<VV> Re: Mopar on the VV

[Tony Underwood]

At 10:52 hours 07/15/2004 -0400, Tareece@aol.com wrote:
>Hey,
>   One.....Every year magazines come out teliing you how to do this or that 
>to make your new car from the previous year kick butt better...
>   Two.... The Corvair has simply survived the test of time...My 66 Monza 
>sedan has dissolved far less from rust sitting in my yard than my
neighbors two 
>early 70's Chargers rotting ofcourse in his yard..not mine..I mean...that
would 
>be rude....

My Mopar experiences are most substantially involving 1960s vintage
vehicles and a few 1950s variants.   After 1970 Ma Mopar kinda lost her way
a bit, IMHO at least with the B body cars...  which got heavier and
cluttered and outfitted with too many whistles and bells and frills.   The
sheetmetal used in the bodies also got a little thinner in an effort to
help keep weight down...  '74 Challenger weighing in at over 3700 lbs?
To date I've seen no real rust issues any worse than other domestic marques
with most Mopars made since the very late '50s when Mopar bodies began
getting dip-sealed during manufacture.    In fact, they seem to hold up
rather well.   

I maintain that the quality off construction of the mid-late '60s Mopars
was excellent and arguably better than same-year GM and Ford construction.
 I will argue that they were at least as good with rust/corrosion
prevention as anything GM or Ford produced.  


Of course wear and tear and location will have an effect on any car, far as
corrosion and plain simple rust is concerned.   


A Corvair *will* rust... a lot... depending on where it sits and upon
*what* it sits.   I recall mentioning a '64 Spyder from New England that I
ended up with, cheap, that was so rusty it failed a safety inspection and
it had been a daily driver, not left sitting in a yard to accumulate mold
and moisture and dew and plain old rot.    Another Vair was a late 4-door
that a buddy bought cheap from a preacher which was rusted so bad that the
front floors (made of plywood) would flex under your feet if you applied
the brakes firmly.    It wasn't a rust belt vehicle like the '64 Spyder,
but a local car bought here in the Shenandoah Valley area.    

Sometimes it's the luck of the draw.   The '69 blue Monza here is a local
car, bought new in Roanoke and has had just three owners, all Roanoke
residents, car has never lived anywhere but here in Roanoke.    It had some
rust issues, mostly from sitting for 7 years beside the PO's house on a
shaded dirt/gravel driveway.   On the other hand, my mom's old '61 700
4-door was afflicted with rather severely rusted floors (which were
repaired) caused by that rubber mat.   However, the body was solid, no rust
in fenders, rockers, door edges, etc.    But the floors were rough...
again, proximity to moisture.   


><in the '50s and '60s Mama Mopar didn't build
>junk.>
>
>I don't have first hand experience but I understand that the '57s were
sorely 
>lacking in build quality.  I've heard stories of them rusting on the
showroom 
>floor.    

I'd not rank that with build quality, but more with inadequate rust
preventative measures (read:  paint or undercoating) or, as in the case
with many European car manufacturers of the '50s, a less than excellent
quality of steel which was prone to rust.   

I've seen Fords and Chevys and Mopars alike of '50s vintage which rotted
all to Hell and back.   Mopars back then had no upper hand on rust
susceptibility.  

>There was even an article in one of the car magazines in '58 on how 
>to fix the bugs in your '57 Plymouth!


Heh...  now that might be interesting reading!    


I'm not saying that '50s vintage Mopars were perfect cars by any means.
I'm just not gonna knock them as being worse than anyone else.    And they
did have some styling that was pretty decent (depending) until around '61
and the appearance of the Batmobile Mopars.   

Can anyone ever forget the epitome of evil that was the '61 Plymouth Fury?
  Ford had their ugly-ass duckling with the '59 model, and the '59 Chevy
was kinda hard on the eyes as well... Mercury's 58 and 59 models were
horrendous...  but the '61 Fury really topped them all in pure dork value.   


The '61 Chevy and Ford offerings on the other hand were some of the best
looking cars around in '61.    I'm a fan of the '61 Starliner... GREAT
looking car.   And a '61 Impala SS is not only rare, it's fine looking to
boot.    Not until '62 did Ma Mopar start recovering from the "art-deco"
tangent that Virgil Exner had taken.  Fortunately he recovered during the
tangent sufficiently to make it up with the A body cars and went on to
design things like the Valiant and Lancer...   great little cars.   

Then again, the '60-62 Valiants enjoyed the same luck with looks as Vairs
and also went for several years without changing the body style.   Hey if
it works don't fix it.   

The Valiant/Dart platform was rather mundane and unglamorous but it was
solid and tough and durable and tight, and they would keep going and going
although battered and beaten into an embarrassingly ugly remnant of
automobilia and they *still* wouldn't quit.    How many people in here will
admit that on a regular basis they still will spot old Darts and Valiants
on the roads going like that battery bunny...?      You can't kill those
cars.   


And of course, the mid to late '60s were arguably the flower of the
American built automobile with so many great looking cars springing up from
everywhere like the '66 and '67 offerings from GM, Ford, and Mopar alike.
 The '66 Chevelle is a great looking car, as is the '66 Fairlane, the '66
442,  the  '66 Charger, and the '66 Corvair is of course the quintessential
Corvair with '66 being the last year for the Corsa and the turbo engine
etc.    The mid-late '60s also brought us some of the most powerful cars
ever built, with engines like the Ford 427 sideoiler, the LS6 454, the 426
Hemi, the Olds W30 455, the Mopar 440x6v, the Buick GS 455 and Pontiac's
Ram-Air IV 400, all street terrors.   And even Corvairs could be had with
an engine offering 1+ HP/cu in.    

There are exotic powerful engines made today that are so much more
sophisticated than engines of the '60s.... but they don't seem to have the
same soul.   I can listen to the engine in my raggediest Vair as it runs
down the road and I know everything that's going on inside it just by
listening.    And, it's been running like that for 40+ years and it's still
going.   I'd say they built that one pretty well...   the fact that it's
still here makes a statement.   



tony..