Early Valiants tend to be thin on the ground at car shows these days, so we were stoked to bump into Troy Styles’s appropriately chopped AP6 at Chopped 2024. Troy’s been a Valiant man since day dot, and firmly believes in driving the cars he builds rather than strapping them to a trailer.

First published in the January 2025 issue of Street Machine

How did this car come into your life?

Before this one, I had a blown and tubbed AP6, which I had built for my wedding. It was all shiny, and I was sick of cleaning it. I’ve always had a soft spot for the AP6s, so after I sold the wedding car, I wanted to build something different, and I knew it had to be a Valiant. The plan from the start was to chop a Val the next time one came up. When I bought this one, it was dead-stock and original.

Who did the chop job for you?

Jody Vincitorio and Mick Grumpy from JV’s Paint & Panel. Jody is my best mate, and he does a bloody good job. He built a chopped Monaro coupe that looks killer (SM, Feb ’12). We chopped the Val to build something different; I’d never seen a chop like this, and I wanted the car to pop. I’ve been to a lot of Valiant shows, but I found a lot of modified Vals are just a different colour or a different set of wheels. We tubbed it as well for the same reason. When you pop the boot and compare these tubs to the original wheel tubs, it looks like they’re just being stretched further. It’s a very clean finish and still looks sort of original.

What else have you done to it?

We dropped a mild 318 V8 into it, as well as a 904 auto with a B&M shifter. I went all-out with the diff; it’s a nine-inch Truetrac with billet axles. We’re still running original reset leaf springs in the rear, which we’ve just moved inwards on the inside of the chassis, and the front torsion beams have been lowered to match. Obviously, it’s got to stop as well, so it’s got a full Wilwood brake system installed, too. It’s all done pretty old school; even the exhaust is a full 2.5-inch mild-steel system.

Any future mods on the cards?

I’ve got a tunnel ram waiting to go into it, which I’ve had sitting in the shed for almost 10 years, plus a McDonald Brothers scoop and some freshly rebuilt carbies to suit. But every time I go to put them on, I think about whether I can keep driving it on the roads once I’m done. It’s a beauty to drive, so I don’t want to lose that.