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MM Retro-Write-Up: 1970 Plymouth Duster 340
MM Retro-Write-Up: 1970 Plymouth Duster 340
IN A NUTSHELL: Cheap, Crude, but Effective, and with an Iron-durable drivetrain.
(^^^^^With 1971-grille)
For the 1970 model-year (my last year in high-school, BTW, and in many ways, my favorite year), Detroit’s auto-industry introduced three new inexpensive compact cars. The First was the Ford Maverick, which replaced the decade-old Ford Falcon, which, by then, had become an afterthought, neglected, and sales had been way down for several years…the Maverick would hang on until 1978, when it was replaced by the Fairmont. The Second was the American Motors (AMC) Hornet, an interesting but cheaply-built little compact that replaced the long-running Rambler-American series that had been around since the late 50s. The Hornet, and its later close-derivative AMC Concord, would be around until the early 1980s, when it became the the AMC Eagle and Eagle SX-4, the world’s first Crossover vehicles with raised-suspension and car-based AWD, although, by then, AMC itself was running out of time and money, and Subaru and Audi would end up continuing and perfecting what the Eagle started. One of my close friends drove a new base-model 1970 Hornet that his parents bought for him as a little run-around economical car. The Third (and main subject of this write-up) was the Plymouth Duster…I myself owned a smog-choked six-cylinder (Slant-Six)1975 Duster for a few years in the mid-late 1970s, replacing it with a new FWD 1978 Plymouth Horizon because I wanted better traction in the snow. That Horizon was a piece of junk, but that’s the subject for another write-up (which I did some time ago)…so I won’t re-hash that again.
Anyhow, back to the Duster….and its twin-sister Dodge Demon. Unlike with Dodge and its “Scat-Pack” performance versions of the compact Dart Swinger and Demon, the sister Plymouth Valiant coupe/sedan throughout its lifetime, since it was introduced a decade earlier, had never received any true performance drivetrains. Both the Valiant and Dodge Dart offered the durable, bullet-proof 225 c.i. (3.7L) Slant Six and 318 c.i. (5.2L) V8 engines and the also-durable A904 and A727 Torqueflite 3-speed automatics…but those engines were considered basic non-performance drivetrains back then. Dodge had also offered the four-barrel carb 340 c.i. (5.6L) V8 in the Dart Swinger-340 version, but the somewhat neglected Valiant never got that same option. So, for 1970, in an effort to increase Valiant sales (the sister Dodge Dart had been clearly outselling it), Chrysler decided to give the Valiant platform an all-new coupe-variant that was markedly different from the ordinary Valiant 2-door coupe, and the result was clearly a success. Dodge also introduced a Demon version on the Duster’s body-shell, but the Duster clearly outsold it.
The 340, for its size-wise, by performance-engine-standards, was a surprisingly powerful and capable powerplant.....particularly in a car as small and light as the Duster and Demon. It used Chrysler’s excellent small-V8 block that was shared with the then-discontinued 273 and current 318 versions, bored-out to 340 cubic inches. It was (officially) factory-rated at 275 HP and 340 ft-lbs. of torque. But the quick 0-60 times, even in the small light Valiant-Duster platform, strongly hinted that the factory had intentionally underrated the engine’s specs for insurance purposes, as the rising accident and injury/death rate of American muscle-cars was beginning to sharply increase insurance-premiums, particularly for young male drivers. On the drag strip, the Duster 340 was easily able to hold its own against other compact performance cars and what was probably its closest competitor, the Chevy Nova SS 350/396. Many owners of Chrysler products back then preferred the automatic-transmission versions to the 3 and 4-speed manual versions (even the famous Hurst 4-speed) because of the Torqueflite’s well-known durability and the trigger-quick way it upshifted. It whined in first gear and lacked the smoothness/silkiness of of the Ford 3-speed Cruise-O-Matic/C6 and GM’s 2-speed Powerglide and 3-speed Turbo-Hydra-Matic automatics, but shifted quicker and more efficiently….faster than even some of the best drivers could speed-shift a manual transmission. Chrysler’s manual transmissions, in comparison, were crap, with poorly-designed synchronizers and questionable durability.
And the Duster also sold well….it was a huge success, appealed to more potential buyers than the staid/ordinary Valiant coupe/sedan, and, with the 340 version, provided a cheap, low-cost way to get a true-performance car at a very low price, without breaking one’s bank-account. But it was low-cost and inexpensive for a reason. Outside of the anvil-like quality and durability of the automatic-equipped drive train, C-H-E-A-P described this car to a tee. The questionable body sheet metal was not well-insulated or protected from rust, the front torsion-bar front/leaf-rear suspension provided relatively good handling but, along with the unibody-frame structure, transmitted enough road/engine/wind-noise into the cabin to wake up the dead, the optional power-steering lacked any road feel at all and felt like you were on glare-ice….Chrysler power-steering of that period was famous for that. The small, cramped back seat was military-stark, and the rear windows did not even roll down……they popped out, on a hinge, about two inches or so with a small metal snap-lever. Some later American vehicles in the mid-1970s, not only from Chrysler but from other makes as well, cheaped out even more on the rear windows by sealing them up and not opening at all….so much for ventilation. Some of the interior hardware and trim bordered on junk….noticeably more-so than on competing Ford and GM vehicle in this class. The design of the “Spit-Back” gas-filer pipe, in the left fender, behind the body-painted screw-off gas-cap, was notorious for allowing raw gas to splash back out the pipe, run down the fender, and stain it unless you quickly scrubbed it out with cleaner-wax. Remember, that was the days before modern resistant clearcoat paint. The body and doors squeaked/creaked and rattled from the loose and questionable build-quality (even with the solid unibody-frame) and the two doors shut with a dull rattle-sound. Access to the cramped back seat was very difficult even for short adults, and one had to reach down and pull a low-mounted release-lever to flip the front bench or bucket-seatbacks. Visibility out the back, from the driver’s seat, was poor for the standards of the time, because of the design of the rear roofline and trunk-lid. And the front-disc-brake/rear-drum option was an absolute must..the all-drum brakes on the standard 13” wheels, which had been in production for years, where notorious for quick-fading and ineffectiveness from heat-buildup. I got a real taste of that when driving non-power drum-brake Valiants (which I first learned to drive on at age 16) in the Appalachian Mountains…particularly the notorious three-mile 10%-grade descent down from the top of Chestnut Ridge into Uniontown, PA. I’ve written about that notorious hill several times before…see my previous notes. Yes, with drum-brake Chrysler products of the time, you learned to do what you should really do with ANY vehicle…downshift on steep hills, and let the engine-compression do the braking.
But the Duster also had some good features. The aforementioned durable engine/automatic-transmission often outlasted the rest of the car, after the body and hardware had rusted or worn away. Unlike some of the Ford and GM competition, it came with an adequate set of gauges on the dash. What few controls (especially compared to today’s standards) were generally well designed and easy to use….except for the awkward/aforementioned rear-window snap-lever and the manual twist-pull parking brake handle under the dash The optional air-conditioning system was not built into the dash like on some computing vehicles…it was a Chrysler-Airtemp unit that was hung under the middle of the dash, with push-buttons for its functions. It performed adequately, although not as powerful as GM’s excellent Arctic-grade cooling. The very large (but somewhat shallow) trunk could carry a lot for a compact car in that class....although the aforementioned gas-filler-pipe passed right through the left side of it and blocked some space from large items. And, something I really liked….. the bright rainbow-like extra-cost paint-colors that were common to all of Chrysler’s performance-cars of the period. These were bright-orange, yellow, red, and my two favorites…Lime-Green and Violet-Purple. Those distinctive colors would be offered for a couple of years in the early 70s….and are still popular today on Dodge’s 21st-century Charger and Challenger.
The Duster and Demon were in production until 1977, when the Plymouth Volare/Dodge Aspen twins took over from for Valiant/Duster/Dart-Demon twins…the Volare/Aspen were actually introduced in 1976, and were sold alongside the other twins for that model-year. The Volare/Aspen, which were hurriedly-introduced without adequate pre-testing beforehand, turned out to be quality-disasters, as were also GM’s X-Body compacts a few years later. Chrysler’s Plymouth Horizon/Dodge Omni compacts, introduced in 1978 as America’s first FWD compacts, also had quality problems…as I said earlier, I owned one, but those problems were not as bad as those on the X-bodies, and I thought the Omni/Horizons were quite well-done inside the cabin, with nice trim, particularly in the top versions. Later versions of the top-line Duster, like other small Chrysler products, got the new 360 V8 engine, but it was de-smogged and designed for lead-free gas, and did not have the same brute-power of the 340.
Overall, despite its crude nature and notable shortcomings, I was impressed with the Duster for what it was….. a way to get a brand-new car (particularly a new performance-car with the 340/360 engines) at a low price. But it would not have been my first choice among the Chrysler vehicles of that period….when I was in my high-school. My favorite Chrysler product of the period was the Plymouth Road-Runner and its cute cartoon-bird-graphics and “Beep-Beep” horn. Of course, in high school, even though I was a good judge of cars even in this ways and at that you age (and I also liked big American luxury cars, particularly Buicks), I simply did not have the money to get the new cars I wanted back then. When I finally COULD afford a new car several years later, we were well-into the Great Automotive Malaise Age of the 1970s, gas was scarce and expensive, cars were sluggish and de-smogged, and most of the cars I had loved as a teen were either gone or radically transformed.
And, as Always, Happy Vehicle-Memories.
MM
__________________
DRIVING IS BELIEVING
MM Retro-Write-Up: 1970 Plymouth Duster 340
IN A NUTSHELL: Cheap, Crude, but Effective, and with an Iron-durable drivetrain.
(^^^^^With 1971-grille)
For the 1970 model-year (my last year in high-school, BTW, and in many ways, my favorite year), Detroit’s auto-industry introduced three new inexpensive compact cars. The First was the Ford Maverick, which replaced the decade-old Ford Falcon, which, by then, had become an afterthought, neglected, and sales had been way down for several years…the Maverick would hang on until 1978, when it was replaced by the Fairmont. The Second was the American Motors (AMC) Hornet, an interesting but cheaply-built little compact that replaced the long-running Rambler-American series that had been around since the late 50s. The Hornet, and its later close-derivative AMC Concord, would be around until the early 1980s, when it became the the AMC Eagle and Eagle SX-4, the world’s first Crossover vehicles with raised-suspension and car-based AWD, although, by then, AMC itself was running out of time and money, and Subaru and Audi would end up continuing and perfecting what the Eagle started. One of my close friends drove a new base-model 1970 Hornet that his parents bought for him as a little run-around economical car. The Third (and main subject of this write-up) was the Plymouth Duster…I myself owned a smog-choked six-cylinder (Slant-Six)1975 Duster for a few years in the mid-late 1970s, replacing it with a new FWD 1978 Plymouth Horizon because I wanted better traction in the snow. That Horizon was a piece of junk, but that’s the subject for another write-up (which I did some time ago)…so I won’t re-hash that again.
Anyhow, back to the Duster….and its twin-sister Dodge Demon. Unlike with Dodge and its “Scat-Pack” performance versions of the compact Dart Swinger and Demon, the sister Plymouth Valiant coupe/sedan throughout its lifetime, since it was introduced a decade earlier, had never received any true performance drivetrains. Both the Valiant and Dodge Dart offered the durable, bullet-proof 225 c.i. (3.7L) Slant Six and 318 c.i. (5.2L) V8 engines and the also-durable A904 and A727 Torqueflite 3-speed automatics…but those engines were considered basic non-performance drivetrains back then. Dodge had also offered the four-barrel carb 340 c.i. (5.6L) V8 in the Dart Swinger-340 version, but the somewhat neglected Valiant never got that same option. So, for 1970, in an effort to increase Valiant sales (the sister Dodge Dart had been clearly outselling it), Chrysler decided to give the Valiant platform an all-new coupe-variant that was markedly different from the ordinary Valiant 2-door coupe, and the result was clearly a success. Dodge also introduced a Demon version on the Duster’s body-shell, but the Duster clearly outsold it.
The 340, for its size-wise, by performance-engine-standards, was a surprisingly powerful and capable powerplant.....particularly in a car as small and light as the Duster and Demon. It used Chrysler’s excellent small-V8 block that was shared with the then-discontinued 273 and current 318 versions, bored-out to 340 cubic inches. It was (officially) factory-rated at 275 HP and 340 ft-lbs. of torque. But the quick 0-60 times, even in the small light Valiant-Duster platform, strongly hinted that the factory had intentionally underrated the engine’s specs for insurance purposes, as the rising accident and injury/death rate of American muscle-cars was beginning to sharply increase insurance-premiums, particularly for young male drivers. On the drag strip, the Duster 340 was easily able to hold its own against other compact performance cars and what was probably its closest competitor, the Chevy Nova SS 350/396. Many owners of Chrysler products back then preferred the automatic-transmission versions to the 3 and 4-speed manual versions (even the famous Hurst 4-speed) because of the Torqueflite’s well-known durability and the trigger-quick way it upshifted. It whined in first gear and lacked the smoothness/silkiness of of the Ford 3-speed Cruise-O-Matic/C6 and GM’s 2-speed Powerglide and 3-speed Turbo-Hydra-Matic automatics, but shifted quicker and more efficiently….faster than even some of the best drivers could speed-shift a manual transmission. Chrysler’s manual transmissions, in comparison, were crap, with poorly-designed synchronizers and questionable durability.
And the Duster also sold well….it was a huge success, appealed to more potential buyers than the staid/ordinary Valiant coupe/sedan, and, with the 340 version, provided a cheap, low-cost way to get a true-performance car at a very low price, without breaking one’s bank-account. But it was low-cost and inexpensive for a reason. Outside of the anvil-like quality and durability of the automatic-equipped drive train, C-H-E-A-P described this car to a tee. The questionable body sheet metal was not well-insulated or protected from rust, the front torsion-bar front/leaf-rear suspension provided relatively good handling but, along with the unibody-frame structure, transmitted enough road/engine/wind-noise into the cabin to wake up the dead, the optional power-steering lacked any road feel at all and felt like you were on glare-ice….Chrysler power-steering of that period was famous for that. The small, cramped back seat was military-stark, and the rear windows did not even roll down……they popped out, on a hinge, about two inches or so with a small metal snap-lever. Some later American vehicles in the mid-1970s, not only from Chrysler but from other makes as well, cheaped out even more on the rear windows by sealing them up and not opening at all….so much for ventilation. Some of the interior hardware and trim bordered on junk….noticeably more-so than on competing Ford and GM vehicle in this class. The design of the “Spit-Back” gas-filer pipe, in the left fender, behind the body-painted screw-off gas-cap, was notorious for allowing raw gas to splash back out the pipe, run down the fender, and stain it unless you quickly scrubbed it out with cleaner-wax. Remember, that was the days before modern resistant clearcoat paint. The body and doors squeaked/creaked and rattled from the loose and questionable build-quality (even with the solid unibody-frame) and the two doors shut with a dull rattle-sound. Access to the cramped back seat was very difficult even for short adults, and one had to reach down and pull a low-mounted release-lever to flip the front bench or bucket-seatbacks. Visibility out the back, from the driver’s seat, was poor for the standards of the time, because of the design of the rear roofline and trunk-lid. And the front-disc-brake/rear-drum option was an absolute must..the all-drum brakes on the standard 13” wheels, which had been in production for years, where notorious for quick-fading and ineffectiveness from heat-buildup. I got a real taste of that when driving non-power drum-brake Valiants (which I first learned to drive on at age 16) in the Appalachian Mountains…particularly the notorious three-mile 10%-grade descent down from the top of Chestnut Ridge into Uniontown, PA. I’ve written about that notorious hill several times before…see my previous notes. Yes, with drum-brake Chrysler products of the time, you learned to do what you should really do with ANY vehicle…downshift on steep hills, and let the engine-compression do the braking.
But the Duster also had some good features. The aforementioned durable engine/automatic-transmission often outlasted the rest of the car, after the body and hardware had rusted or worn away. Unlike some of the Ford and GM competition, it came with an adequate set of gauges on the dash. What few controls (especially compared to today’s standards) were generally well designed and easy to use….except for the awkward/aforementioned rear-window snap-lever and the manual twist-pull parking brake handle under the dash The optional air-conditioning system was not built into the dash like on some computing vehicles…it was a Chrysler-Airtemp unit that was hung under the middle of the dash, with push-buttons for its functions. It performed adequately, although not as powerful as GM’s excellent Arctic-grade cooling. The very large (but somewhat shallow) trunk could carry a lot for a compact car in that class....although the aforementioned gas-filler-pipe passed right through the left side of it and blocked some space from large items. And, something I really liked….. the bright rainbow-like extra-cost paint-colors that were common to all of Chrysler’s performance-cars of the period. These were bright-orange, yellow, red, and my two favorites…Lime-Green and Violet-Purple. Those distinctive colors would be offered for a couple of years in the early 70s….and are still popular today on Dodge’s 21st-century Charger and Challenger.
The Duster and Demon were in production until 1977, when the Plymouth Volare/Dodge Aspen twins took over from for Valiant/Duster/Dart-Demon twins…the Volare/Aspen were actually introduced in 1976, and were sold alongside the other twins for that model-year. The Volare/Aspen, which were hurriedly-introduced without adequate pre-testing beforehand, turned out to be quality-disasters, as were also GM’s X-Body compacts a few years later. Chrysler’s Plymouth Horizon/Dodge Omni compacts, introduced in 1978 as America’s first FWD compacts, also had quality problems…as I said earlier, I owned one, but those problems were not as bad as those on the X-bodies, and I thought the Omni/Horizons were quite well-done inside the cabin, with nice trim, particularly in the top versions. Later versions of the top-line Duster, like other small Chrysler products, got the new 360 V8 engine, but it was de-smogged and designed for lead-free gas, and did not have the same brute-power of the 340.
Overall, despite its crude nature and notable shortcomings, I was impressed with the Duster for what it was….. a way to get a brand-new car (particularly a new performance-car with the 340/360 engines) at a low price. But it would not have been my first choice among the Chrysler vehicles of that period….when I was in my high-school. My favorite Chrysler product of the period was the Plymouth Road-Runner and its cute cartoon-bird-graphics and “Beep-Beep” horn. Of course, in high school, even though I was a good judge of cars even in this ways and at that you age (and I also liked big American luxury cars, particularly Buicks), I simply did not have the money to get the new cars I wanted back then. When I finally COULD afford a new car several years later, we were well-into the Great Automotive Malaise Age of the 1970s, gas was scarce and expensive, cars were sluggish and de-smogged, and most of the cars I had loved as a teen were either gone or radically transformed.
And, as Always, Happy Vehicle-Memories.
MM
__________________
DRIVING IS BELIEVING
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