1974 Plymouth Duster
With the price of B-bodies and Chargers going through the roof, Mopar fans have had to turn their attention to the smaller, more compact A-body cars from Mother Mopar. Steve Dixon came to this Plymouth Duster after hanging up his racing goggles and has never looked back since…
In 1974, Plymouth sales literature proudly proclaimed ‘Fourteen years ago the Big Three introduced three compact cars. Of these three only Valiant survives.’ The continued good health of the Valiant after 1970, when both its rivals from Ford and Chevrolet had been dropped, can be neatly summarised in one word: Duster.
Appearing in 1970, the Plymouth Duster was the curvaceous, muscular-looking fastback coupé version of the boxy Valiant sedan. On its launch, Hot Rod said it ‘qualifies as one of the best, if not the best, dollar buy in a performance car’. Handsomely styled and offered with a range of exciting performance and cosmetic options, it gave the Valiant platform a new lease of life that would help it survive until 1976.
From 1970 to 1974, Dusters consistently dominated the Valiant platform’s share of the market. In 1974, when Steve Dixon’s example was built, Plymouth sold 281,378 Dusters (its best year for sales) compared with 181,674 Valiant sedans and hardtops. The Dusters, despite being sportier and more attractively styled than Valiants, were built to a more basic specification and so were generally cheaper.
The Duster range itself offered something or everyone, from the luxury Gold Duster to the Twister package with stripes and decals, for those who wanted muscle-car looks without the power; but the top dog in 1974 was the new, high-performance Duster 360. Whereas basic Dusters came equipped only with a 198cu in or 225cu in straight-six or a 318cu in V8, the 360 took its name from its largedisplacement V8. Other features unique to the 360 were the floor-mounted, fully synchromesh three-speed manual transmission, power front disc brakes, heavy-duty suspension and shock absorbers, 8¼in axle, E70 bias-belted tyres, 5½ by 14in Rallye wheels and dual exhausts. A contrasting side stripe made the 360 stand out in traffic, while inside a cigarette lighter was the solitary luxury fitting.
More than anything else, it was the engine that was the selling point. The 360 was introduced as the successor to the celebrated 340, and featured much of the same performance equipment: four-barrel carburettor, shot-peened crankshaft, heavy-duty bearings, high-performance camshaft, special intake and exhaust valves (the stems of the exhaust valves being chrome-plated for better scuff resistance), high-load valve springs with surge dampers, double-roller timing chain, oil-pan windage tray and slip-drive fan.
In addition to the standard three-speed, the Duster 360 could also be specified with a four-on-the-floor or the Valiant-wide Torque-Flite automatic.
It’s easy just to view the 360 as the natural successor to the 340, but it was more significant than that. Introducing a new performance model for 1974 was at odds with the rest of Detroit. Great names of the past like Charger and Camaro were being turned into either bulky luxury models or economy-minded pseudo-sports cars, and legendary engines like the 426 Hemi and 440 were being dispensed with permanently. The Challenger and Barracuda tried to stay true to their heritage, but were terminated in mid-1974 due to poor sales.
Apart from the Pontiac Trans Am, there was little besides the Duster 360 and its Dodge sister, the Dart Sport 360, to preserve performance through the mid-Seventies, but with Trans Ams at $4446 and Duster 360s starting at only $3288, there’s no doubt which one offered the best value for money. Its natural rival was the chunkier-looking Chevrolet Nova SS, but that couldn’t quite match the performance of the compact Mopars.
The 360 engine itself wasn’t actually new for 1974. Introduced in 1971, it had originally been a mild-mannered engine for trucks and family cars, while the 340 existed alongside it strictly with performance in mind. Despite gradual detuning, the 340 was at risk of being killed off altogether by the insatiable demands of the emissions regulators. Then, to make matters worse, performance cars bore the brunt of the oil crisis in 1973.
If the 340 was to continue being emasculated, its existence would be pointless next to the general-purpose 360, so it made more sense to find ways of squeezing more performance out of the 360. Swapping its two-barrel carburettor for a four-barrel one and inheriting much of the 340’s performance kit, the 360 provided 245bhp and 320ft-lb of torque, an improvement on the 240bhp and 290ft-lb that was all the 340 was good for by 1973. However, despite the great success of the Duster and the relative affordability of the 360, the Duster 360 itself would never sell in large volume. Only 3969 were built in 1974, making survivors a rarity today.
“I’ve had American cars since I was 18. I’m 67 now. I’ve had a lot, let’s put it that way,” Steve Dixon explains. “I went to Santa Pod when I was 18 with my friends from Sheffield and got hooked on the whole thing, then I had to have an American car. My first one was a 1964 Ford Fairlane. I bought it for £80 and it never let me down.
“I didn’t know much about them then like I do now, and I think it had a blown head gasket, but I just kept topping it up with water and it always worked.”
A Galaxie convertible and a Mustang followed, but it didn’t take long for the Mopar bug to bite: “I’d always wanted a Mopar. I liked the Road Runners at Santa Pod, but in 1975 it was about £1500 to £2000 for a decent one. You could nearly get a house for that in Sheffield. My first Mopar was a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda 383 SE automatic, with a white vinyl roof. It was quite an eyeful. I ran that with intentions to race it at York, but I never got there. I sold it in 1979 to a couple through Exchange & Mart. They came up that night and looked like film stars or pop stars. They were obviously wellheeled, coming from St John’s Wood. His wife looked like Janis Joplin, with pink-tinted heart-shaped glasses.”
Steve’s drag-racing ambitions finally started to be realised when he booked a holiday to Florida and came home with a ’69 440 Coronet. Steve ran the Coronet at York Raceway, and with fellow Mopar man Tim Holmes, he went on to establish the American Super Stock series at York and would later join the Gasser Circus with his ‘High Roller’ Falcon.
Sadly, fate was to cut short Steve’s drag-racing career. “I became seriously ill to the point that I can’t walk now. Racing in High Roller became too much, it was just too violent. I still hankered after a Mopar, just a nice little one that I could use. I saw this Duster for sale, went to see it in Norfolk and decided I’d have it.”
“IT’S ONE OF THE BEST AMERICAN CARS I’VE EVER HAD.”
Steve bought his Powder Blue Duster in 2019 and is pleased to say he’s never had a problem with it. It had been imported in 2015, and its new owner went through it, giving it everything it needed. “He was a perfectionist,” Steve says. “After some minor damage from his garage, he had the whole car repainted.” The black vinyl interior looks as good as new, too, although the Grant wood-rimmed wheel is an aftermarket item. In 2016, it was shod with the handsome combination of Magnum 500s and BF Goodrich white letter tyres. The Duster is believed to have been sold new in South Carolina, and Steve understands that it’s the only example of a Duster 360 in this country.
Says Steve of his new car: “It’s one of the best American cars I’ve ever had. The brakes are good. Compared to a modern car, you wouldn’t think ‘Bloody hell, that’s old.’
It goes round bends well for a heavy car, too.” While the 360 doesn’t need any help moving in a straight line, the previous owner had fitted an Edelbrock 1406 carburettor and inlet manifold for an extra kick, and an aluminium radiator helps with cooling. “No doubt the carb has picked it up a bit, but the car is brilliant for getting good gas mileage, it really lets you use it. It seems to do 20mpg which is really good for 5.9-litres. Street-and-strip cars aren’t practical. I just want a normal car I can use, and that’s what this is.”
When a car is as close to concours-standard as Steve’s is, modifications like the Edelbrock kit and aftermarket steering wheel can harm its value, so all the original items have sensibly been retained with the car. Close to concours really isn’t an overstatement – just ask the judges who selected it for a Top Five award on one of Steve’s first outings with it at the 2019 Mopar EuroNats. Of all the Dusters, Steve reckons the 360 was the best of them. Out of the surviving examples, there can’t be many that come close to his for originality and overall condition. That must make it the best of the best. Who can argue with that?