Plymouth Dusters are many things to many people, especially folks of my, ahem, vintage, but one thing they're not is "classic" as the poster of the ad for this bone stock, beat to death, rental grade '76 is. They go on, "it's the perfect starting point for a project". I agree that these lightweight rear wheel drivers can be adroit performers when equipped properly but "classic?" Check, please.
I don't think they're worthy of the "classic" moniker because their styling isn't up to the standards of other MOPAR "classics" like the 1968-1970 Dodge Charger, 1970-1974 Dodge Challenger and one of my favorite automobiles of all time, the 1970-1974 Plymouth Barracuda. Shoot, they're not even a 1975-1977 Cordoba. The problem is this rear end. It's too heavy, too thick - it looks incomplete as if the designer or design team just stopped. And the five-mile-per-hour safety bumpers don't do it any favors either. Overall, Dusters pale in comparison, in my most humble of opines, to the Duster's spiritual forebear, the 1967-1969 Barracuda.
I say "spiritual forebear" since although the Barracuda rode on a new and proprietary chassis for 1970, what they called the E-body, the old A-body which the previous two iterations of the Barracuda rode on, stuck around. Albeit with a redesigned body and interior. And the Duster, also new for 1970, which really was just a fancied two-door Valiant, was a huge hit for Plymouth. The two-door Valiant, incidentally, was called "Scamp".
So, in many ways, since the Duster was little more than a dressed up Valiant like the Barracuda was going back to 1964, one could argue, the Duster was a continuation of the Barracuda. Just with a different name. So, if this car was named "Barracuda", would it have been the sales success it was as "Duster"? Bit of a mind-bender to get your head around but I think it's an honest and interesting question.
Whether it was their styling, price, marketing, unique market position, a more pleasant, less aggressive name or a combination of all of the above, the Plymouth Duster and their Dodge Brothers clones were one of the few bright spots for Chrysler during the seventies. Dusters were everywhere when I was a kid and, frankly, Barracuda's and Challengers were few and far between. A 1974 Duster also came fairly close to being my first car in the spring of 1982. So, I guess I liked them enough or didn't dislike them enough not to consider one as my hallowed "first car". Ha, as if I don't already have enough in common with Al Bundy.
Of course, I thought I could do better, and continued shopping and I put that brownie, that looked just like Al's, on the back burner. When I quickly found out my thousand dollars saved up from a summer flame broiling Whoppers at Burger King wasn't enough to buy the Camaro, Mustang, Monte Carlo or Grand Prix of my dreams, I went back to get the Duster and it was gone. Just as well as, again, I've always been ambivalent towards them. However, a Duster would probably have been a way better first car for me than my dreadful Comet four-door was.
The E-body Barracuda was Plymouth's third and final swing up at the pony car plate. And, somewhat amazingly too, it tanked as badly as the first two did. While the Duster was the right car at the right time for Chrysler, the Barracuda (and Dodge Challenger) were the wrong car at the wrong time. Thanks to insurance company surcharges on anything remotely construed as a performance car, the pony car market began to implode in 1970. So, Chrysler's timing couldn't have been worse to introduce a car that stuffed with a big-block engine, could do the quarter mile in under fourteen seconds. Sorry to disappoint conspiracy theorists, but it wasn't the OPEC Oil Embargo that killed the muscle and pony car - it was the insurance industry.
There were performance versions of the Duster and the Duster 340 (1970-1973) and Duster 360 (1974) could certainly hold their own against Camaro, Firebird and Mustang (through 1973), but the Duster's primary mission was to be affordable, economical, and sort of sporty looking. And GM and Ford offered nothing quite like it. Chrysler found a lane, accidentally, on purpose or otherwise, and drove these suckers through it. Case in point, Plymouth sold more Dusters in 1970 alone they did all previous model years of Barracudas. Combined.
I'll tip my snap back at the fact the Plymouth Duster helped keep cash-hemorrhaging Chrysler somewhat buoyant in those early darks of the Malaise Era. Just don't call them a "classic".
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