I found this Valiant today, hoping to maybe pick it up within the next month. The body is very straight and solid, trunk floors solid, no rot. [...] Slant six with a 3-speed, may even run.
Good luck with the purchase! It looks pretty sweet to me. Value is hard to nail down, and is certainly different in a snowbelt where it's hard to find rust-free, but I kinda agree with the 500-1k assessment. (Of course, wanting it bad is never conducive to getting good deals, eh?) ;)
One thing jumps out at me-- the distance between the heater hoses and the valve cover is large enough that this might be the low deck engine. While it seems that a lot of you are drag racing, a few of us think a 170 is quite a prize. If it is, and you eventually decide you don't want it, I'd love a chance to rebuild another one...
Yes, the passenger fender is from a 1965. A lot of the chrome looks fairly complete, at least one of those headlight rings looks great, the windshield isn't even foggy... and the instrument chrome looks respectable. Too bad that master cylinder leak did a number on the firewall paint. Yea, I'd agree with the "money pit" idea. :) You could spend a lot of time turning this into a creampuff. But I personally think it'd be worth it.