Well that almost happened: '66 Valiant promo on eBay

[ChrisBcritter]

The other day I spotted this on eBay with a $9.99 starting bid, and figured I'd get some popcorn and watch the bidders play "Break the Bank" again:

Checked back today and it was listed as ended early but relisted as a $500.00 BIN, then when I checked the new listing it had sold for "best offer accepted".

"Aw, you're no fun anymore!" 

Since these are so extremely rare (any guesses as how many are known to exist?), I saved the photos for posterity:

 

[Renegade]

Out of my price range.

[Snake45]

1 hour ago, Renegade said:

Out of my price range.

Mine too, but that's a beauty--thanks for saving the pics for us! 

I've been doing some ePay hunting myself lately. Been outsniped at the last minute a couple times, and have seen a couple big ones gallop completely out of range, but I've also scored two or three almost unbelievably good deals. Will post 'em up when they arrive. 

[ChrisBcritter]

Yeah, this week I put in bids on a '59 Buick hardtop that had EVERY custom piece attached - got trampled. ($102.50 IIRC.)

[Snake45]

You never know what's gonna happen on The Bay. Last night I just happened across a fairly nice AMT '67 Impala original promo offered at a very reasonable starting price, NO BIDS, ending this morning. I knew it would probably go for big bucks, and further knew I was gonna be away from any computer at "closing time" so didn't get too excited about it. This morning before I left for work it still had no bids, so just to say I did, I launched a "fire and forget" bid about $10 over the opening. Expected to come home to find it had sold for big bucks, or probably $1 more than I'd bid (which happened to me on a '65 Mustang the other night), but to my surprise and delight, I was evidently the only bidder and got it for openers. 

So, GOOD things happen sometimes, too. 

[Tom Geiger]

Here's mine!  The most I've ever spent on a model. I believe it cost $425.  I bought it on eBay from Joe Wheat about 9 years ago.  Every time there was one up for sale, the timing was never right for me!  This time I was in the middle of my complicated three house move to Pennsylvania.  I started to pass on it, then I said  WTH and hit that "Buy It Now" button.   These are the photos from the listing.  Mine is a silver blue.

This is a red one that Tom Carter had for sale (his photo).  I don't remember the price.

This one is Dean Milano's.  Notice something interesting... it has a Barracuda center grill.

Here's a yellow one that was on eBay back around 2008.  Again, notice the Barracuda center grill.  I don't remember the price on this one.  The auction said it was from the collection of a retired Chrysler employee.

So the ridiculously elusive '66 Valiant was produced in at least 5 colors I have documented so far.  So that means it wasn't a very limited production piece, that would more likely have been in one color.   And here's my conspiracy theory:

As per the usual process, no doubt AMT got preproduction blue prints to produce the model.  It appears that Chrysler had a second thought on the roof line on the '66 Valiant, as the body is more squared off than the previous years models.  So they squared off the roof on the Valiant line.  Only AMT didn't know and produced the promo with the wrong roof!   I have owned 1:1 '66 Valiants, and yes it's wrong!

Here's the correct roof line.  See the difference?

Promos I've seen state that they came from a Chrysler employee's collection.  So my theory is that the complete promo run was produced, a batch was sent to Chrysler and they balked at the roof line.  Thus, the entire run was scrapped, but the ones that had been sent to Chrysler somehow survived.  

Note that this was the last AMT Valiant.  Each year they had done a promo, then a curbside kit.  No kit this year either.  Continuing on... what happened to the tooling?  It became the Fireball 500.   I've examined the inside of an original '66 Valiant against the Fireball and there are matching marks.  Note that the Fireball didn't come from the '66 Barracuda tool since that still exists as the Hemi Under Glass.

The one you showed for sale wasn't perfect.  There's a glue mess around the tail lights.

There are a few resins that have been produced of this car.  R&R did one years ago and Motor City Resin Casters does / did one.  I have two copies of that one.  I've also seen someone trying to sell a painted resin copy as a faux promo on eBay.  They admitted it was a copy.

That's all I know!  Feel free to add to this, disprove my theory etc.  I'd love to know the whole deal.

 

[ChrisBcritter]

Yeah, I'd like to get one of those resin kits sometime and build it as the convertible from the chase scene in The Flim-Flam Man.

[Motor City]

Tom,

It looks like the back window is flatter on the real car and doesn't have all of the moldings that show up on the promo.   

[wrenchr]

I think that is wax around the tail lights.