When I was in high school we would cruise the streets of Salem on Friday nights, in my friend's father's red 1960 Valiant station wagon. They had an 1/8th mile dirt driveway so when we got to the end we'd jack it up, crank the front torsion bars down and then raise it back up when we got back home. I liked the radiused rear wheel wells and slanted taillights.
When I was looking up the model year (easier than figuring out my age at the time) I found this on
Wikipedia:
Quote:
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Plymouth product planning director Jack Charipar gave impetus for a stock car racing version of the Valiant,[9] and while Chrysler engineers developed the Hyper-Pak for the track, the Hyper-Pak dealer tuning kit option was made available in limited quantities on December 1, 1959. Features included 153 lb·ft (207 N·m) of torque, a 10.5:1 compression ratio, dual exhaust pipes on a single muffler, a manual choke and a larger 15 US gal (57 l) fuel tank.[10] Dick Maxwell, a Chrysler engineer responsible for many of the Super Stock Mopars, recalls that "When NASCAR decided to run a compact road race in conjunction with the 1960 Daytona 500, all the factories got involved. We built a fleet of seven Hyper Pak Valiants with 148-hp 170-ci [Slant] sixes having a single four-barrel with ram manifold." The race Hyper-Paks also featured high-load valve springs and long-duration, high-lift camshafts.
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