mothers of all A-bodys. For me it was the two door post 1961 Valiant that pleased me the most. I love the way the posts are leaning forward, it makes the car look like it is going 100 mph standing still!
After searching the net for several years this one turned up. Less than 100 000 km on the odometer, (if I converted right 62 000 miles), and only 4 previous owners.
First owner was an older lady that bought it in Linköping, Sweden. I managed to track down all the previous owners and written a little story about them, but that’s all in Swedish…


Virgil Exner did a great job on this first "Compact Car"!


15 Rallye Wheels with 70 profile tires fills out the wheel arches quite well. The car is lowered about 2 inches. Together with Koni shocks it actually handles a lot better than I anticipated!


A towing hook, (is that proper English?), from a newer Valiant fitted with just minor modifications.


The interior is ok, but have some cracks in the seams. I installed a "Retro Sound" car stereo with adjustable shaft/brackets. Behind the steering wheel are the push buttons for the tranny. Sadly they are black, (really looking for 61 correct white buttons)!


I found a picture of the original speaker grilles, and made simular ones for the rear speakers.


A chromed aftermarket air cleaner for the fourbarrel Edelbrock was, in my mind, out of the question. After searching the internet for inspiration, I came up with a dual snorkel design. Two exhaust pipes were pressed over a cone and voila!


And finally, a picture by Photografer Westin, taken at a friday cruise in Stockholm earlier this summer.

Absolutely beautiful car!

Thank you for posting. I share your love for the first A bodies!

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Rob

I’m Mater
The Kentucky Poser

What a fantastic car!! Well done!! Bra jobbat!

Shawn

Welcome! Beautiful car!

That's a gorgeous car, interior is much better than "ok"! Looks like it came out of a childrens' book in that color. Congrats on the new ride.

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'69 D100, 225 SL6, A745→NP435

Very nice, and very unique!

Very cool! I was in Stockholm a year ago and happened to see a cruise night in mid August. I stopped by a guy who was parked with his 64 Dart hardtop and a couple of friends. We chatted for an hour or so. Nice folks and lots of cool hotrods cruising around.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines

Your car might be the nicest 61 in the world! Did you have to do a lot of restoration work or was the car this nice when you got it? My first car in 1962 was a 1961 V100 2 door just like yours, but yours looks better than mine did when it was almost new. Thanks for posting this.

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If you didn't drive it there, it's not a street car.

Beautiful car!!

Stunning! I love it.

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Never seen a Valiant I didn't like!

Thank you all for kind and encouraging comments!

This post of my experiment with ¼ wave resonator got lost in the forum crash a few weeks ago. And, (at least I), found it very interesting and successful!

I had an exhaust shop build me a new exhaust system after changing to Dutra duals. It turned out very much as I wanted it, with a crisp sound and very quiet inside. Except between 70 and 90 km/h, (43-55 mph). The drone at that speed got my tooth fillings to come loose!

After reading a lot, I stumbled across a very old way of dealing with the problem. The idea is to put a capped tube in 90 degrees angle to the exhaust system. If the length is correct the sound pulses will bounce back into the system 180 degrees out of phase and it will cancel out the next sound pulse! (The exhaust fumes will still take the easy way out, straight back!)

At first when reading about it seemed very complicated to calculate. But after a while I figured out that all you really need to know is the engines rev at that particular speed, and an estimated temperature inside the resonator. I calculated the length to 91 cm (35.8 inches), and at the same time found out that one can have a mandrel bent 90 degree bend so the pipe can run parallel to exhaust system.
When asking the guys at the exhaust shop to install the pipe I had a lot of “cheerful” comments coming my way. But when coming back to tell them it was a complete success, they admitted that quite a few cars in the 60ies and 70ies had such an appendix pipe and no one really understood why!

The drone is completely gone for a very cheap cost! I made a simple measurement before and after, and I lowered the sound level inside the car with 9 db! (That’s a lot!)

Another way of dealing with the same problem and frequently used by car manufacturers today, is the Helmholtz resonator. (A small pipe with a “can” attached to it). Smaller, but a calculation far more complicated than my brain can cope with!

9dB is a huge reduction in noise, congratulations on that. Nice, tidy install, too.

More info on these quarter-wave resonators here and here.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Very nice! Thanks very much for sharing. Looks like an easy modification...

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines

A lot of new chrome and restored tail lights makes you smile, doesn't it?


It was really fiddly to fill in the black lines on the tail lights. One Shot-paint and a fine brush. (And a lot of patience!)

Wonder if the "sergeant lowers" had a black stripe as well when new?

Nice chromework!

Yes, I am pretty sure the Sergeant stripes originally had black paint in the recessed area facing rearward.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.