Five years ago, this 1974 Plymouth Duster might have been a bit easier to work with than it is today, but there’s still plenty of potential to turn this one into something special. The seller says he bought this car half a decade ago from a dealer who claims they got it from an estate sale, and at that time, the Plymouth was completely stock and believed to have been garaged for years. Though both of the latter circumstances have changed, this 1974 Duster here on Craigslist still seems like a good base vehicle to start with, and at $5,500, it’s also not an overly expensive initial investment. This cool coupe is located in Everett, Washington, and we’d like to thank reader Rocco B. for locating it and sending us the tip!
Even though the owner mentions he didn’t have a garage handy to store the Duster, most of the sheet metal still looks pretty good overall here. There are a couple of exceptions, with the front section of the hood showing some corrosion, and the panel beneath the trunk also has a small area of rust. Neither bumper is straight, but thankfully, the vinyl top doesn’t appear to have wreaked too much havoc on the roof here, as it sometimes does. The powder Blue paint is somewhat unusual, and while it works well on this body style, I wouldn’t be surprised if a future owner eventually revises the exterior to something a bit more radical.
Upon the seller’s acquisition, the Slant Six was reportedly running, but the power it was providing wasn’t satisfactory. A 4-barrel manifold and carb were added, along with a set of headers, but the engine ultimately failed. In the bay now is a different Slant 6, said to have been sourced from a late sixties Plymouth Barracuda, although it has yet to become operational. While there is a spark and streaming fuel present, it keeps backfiring through the carburetor, and the owner has decided he’s tired of fooling with it. It’s probably time to consider replacing this engine with a more potent V8 under the hood.
This one has a fairly simple interior, including vinyl seats with a bench up front and a column-shifted automatic transmission. The glove box door is missing, but the instrument cluster still looks OK, and I’m not spotting any obvious cracks in the dash pad. If the buyer plans to restore this one differently than keeping with the stock specs, maybe a pair of buckets may be more rewarding, and perhaps switching the inside color to black. There seem to be a lot of good possibilities for this 1974 Plymouth Duster, and I’m kind of envisioning turning it into a Restomod. What would you do with this one?
I’ll take the nice 73 that was posted earlier for $8500 any day over this mess that doesn’t run.