Only a handful of the coffin nose Rambler Matador were actually produced locally over two years and I got to drive someone's V8 wagon once and it was my first experience driving a V8 and it went! The steering had zero feel and was so over assisted it felt like it wasn't connected to the wheels at all!
That reminds me of my mate who had an XB coupe which was a 302 when he first bought it but when that died we replaced it with a 351 V8. I drove it before he put power steering in it and it had the standard manual heavy steering. Then I drove it again when he put power steering in it and it was so feather light you could almost turn the wheel with a fingertip. I thought it was way too light for such a big heavy car. But it probably did make slow speed turning especially easy when parking than manual steer.
Sadly my dad left it sitting outside for a decade unregistered when it was finally towed away by a wrecker in 1982 full of rust.
Sadly I think it was the same year I reckon when I was a kid watching the tow truck take away my dads old white HR Holden sedan down the driveway which was also taken to a local wrecking yard. I think the drivers side of the car was smashed in the doors wouldn't open and close on the drivers side, but it was still drivable, you just had to get in and out from the passenger side..lol. Eventually the police noticed it and said that the car was not roadworthy in that condition.
My grandfather bought one of the first VF Valiant Regal Coupes made - the dealer didn't tell him it arrived for 2 weeks so it could be put on the rotating pedestal in the showroom.
I had some mates that used to live near here and I went to school with them. They used to all have Valiants of all sorts, sedans, 2 doors, etc. I remember them having a same style Valiant as the one from that movie "The Wog Boy". The funny thing was my mates with those Valiants weren't all that far off what the movie was based on, and they were like that years before that movie was released! LOL!
Cheers!
