Big sedan battled sales trends
Valiant’s VK series proved to have a battle on its hands, emerging into a ‘soft’ market that was seeing increasing competition from more compact, cheaper and sometimes higher-spec offerings particularly from Australia and Japan.
To combat this, the company’s own mid-size Centura was launched the same year as this VK – 1975.
In a buyer guide on the VK series, Cliff Chambers noted: “If Chrysler Australia had owned a crystal ball it wouldn’t have gone with quite so much metal when designing the longer, wider VH predecessor. And had there been some funding for development they might have done a bit more with the VK to insulate it from the rising tide of buyer hostility towards big cars and soaring fuel prices.
“The VK arrived in October 1975 and less than a year later was gone. During its tenure in a depressed vehicle market, just over 20,000 were made and survivors are accordingly scarce.”
See the full story here, and note that values have moved on since it was published.
This example looks like an exceptionally original one. Though not perfect, it presents well and is running a 245ci (4.0lt) six with auto and what appears to be dealer-fitted air-con. With a little over 230,000km on the odo, it’s being offered out of Sydney with a roadworthy certificate at $28,500.
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