Greetings, Big_Blocker here for another installment of Muscle Car of the Week and this week I plan to feature another MOPAR A-Body from the boys over at Plymouth. Although this car does not in fact “got a Hemi”, it does sport a peppy little small block V8 that made it an affordable performance car back in 1970. I’m talking of course about the 1970 Plymouth Duster.

The Duster debuted in 1970 on a small car platform known as the A-Body. Due to the fattening of the Barracuda and its subsequent transformation into the legendary Cuda, Plymouth designed the Duster as an entry into the budget performance market with eyes on young people with limited income that still liked the sound of a healthy V8. This strategy was the same one that gave birth to the Roadrunner in 1968 however this time on a smaller scale. The formula was simple: take a small car, modify the suspension for more ponies, drop a beefy V8 between the fenders and add an assortment of high impact colors and graphics and BOOM, you have your budget muscle car.

The engine of choice was the reputed 340 that had built up quite a reputation as a little engine that delivered and on several instances brought an arrogant big block to its knees. This potent little package was the same one that could be found in the 1970 Cuda (minus the 6-Barrel Option) however due to its better power-to-weight ratio, the Duster was faster. The 340 was topped with a 4 barrel carburetor to cram air and fuel into the cylinders and backed by either a standard 3-speed manual, heavy duty 727 automatic or a 4-speed gearbox. Other performance goodies included standard disc brakes, dual exhaust, extra rear leaf springs and a front stabilizer bar. All that made for a factory rating of 275 horses (real estimates were around 325) and 340 pound feet of torque that would propel the Duster down the 1/4 in 14.7 seconds and do zero to sixty in 6.0 flat. Not bad for a 3,100 pound car, and with a sticker price of just over $2,500, this was one bargain for performance as it was a full $400 dollars cheaper than the base Roadrunner.

The Duster was a success from it’s inception, however it was too bad that it came to be just a couple years before rising insurance premiums and increasing tensions with oil producing countries forced the detuning of muscle cars…It is a shame that the Duster wasn’t granted a couple more years to really stretch its performance legs because we might have seen a 340 6-Barrel or a 383 Duster. Can anyone say Hemi? As it was the Duster made it all the way to 1976 but by then it was only a shell of its former self sporting a Slant Six engine and achieving 30 mpg…not muscle car material at all. Big_Blocker out.

*Note: Dodge also made a similar A-Body platform car in 1970 based of the Dart platform however called their performance model the Demon. It was powered by the same 340 with similar options*