In June of 2007, I discovered this VJ series Valiant Ranger at a caryard in Newcastle, New South Wales. I found it online in one of my random searches for big, luxury sedans. I normally searched for Valiants of the 1969 VF series or later. My other fascination are the Australian built V8 Ford Fairlanes between 1972 and 1979 (the ZF, ZG and ZH series).

An interstate buyer had driven this Valiant down from Queensland to trade in on another car.  Sadly, the caryard cancelled the remaining two months of registration and sent the licence plates back to Queensland.  If they had used their brains, they would have transferred the registration over to New South Wales registration.  Then, the car could have been legally driven for two more months and only required a basic "pink slip" inspection to get it re-registered.  My mechanic would have been kind enough to overlook the rusty areas and renew it for me.  Instead, with the registration cancelled, the car had to be subjected to the far more critical "blue slip" inspection because it requires new licence plates to be issued.

When I took it to my local Mitsubishi dealership, they looked at it as an old bomb and gave me a list of repairs so long it was clearly an attempt to keep another old classic off the roads.  If they were trying to make me buy one of their new Chrysler 300's (or some shopping cart hatchback) they were going the wrong way about it.

I had panelbeating done in August 2008 to cut out a moderate amount of rust.  The panelbeaters I took it to seemed to enjoy working on it.  The day I drove it in, one of the guys watching me drive up said "talk about a trip down memory lane" as I got out.  They removed rust, mainly from the door sills and around the windscreen.  They charged me a bargain price of $1250 for work that would easily have exceeded $2000.  Especially since they paint-matched and sprayed the repairs to seal them.