Rare Hi-Po '61 Valiant

A very interesting vehicle. I would not have minded having one of these. Thanks JK.

Route 66 has an exact model of this car from Highway Travelers in 1/43 scale.

Here it is.

Wow! How cool is this?  The 1:1 and the 1/43 are fantastic. IMO, one of those cars so kooky & quirky you just got to love it. 

There was another special edition of the Valiant (Hyper-pack).   It was advertised at having 195 HP, but that figure was made public with a wink.  In reality the engine loped like a gasser (which is why it was nicknamed "Hyper") and even beat Chevy's 283 V-8.

Got this from the Internet, "In a first, CBS television had aired the compact sedan races as well as the qualifying for the Daytona 500 race in a live TV special for their "sports spectacular;" it was estimated that 17 million people were watching. The compact sedan Daytona race quickly turned into a dull affair as lap after lap Lee Petty managed to turn away all challenges. It was made even duller by the fact that besides his Valiant, the next 7 positions were also hyper-pak valiants.

" . . . the 170 slant six would be transformed from economy to high performance and earned Chrysler racing engineers the title of most powerful and feared in-line six cylinder ever built in America.

The finishing order was Valiant 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 ! Did Chrysler use that for advertising fodder? Nope. Go figure! NASCAR agreed with CBS on the dull part of the race, and quickly cancelled any other plans for a compact sedan race."

https://www.allpar.com/threads/the-slant-six-hyper-pak.229962/

Thanks for the picture John. Also thanks for the commentary Frank.