Anyone who daily drives a 1974 Plymouth Gold Duster in 2022 is pretty cool in my world. Some of us complain about our decade-old vehicle not being modern enough, this one is forty-eight years old. The seller has it posted here on craigslist in Scappoose, Oregon, just northwest of Portland, and they’re asking $6,800. Thanks to T.J. for sending in this tip! Here is the original listing.
I like the look of the 15″ black wall tires and black steel rims here, even if this car would have normally had 14″ whitewall tires and full wheel covers as a fancy trim level Gold Duster model. Yes, even the “canopy vinyl roof” was included with the Gold Duster package This one is wearing its original paint and you can see some of the gold stripes are faded and worn but who wouldn’t be after 48 years.
Our own Adam Clarke showed us a really nice gold-colored Gold Duster a few days ago here on Barn Finds and that one looked like a jewel. About three years ago, we saw a very similar car in this light color here on Barn Finds. Ahhh… three years ago, it seemed like such an innocent time back then. I mentioned the wheels earlier and the seller will “throw in the original 14” rallyes with nice center caps and all trim rings.”
You can see that there is work to do here, however. As nice as the car looks there is heavy rust on the floors and a small hole on the driver’s side floor that will need attention. We don’t see any underside photos but I may want to given how the floors look. The trunk floor looks pretty good although there is lurking rust in the crevasses and the unique folding rear seat would be handy. The back seat vinyl looks like new.
The 225 slant-six would have had 105 horsepower and was a $39 upgrade from the standard 198 slant-six. This one looks great and apparently, there is a power steering pump hiding down there which is nice. The transmission is a TorqueFlite three-speed automatic. The seller says that it runs and shifts great and has no leaks, that’s half the battle. Any thoughts on this Gold Duster?
Lots of Gold Dusters lately..I enjoy them.Now really impress me Staff and find a Duster Twister ;) It’s rarer,basically a stripe and trim package to make a slant six or 318 Duster look like a Duster 340.Keep up the good detective work lads!
Black steelies look good on it. Would offset a new black vinyl roof well.
They’ve featured plenty of Twisters here – just use the search feature to find them.
I wouldn’t call the power steering “nice” Chryslers PS was the worst of the bunch. No road feel at all. The manual boxes on these were great. Easy to turn with the standard wheels and gobs of road feel. I would never buy a Valiant/Dart with power steering, though that didn’t carry over to the Volare. A buddy had an early manual steering 76 Volare. Awful. Road feel was okay, but the attempts to parallel park that beast caused arm damage. The new form of suspension they used was not right for manual steering. Just another reason they should have save the money and kept building these. I feel the Volare/Aspen was a big reason why they almost went bankrupt just a few years later.
You’re probably right, Fred. I never had or needed power steering on my 1974 Dodge van with a 225 slant-six.
I had a 1977 Fury with manual steering and that car was fine on the road, but terrible to parallel park!
The brown one like this the other day set off a sense of nostalgia because it reminded me of a neighbors Mom’s car from my childhood. I commented on that cars post, describing my friends Mom’s car.
I described this car! It was a twin of this, but with A/C. Thank you Scotty, I feel like you read my comment & found this for me.
If I hadn’t brought a car down from my cousin’s barn to clean up & get road worthy so I can sell it off, I would be calling about this. No room at the house now for this. Might be for the better, I need to liquidate & not add to the fleet.
Gold ✨️
Been waiting for one to come up in the color combination like the 1974 a girl had in 1977 when I started dating her. 225 and all. when we got married in 1979 we only needed (could afford) one car and my 1977 Grand Prix was it. That was OK because after 5 years and 44 K miles her front fenders had been replaced and a rear spring shackle had gone through the trunk floor.
The mid-70s to mid-80s Mopars came with surface rust from the factory as an option.
Hardly …. Did someones Grandma blow your Novas doors off in her Swinger ?
Slant 6? 727 Torqueflite? Not rotted out? Buy it and drive it to the moon…
I HATE Chrysler products but you can’t argue with durability of this combo. Carry a spare ballast resistor and off you go. At the price of new and used cars? This is a steal….
727? More chances it is a 904. No need for a stout trans in a slant six. 904 more than good enough.
My drivers education cars were the full sized 1971 and 1972 Plymouth Fury. The power steering was precise for the day. There was an AMC Ambassador in the fleet briefly and it never felt like it had any road feel feedback….just overassisted. I owned a well used 1977 Gran Fury in the 1980s and it went exactly where it was pointed. My 1974 Grand Prix did have excellent variable ratio power steering (a rental car Nova was good) but other GM and Ford models not so much. This Duster is another underpowered slant 6 and those hot/cold sticky vinyl seats but the Torqueflite and power steering are nice. It will find a good home from a Mopar lover.
An unusually large number of Dusters lately. Fred is right-the Volare/Aspen twins were garbage compared to the Valiant/Dart twins. One of the worst design changes Chrysler ever made. I have owned 9 Mopars and drove Dodge and Plymouth squad cars during my early career as a cop, everything from ’72 through ’74 Dodge Polaras to ’75 through ’77 Dodge Coronets and Plymouth Satellites. The ’77 Volare wagon I had was such an impressive car I got rid of it after three years and did not own another Mopar until 1994.