This Duster, captured by Triborough, is a charming reminder of the best Detroit had to offer during the ’70s and that’s no backhanded compliment. Faced with the widening appeal of once-esoteric imports and the absence of quality competition from Detroit, the good ol’ fashioned Valiant continued to win buyers over with its straightforward quality. No faux-luxury, and no attempts to beat the imports at their own game; it was the rock-and-roll antidote to prog rock’s increasing pomp and the political-inclinations of the day’s folk. And in Duster form, new for 1970, the party was kept alive.
It’s no wonder that these cars helped keep the lights on for a Chrysler back in crisis. They stuck to a tried ‘n true formula and product planners were keen to keep things fresh with different trim packages. In “Gold Duster” form, this brown coupe was a nod to those who wanted a touch of luxury, but like any good pop song, it didn’t take that mission too seriously.
Good thing, as there were enough mini-limousines from Ford and GM already, allowing the Duster to benefit from its mini-muscle car image, even with the part vinyl top and extra sound insulation which came with the Gold Duster package. Unlike the larger Mopars, the casual look imparted by fuselage-inspired styling aft of the A-pillar was entirely appropriate for the Duster’s intended audience. The wide taillights set into a single cutout mark this as a 1972 model, but the styling generally didn’t change very much during the Duster’s six-year run.
This car’s single exhaust means it likely uses 1972’s base engine, a 198 slant-six. A 225 six and 318 V8 were optional, as was a top-tier 340, which came standard with dual exhausts. With flossier trim and smaller engine, perhaps this Gold Duster represents power pop at its finest: not a ton of brute force, but a lot style and a guaranteed good time. If the Duster 340 was T. Rex, this was Blondie. Even with its vinyl top now replaced by blue paint, it manages to look well-worn rather than completely battered.
The basic goodness of the Valiant was evident underneath the period regalia, and the music only ended with Chrysler’s realization that they had to pull something new out of their hat. Unfortunately, the replacement was a flop, leaving Plymouth without a pop hit for a few years. While prog rock diverged into different camps, with its heavy metal path merging with power pop’s glam tendency to form hair metal, Chrysler missed the boat, ceding that scene to Camaros and Mustangs in the ’80s. After bankruptcy forced their hand, though, Mopar adapted the Omni’s European, disco-oriented sensibilities. The resulting string of K and L-based hits throughout the synthpop years kept the good times alive, but it would be a long time before Highland Park would rediscover rock ‘n roll.
Related reading:
1972 Duster 340, 1974 Gold Duster, 1979 Horizon TC3, Why I Stopped Watching TV In The Eighties
Sweet looking car. I’ve always loved the 1970-72 Plymouth Valiant and Duster. My older brother had a Plymouth Duster 40 yrs ago, but I can’t remember what year.
+1 I’d take one of these(in Panther Pink with a stick) over an E body any day.I’d also have one over the B body bloaters that Mopar was making in 72
I’ve been waiting for the time to share this one with you Gem, ever since reading one of your previous comments about a “Barbie’s muscle car” if I recall correctly. Granted, it’s Demon, and not a Duster, but it is a 340 4 speed car with the white bucket seat interior 🙂
Thanks,I’ve been a big fan of the pink A,B & E body cars since I first saw a picture of a new Barracuda.
+1. The E bodies are Holy Grail cars, nowadays WAY too valuable and rare to actually enjoy properly. But these A-bodies are still common and affordable enough to get it how you want (oh noes! not another tribute car!!!) and drive it, grinning ear to ear. With a worked up 340 and a 4 spd, you couldn’t ask for a better balance of handling and raw power.
The E bodies are Holy Grail cars, nowadays WAY too valuable and rare to actually enjoy properly.
I don’t really know about that. Cars are meant to be driven and parked in some garage and only looked at. I have a 70 Challenger RT Convertible that I drive on warm night all the time.
That should read, “and not parked in some garage.”
I love Dusters. Ive always said they look like happy little cars but they all come with a dark side.
On that ’72, with the new tires, it looks like its still in daily service. It also looks very restoreable. Either way, I like it and hopefully the present owner isn’t just running it into the ground until its sold to the scrapyard. The exhaust on the left means its a /6 and Im not 100% sure but I think the 225 came standard on the Gold Dusters.
I think the analogy attempted here would work better if particular titles were given. Would a fully striped and hood-bulged 1971 Charger be the equivalent of “Watcher of the Skies” by Genesis? Or a ’70 GTO Judge convertible the equivalent of “Roundabout” by Yes? And against these, what power pop track would the Duster have represented? Perhaps “American Woman” by Guess Who. The lowly Valiant 2-door sedan (1967-69) that the Duster replaced might be best represented by something from the easy-listening genre, maybe a Carpenters single.
The Demon/Duster twins? Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die” (looking to you, E-bodies). If that’s too over the top for you, “Dancing in the Moonlight” by King Harvest is a little more Slant-six, if you will..
Sweet car, but what’s with the turquoise roof and sloppy DIY repair on both rear quarter-panels?
It’s a driver. Somebody’s trying to keep it roadworthy on the cheap.
It always surprises me when I see such nice tires on such old (weathered) cars pictured here.
These were from before my time, but I do recall one in the late 80s in my town. It was 50% steel, 50% bondo. Yellow with shiny hubcaps. Yuck. This brown makes for a masculine classic however (and reminds me of Al Bundy). The older I get, the more I want a brown car.
Al Bundy (those hubcaps…)
I thought Al was always kind of proud of his Duster.
Have to post. There was an episode where Al has a guy come work on ‘the Dodge’ at his home. Near the end of the episode, we get to hear the Dodge running, as Al checks it out. The sound is terrible. A car dying, on its last legs, about to expire. Cuts to Al, who is … weeping, speechless.
“… she’s purring, purring like a kitten.” So darned funny.
I always remember the episode where Al wanted to buy a new car, a black convertible 5.0 Mustang LX, he digs up his secret down payment box that he kept hidden from Peggy, buried 7ft down in the back yard, which he thought contained $5000, only to discover there was only $800 and a red hair.
Al then goes through a series of crappy used cars in the episode, including a Pacer and a lime green Gremlin, only to end up buying his old Duster back.
My favorite is where Al is ordering parts over the phone–“Does your car have over a million miles on it? Hello, Mr. Bundy….”
From what I recall it was…”is your car a gold 1974 Dodge Duster with 785,000 miles on it?”
Press 4…..
Hello…Mr Bundy?
On ‘Married’. the Duster was called a Dodge since some non-car people* call anything Mopar a “Dodge”.
*The sit-com writers
my father had that duster with those exact hubcaps i remember seeing this for the first time i almost had a heart attack!!!!!!!
In my avatar, I’m standing next to our ’73 Gold Duster, similar brown color. Ours had the white 1/2 vinyl roof and a white stripe down each flank. Sporty enough, but what a hotbox with no A/C and ultraleather seats.
I think the analogy’s perfect.
No pretensions Power Pop (or as we called it then, Rock & Roll)…
…versus the increasingly pretentious Progressive Rock…the perfect music to represent ’70’s broughamance… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkGzjIq4aZI
Although I humbly submit that had the cars of The Great Brougham Epoch been built with the Mercedes-like precision of “Roundabout”, the entire genre would be much more fondly remembered. Just sayin’.
At my first radio job in 1973…weekends at WKVT, a tiny middle-of-the-road AM in tiny Brattleboro, VT…older listeners actually complained about Carpenters and pre-disco Bee Gees… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X89fCiZs_Lc …as being “acid rock”. They may have been Easy Listening but still too hip for the Bing Crosby generation.
Respectfully, musical definitions are always changing.
But I digress. Mopar compacts were about as honest and unpretentious as they came in the pre-Volare/Aspen era. Glad to see this one still roaming around my home state of PA.
I like it a lot, but I’ve got one minor quibble!
Blondie?! When I think Blondie, I do not think “power pop” or “1972” immediately! They played pop songs, no doubt, but to me their music was still a world away from what this car represents. The Dart and Valiant are middle America, they’re working class, salt of the earth cars. In Gold Duster trim they’re dressed up in goofy clothes trying to fit the latest fad at high school. They weren’t really taken seriously in their day – too conservative, not enough chrome, not enough flash, style still rooted in the previous decade – but they’ve come to be appreciated for their durability and earnest charm. Plus, the 70s were a stylistic detour for most American cars in the same way prog and glam rock were more of that era alone rather than something that other artists have come back to again and again. Although the A-bodies were traditional mechanically, their thrifty sixes and function-above-form vibe made them – if even by accident – much more predictive of the cars that would rule the streets a decade later and beyond.
To most they were just another boring secretary’s car, but those who got to know them loved them and always knew they were something special – even if it wasn’t cool to admit it back then!
I could see Bruce Springsteen driving an A body
Yes, but this car and Blondie’s tunes would be regularly encountered by ’75/’76. But fair enough, that is a mistake. As for Big Star, I thought it might be too obscure a reference but now I know that’s not the case.
It’s all good, pretty much anything to do with Blondie is cool by me. I like Don’s pick even better than mine, though – “Go All The Way” is perfect. That makes me think of this exact car being in some kind of heist movie.
Yep, Blondie is great soundtrack. So is Big Star. It’s a bit like cars, favourites are a personal thing. Although I do prefer the Carpenters’ version to Klaatu’s.
Carpenters singing ‘Calling Occupants…’ does verge on the hallucinogenic. I think The Raspberries might provide another analogy for the Duster, is this more ‘Go All The Way’ or ‘Overnight Sensation’? Big Star is a bit more AMC to me.
Dusters always remind me of O’Bannion played by Ben Affleck in Dazed and Confused.
+1!!! That’s how Id want a ‘weathered’ Duster to look! grey primer, black trim and slot mags.
Dazed and Confused was set in 1976. I think O’Bannion’s Duster was probably a ’74 or ’75 given the park bench bumpers that had been affixed to most cars by then. So doesn’t it seem unlikely that a 1 or 2 year old Duster would already be sporting grey primer and mags?
Still, I loved every car in D&C. From Pickford’s 70 Judge to Wooderson’s 70 Chevelle SS 454 to Benny’s 72 Chevy C10 they all captured the automotive essence of teenage wheels in the mid 70s.
The ’75 was ‘acting’ as a 1970 model in the file, in my opinion. Primered cars were all over high school lots back then, until the ‘burn out’ image made them uncool.
Now, kids get driven around by Mom, while endlessly texting, etc.
Just thought of another famous Duster driver. Todd from Beavis and Butthead.
In PA a rust hole Quarter sized or bigger will cause a vehicle to flunk the safety inspection and that is why numerous PA cars get banished to the surrounding states if they are not fixed. Emissions testing is not state wide though. Cars do not rust as fast in PA as more northern states and a family friend in Suburban Philly got 30 years out of her 1970 Dart before it rusted too much (again?) and had other issues.
Nice catch finding this Plymouth, I like the looks for some reason.
I don’t know if I would call the Plymouth Valiant/Duster inherently good as much as I would say they were inherently not bad. It was a basic platform, with a basic body and drivetrain. I always thought that there was just too little to go wrong here. I will admit that the slant six and torqueflite were solid, well engineered and well-built. Maybe therein lies the entire charm of this car.
Back in the day, these were everywhere, and most of them would probably still be on the road today if not for Chrysler’s typical poor body integrity (which, for Chrysler, was actually quite good on the Duster).
There are also a couple of big ironies with the Duster. Believe it or not, upper Chrysler management didn’t much like the large sales numbers of the Duster because they felt (rightfully so) that the tough, sporty little car cannibalized sales of the much more profitable E-body (on which a lot of Chrysler development money had been spent). It would have been okay if all of the Duster’s conquest sales had been of Ford and GM products, but it just didn’t work out that way.
Then there’s the fact that even Chrysler’s tough little A-body wasn’t immune to the engineering problems that plagued all domestics in the mid-seventies, specifically those dealing with govt-mandated emission controls. Soon, even the slant-six wouldn’t run right, and when the A-body was replaced with the entirely dismal Aspen/Volare, there wasn’t a vehicle in Chrysler’s line-up worth buying until the Omni/Horizon arrived for 1978 (and Consumer Reports did a fine job of crimping even that promising little car). If not for Iacocca, Chrysler likely would have died right then.
The resulting string of K and L-based hits throughout the synthpop years kept the good times alive, but it would be a long time before Highland Park would rediscover rock ‘n roll.
You can say that again, given the infamy of the epic “Cocaine Factory” Duster ad shown during the 1st MTV Video Music Awards in 1984……
That’s awesome. I thought I knew every car ad from the 80s (and more than I’d care to admit from the 70s) but I don’t recall that one. Talk about style over substance.
IIRC the full-length 90 second version from MTV awards only aired once. I definitely remember there being a shorter version that aired on MTV and elsewhere circa late ’84-early ’85.
I always liked the Duster. They were pretty common here in Ontario when I was a kid in the early ’70’s. I don’t remember the last time I saw one in the wild, though – yet another casualty of Ontario road salt. I’ll take a 340 with a 4-speed…but I wouldn’t turn down one with a Slant Six as a summer daily driver.
Love it though I prefer the Aussie version but I see it doesnt matter where they are built the ass end rusts out I bought a cheap Charger with the same rust all the way around the wheel arches and across the back with a 215 single barrel hemi fitted and 3speed stick almost a direct cousin of this car.
In the UK the A body is the last 60s/70s Mopar that you don’t need to be a rock star to buy.They can still be had for a lot less than an E or B body but probably for not much longer.They’re also a lot more common at UK shows than Falcons and Novas and there’s usually a few Aussie Valiants & Chargers at the Mopar Euronats
I saw this vintage ad comparing the Duster to the Chevrolet Vega.
Edit: I spotted also this blogpost about the Duster where the guy nicknamed it the “Ruster”. http://savageonwheels.com/2013/04/01/promo-model-plymouth-duster/
The $73.95 more a Duster cost than a Vega in 1972 supposedly translates to around $418 in 2014 dollars. Even adjusted for inflation, the Duster was, quite obviously, still a much better deal than the Vega.
Kind of surprising advertising the Duster as a five-passenger car, too. With a front bench seat, I would have thought you could get six people in one.
I love the wheel covers on 1971 Dusters and Valiants.
Absence of quality competition from Detroit?
I must have imagined the Nova and Maverick, and please don’t try to tell me that there was some sort of “mystical” quality advantage that the Valiant/Dart had over those other 2, it was pretty much McDonalds, Burger King and Wendys.
True. Maverick, Nova or Duster, all were pretty solid daily transportation in the ’70s.
I like the Dusters but prefer their cousins, the Dodge Demons. ti’s more of a looks thing because both cars were the same under the skin.
I currently have one of each. both are 1971s.
A Duster or Demon is on my bucket list. My tax returns have landed, and a straight, rust free, clean V8 car is easlily attainable for under $10K here in the northwest. No, it wont be a 340 4 spd with buckets and in a hi-impact color but who cares? Even with a 318 and an automatic it can be massaged for some fun. If it has some patina, so much the better because I want something I can actually drive and enjoy. Furthermore, I don’t want something so rare that if I customize it a bit, Im destroying the value of the car.
Another note on these: Ive always been a firm believer that wheels and tires make or break the whole look and presence of a car. I cant think of a particular car that demonstrates that better than these. With the stock wheels/hubcaps these look downright dowdy. The rear fenders are flared out pretty far, so it takes some meats to fill that out properly. Ive seen a good many of these with upsized wheels 18″ or bigger and the high offsets typical of those. YUCK. The way Obanion had his set up in Dazed and Confused (as per Greg O’s post) is pretty ideal. 15×7 period mag wheels with nothing narrower than 8″ and a deep offset out back is just about right. Even better with a mild California rake and rear tires a size or two taller. It just looks right.
I agree with you on the tires and wheels. My ex-cop car 1976 Dart 4-door had 14×6-inch steel wheels with a tire size to match. Can’t remember the tire size anymore but they almost stuck out of the wheel cutouts. The car made the 6-cylinder cars with their A78-13 tires look downright wimpy.
And a 318 Duster is no slouch.
MoparRocker,
Can’t go wrong with Cragars or Keystones!
My family talks about the two Dusters my grandmother drove in the 70’s and early ’80’s.
They were both 318 automatics. The first one was blue and my grandmother has always had a bit of a lead foot and her dad called her car “the blue streak”
I don’t remember why but she went from that one to a brown Duster and he said “I can’t call it the brown streak, that just doesn’t sound right.”
My dad had a ’72 Plymouth Scamp for a while and I always loved that distinctive Chrysler starter noise.
One last Duster in the movies reference. Adam Sandler in Happy Gilmore. Note the picture of his grandmother hanging from the rearview mirror.
Hollywood CC effect! I watched Spielberg’s ‘Duel’ last night. The TV movie that showcased his talent and launched his career as a director . It’s a must see.
I was surprised to learn after doing some reading that one of the movie cars was equipped with a 318 V8. I certainly couldn’t hear it.
Even a 198 could have outrun that truck.
It definitely could. It was amusing to watch Dennis Weaver ‘struggle’ up to the breakneck speed of 90mph!
They should have cast something smaller and slower, like a powerglide equipped vega. Or a 1600cc pinto. It would have been almost convincing.
I was thinking more Frank Zappa, Dinah-Moe Humm….
A Nova or maybe even a Maverick would be a better bottom-feeder than one of these. I had to laugh reading “absence of quality Detroit competition” — for real? In Illinois these things seemed to always have excessive/negative camber issues — not sure why — probably rust. They were definitely great rusters & seemed to disappear much more quickly than their “low-quality” competition did.
The slab sided body looks so cheap. The Dart with flying buttress rear glass looks 100x better IMO. Yuck.
With the exception of the performance variants, I always imagine the dart/valiant being like the 60’s-70’s equivalent of today’s camcords. (In a good way)
Is that a correct assessment?
I pass this car in Lansdale every day on my way to work, but never took the time to stop. Glad someone else noticed it too!
I may have more firsthand experience with Mopar A bodies than with anything else. Between me and a college roommate, we had 4 of them, sixes, a V8, auto and stick. Rust was really their only enemy.
I think 1972 was the first year of the Gold Duster package. BTW, this car’s Tawny Gold Metallic is the same color that my 71 Scamp was.
My mom’s first car was a metallic green Duster with a slant-6. She bought it brand new after she finished nursing school and started working fulltime.
The rear main seal started leaking oil and my dad didn’t want to deal with it. My grandma wanted a new car so they bought her ’72 Coronet and sold the Duster. That was probably in 1977 or 78. I have no memories of the Duster because I was too young. My mom said that they saw it driving around town for many years after that though.
“… the good ol’ fashioned Valiant continued to win buyers over with its straightforward quality. No faux-luxury, …”
Don’t forget the Valiant Broughams from 1974-76! There was no Duster version, but there was a 2 door Scamp brougham. Duster had some wild interior options, though, like orange and brown.
On ‘Married’. the Duster was called a Dodge since some non-car people call anything Mopar a “Dodge”
I remember Al going to a school reunion and someone asking him if he remembered the loser who was a shoe salesman who drove a crappy Dodge with a million miles on the clock.Great show
I love Married…With Children. I watched it every Sunday night when it was on the air.
Now Al’s on “Modern Family”. At least he still has a hot wife. I don’t remember Blondie in 1972. I first remember 1980 MTV with that band in constant rotation with about 25 other videos. Progressive Rock back in that Duster’s day was Yes, Emerson Lake and Palmer.