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The simplicity of the slant six engine design, its relatively modest output, and the quality of the main rotating parts (including a forged crankshaft) as well as the effective cooling and lubrication systems, meant these engines lasted forever. Find any “most reliable engines of all time” list on the internet, and the Chrysler slant six will be on it.

This is why I bought my 1965 Plymouth Valiant. I want a winter car to replace my Lexus LX470, which is a swell car, but worth too much for me to let rust out on Michigan’s salty roads, and a bit boring and thirsty, with its four-speed slushbox and ridiculous curb weight. I want something fun to drive in the winter, and few things are as fun as a three-speed column-shift manual transmission.

Image for article titled I Bought The Most Reliable American Car Ever Built. Now I'm Putting It To The Test — Image: Syd

I spotted the car on upstate New York’s Facebook Marketplace with an asking price of $2,835. Andrew and his wife Sydney drove me over an hour to a Christian bible camp, where the man who runs the place showed me his wasp-infested Valiant, which he swore had only 51,500 original miles (this, I later learned when going through the service records, was false; the notes clearly show the vehicle eclipsing 100,000 miles).

The man was nice (to me, not the wasps; he murdered them viciously — odd behavior for someone who runs a bible camp, but also maybe not), but didn’t know much about his car. He’d only owned it for a few years, and couldn’t tell me whether first gear is synchronized (it is not). Is it a bit alarming that he didn’t know the answer to that? Yes, a bit. I’ll change the transmission fluid as soon as I can to drain out chunks of those first gear teeth.

The test drive went well; motor fired up quickly, and the transmission was quiet. I handed the seller $2,000, he signed his registration, and I was off. Well, after filling the motor with a quart of oil, the radiator with nearly a gallon of coolant, and the single brake fluid reservoir with a splash of DOT 3.

Following Andrew’s Mitsubishi Montero, I drove the Valiant 60 miles from the bible camp to my friend’s house, and fell head-over-heels in love. The three-speed column-shift transmission is sublime; it’s fun to shift, and goes into all three gears (plus reverse) smoothly. The smooth-revving slant-six is just incredible, offering plenty of torque, and never stuttering under acceleration. Sure, there’s some vibration under acceleration; neither the fuel gauge nor the coolant temperature gauge works; and there’s plenty of rust on the floorboards, doors, and quarter panels (the main unibody rails are solid); but I don’t care. This regular old 1960s Plymouth sedan — with its blue interior filled with two three-person bench seats — has my heart.

Well, for now, that is. This machine still has to get me 650 miles from upstate New York to Michigan; only then will I know whether it deserves the title of “Most reliable American car ever.”

Illustration for article titled Michigan Car Salesman Cost FCA $8.7 Million Due To Fake Employee Discounts — Photo: GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP (Getty Images)

If you visited Apollon Nimo at his Detroit-based Parkway Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram dealership, you might have walked out with a damn good deal. In fact, your deal might have been too good to be true. That’s because Nimo was illegally using employee discounts to cut customers good deals, even when those customers failed to qualify for that discount, Auto News reports. In fact, he scammed FCA—now Stellantis—out of about $8.7 million.

In many cases, Nimo nabbed the discount codes from various Facebook groups of which he was part. Here’s more from the article:

In the majority of transactions that prosecutors allege were fraudulent, buyers claimed to be the brother-in-law or sister-in-law of an FCA employee to get a 5 percent discount. The discount codes, known as Employee Purchase Control Numbers (EPCNs), were often bought and sold through private Facebook groups.

Nimo frequently topped the list of auto sellers who sold cars using employee discounts and was handsomely rewarded for being a top salesman. He reportedly received $700,000 in bonuses directly from FCA since 2014, when he first started using his codes—and that’s in addition to dealership-specific rewards.

Out of the 268 unauthorized EPCNs that have been analyzed, every single one was linked back to Nimo. And there could honestly be more, as per FOX 2 Detroit:

A manager at Sterling Heights Dodge Chrysler Jeep Ram told federal investigators that Nimo sold about 250 cars in January 2020. The same manager said Nimo sells more vehicles than entire sales departments at most FCA dealerships.

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So, how did Nimo get away with it for so long? One man who leased three cars from Nimo in December of 2018 stated that Nimo claimed FCA doesn’t review the use of ‘in-law’ relationships with EPCN purchases. So, you could claim to be the mother-, sister-, father-, or son-in-law of an FCA employee, and FCA would be less likely to catch it—possibly because it’s not as intuitive to identify relationships with people who don’t share blood or direct legal ties.

The investigation kicked off after several FCA employees complained that their personal discount codes were being used without their consent. This is where that 268 number comes from; these were just from people who complained. It’s possible many other people had no idea their EPCN was being used.

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I Bought The Most Reliable American Car Ever Built. Now I’m Putting It To The Test

Michigan Car Salesman Cost FCA $8.7 Million Due To Fake Employee Discounts