The Duster was the fastback coupe version of Plymouth's Valiant compact car, the platform mate of the Dodge Dart Sport, and had been soldiering on since 1969, when it had been introduced as a 1970 model.
By the middle of the decade its days were numbered and after the 1976 model year it would be replaced in the lineup by the Plymouth Volaré coupe. (The two cars shared space on dealer lots for '76.)
The base motor was the trusty 225 cubic inch Slant Six with a single-throat carburetor, with optional 2bbl 318 or 4bbl 360 small-block V-8s available. The Slant Six and 318 both had catalytic converters now and were rated at 90 and 150 SAE net horsepower while the 360 remained converterless and put out 225 ponies.
In the dark days of the early Malaise Era, a 360-powered Duster with a 3.21:1 Sure Grip rear end would crack off sub-15 second quarters, and took surprisingly little fettling to put out acceleration numbers hearkening back to the Muscle Car days of a half decade earlier.
Road Test magazine, on the other hand, tested a Duster with the Slant Six and three-speed manual and the result was as Malaise-y as you'd expect. Zero-to-sixty took an agonizing 14.8 seconds and the car dawdled through the quarter in 19.5 at 70mph. Top speed was reported at 94 and the car took 172 feet to stop from sixty. At least it got 16.3 miles per gallon?
The single exhaust and the bumper overriders on this one have me leaning towards it packing a 318 under the hood. My ex had a '75 with a 318 in it that he'd put mag wheels on, as well as a little ducktail of a spoiler on the decklid. He'd added a true dual exhaust that sounded a lot healthier than the 2-bbl smog motor actually was, and between that, the unsilenced air cleaner, and the Direct Connection front license plate, its bark was entirely worse than its bite. Those were my peak redneck girlfriend days.
This Rallye Red specimen on steel wheels was photographed in White Rock, New Mexico using a Sony a7 II and an FE 24-240mm f/3.5-6.3 OSS zoom lens in October of 2018.
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