Solid Original: 1972 Plymouth Duster
A lot of us would like to find a solid project car for not much money and this 1972 Plymouth Duster looks like it would be a nice one to start with. It can be found here on eBay in Pottstown, Pennsylvania with a single bid of $3,900 and no reserve. Let’s check out this solid Duster.
The Duster was made for the 1970 through 1976 model years and Chrysler made a lot of them. A lot. We’ve seen quite a few roll through the cyber doors here at Barn Finds and sometimes they’re in less than solid condition. The seller tells us that this car is all original and the underside – floor pans and frame – are solid. They even show photos of that area which is nice.
You can see some bodywork in a few of the photos so it isn’t all “original”, of course, but I’m assuming they mean that it hasn’t been modified in any way. It does look bone-stock inside and out.
The interior will need some help with the seat fabric but thankfully SMS Auto Fabrics may have this exact pattern and you’ll be in business again. It sure would be nice to brighten up these seats again. The back seat looks good. After a thorough cleaning, some work on the door panels, and tending to a crack on the dash, the whole interior would look great.
You can see the famous slant-six, a 225 cubic-inch 110-hp engine that’s loved by millions of classic car fans. The seller says that this is a running and driving car but that’s the only detail that we get from them on the operating condition of this Duster. Hagerty puts a value of a 1972 Duster with a 225 slant-six as being $6,720 for a #4 fair condition car and $8,800 for a #3 good condition car. What is this Duster worth in its present condition? How much would you pay for it?
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Comments
My dad bought one of these new, so I like them. But that slant 6 would go in a dumpster. His ‘threw a rod’ at 93,000 miles so I have hated that crap motor ever since. I would go built 340 with a 4 or 5 speed and a black interior.
Pretty unusual for those motors. Usually on these cars the body rusts away into oblivion while the Slant Six and Torqueflite are still going strong.
My cousin threw a rod in his 39,000 miles and he changed his oil every 2000 miles, freak of nature most ran w/o oil
A friend of mine was asked to diagnose and repair a slant six with a misfire once… sometime in the late 80s. The car had this misfire for two years. He pulled the valve cover and discovered that one of the pushrods was completely out of the rocker and the lifter was out of the bore. He put it back and the car ran untold years thereafter.
Skorzeny, Well I’m not discounting your story but a /6 is anything but a crap motor. These designs have a long history of outstanding durability. No power but they will run for a very long time.
Was pretty much going to say the same thing AMC, with proper maintenance, these engines were bulletproof, but like you said, good luck keeping a car around them, especially up here in Chicagoland!
Tough one. Not sure I agree with those # 4 and #3 prices in todays market based upon this car needing EVERYTHING a restoration offers, it being a NO HP V6 AUTO then including the idea of needing a V8 to ever be worth everything/commanding a strong resale dollar.
I will agree that these are rare from the standpoint that most rusted to oblivion!
If in Chicago, bring it to me and I will Undercoat and Rust Protect it moving forward. Bring that car out into our Chicago Salt market, or PA for that matter, that’s like sticking your hand in a bucket of Piranhi’s!!
sorry Piranha’s
Sounds fishy to me.
I thought he meant pierogies. They can be salty sometimes but still pretty tasty.
Rare car… I’ve never seen a slant V6 before.
Cause there isn’t one
should have seen the twin engine slant 6 dragster at orange county drags in the 60s.ran like a banchee
Probably tired of the Al Bundy references, but it was a very funny show. ( his Dodge Dart was actually a ’72 Duster) I had a couple slanty’s. Noisy, oil leaking messy things, but I never heard of one throwing a rod.
The only Slant Six rod I’ve ever heard coming unglued was when a set of those rods were used in a primitive stroker 318 way before the advent of cheap stroker cranks.
As a 14 year old kid, I bought a 4 door slant 6 dart from a classmate. It had a slant 6 with a rod knock. He kicked the living crap out of the car, then I did the same with it. That old 6 banger (literally) just wouldn’t die lol.
I sold it to another friend who beat it like a red-headed step child too.
I bought it for $25.00, sold it for $40.00 & my friend I sold it to unloaded it in the local newspaper for a “whopping” $175.00. This was back in 1985 lol.
Barnfind comments rarely get me laughing out loud but the “I bought it for $25” is hilarious !! Sold it for $40 and you probably thought you were Donald Trump!! That was a 60% profit…..sounds like a Far Side Comic that needs to be made with the line “Early days of Car Flippers !”
Heck yeah! For a 14 year old kid, I was living high on the hog lol!
Oh, to be so young and stupid again lol.
The car, for the record, should not have been on the road lol, let alone being flogged by my 14 year old unlicensed A$$ lol.
A slant 6 Duster is a 2 door Valiant
2 – 3 k tops
Maybe 3.5 k
Maybe
Wow. My family used a bunch of these cars from the early 70s until the late 80s. My dad bought a brand new 71 Duster similar to this one in drivetrain and options except his was green inside and out. I drove a 72 Gold Duster myself for years.
They were rock solid, dependable, economical commuter cars. The 9″ drum brakes were iffy if you drove them hard but the suspension with the slant 6 was great for the twisty, hilly roads where we lived.
Not everybody had a V8 and not everybody WANTED a V8.
Pottstown is quite close to me and I’d drive this thing AS IS with delight but not at this price. I bought decent examples of these Dusters in the 80s for $100 a pop. Never thought I’d see one bringing this kind of coin. Never.
When I was in high school, I bought one just like this but rustier with rallye wheels, bucket seats, and a 318 for $200. I sold the engine, trans, wheels, seats, gas tank, and driver’s door for way more than I paid for the car. Used a bunch of the parts on my 70 Swinger, and scrapped the terminally rusty shell. I could never have imagined today’s prices less than 30 years later.
Years ago I had a beater with a slant six that was on its last legs, sucking oil, smoking, leaking, and enough crankcase pressure to lift the hood, so naturally I did what any self respecting gear head would have done. I put it in neutral, held the gas to the floor, and blew a hole through the side of the block you could put your fist through as I coasted into the junk yard.
Dusters were first cars or throwaway cars for many people. They were never meant to last a lifetime. The fact that the Slant 6 proved so durable extended their lives and provided a lot of pleasure for the young drivers who flogged them mercilessly. Legend has it that the tolerances were so great that nothing touched inside the engine so nothing wore out.
Being in the same class as the Nova they attracted a lot of the same hot rodders stuffing huge motors in them and jacking up the back with extended (and dangerous) spring shackles. To my eye the Duster was a better, more coherent design than the awkward Nova.
The only way an old one like this will command a premium price is in the nostalgia market – someone who wants to relive their youth and pay way too much to do so. My wife’s first car was a blue Duster. Fortunately she feels no longing to revisit that car.
Now, if anyone has a ’62 Cutlass convertible…
That slant 6 would be trashed, interior trashed, 340 Clone written all over it, black exterior white stripe, white bucket seat interior flat black hood, 340 Wedge graphics on hood, but Hah, 440 under that 340 hood
Let your imagination sore Johnny! Lol
The car I described was a reality in my neighborhood, summer of 72, 73, I was a kid, but this guy went one step further, his mom owned a 71 Satellite wagon w a 318 in it, he put the 340 from the Duster in that for his brother to drive, put the 340 wheels on it too, cause he had different wheels on the Duster by then, fastest wagon in town, if someone goofed on him for driving a wagon, his brother would smoke them, even put dual exhaust on it, his mother had no clue
I have only owned one slant 6 and it’s in a Ticket Snow Cat and needs an overhaul badly!
Maybe he lined up next to a SBC…..oh well looks nice for the east coast and with that maybe a good buy if your in the market.
If this is what a trashed example brings, I am going to buy all the Dusters around Mexico, which I can get nice ones for around $2500 USD and send them north.
Let’s do business!
We will.
Very reliable motor!! Had a couple 225 slant sixes and they were Bullett proof!!
The motor has been replaced or maybe someone painted it at one time- This should be blue ,like the 318s and 340s for that year. This one looks like its been repainted a big block turquoise.
I bought a mint Basin Street blue 225 powered 72 Duster with the same color interior . I paid $1.300 for it in 1979 at a local Plymouth dealership. 6 months later I got rear ended at a stop light by a drunk driver in a new Caddy and he totaled it – The guy hit me so hard he pushed the jack through the sheet metal by the quarter glass ( the jack is mounted on the right side of the trunk floor )
I have a 72 Gold Duster 318 CID, 2BBL, Automatic all numbers matching 85000 original miles never crashed. Needs rear quarters and a trunk pan, I am looking to sell. New seat covers and carpeting, wanting $7,000.00 OBO will send photos.
@Pat – send it in and we will sell it for you!
I truly and deeply miss my incredible light-blue 1972 Duster with the 225-cid slant-six and groovy three-on-the-tree. The torsion-rod suspension and bench front seat and the aftermarket 8-track tape player mounted under the dash and the awesome flow-through air openings manually operated on the firewall near the foot residing area were things memories are made of.
For the vehicle size the trunk was huge, a handy thing to have at times. In 1975 gas prices were soaring so the double-nickle (55 mph) freeway speed limit was easier to tolerate. On flat I-5 in California at a steady 55-mph that Duster sipped gas at 30-miles-per-gallon.
In a rush once I followed the speeding semi-truck barreling along at 90-mph (when Smokey Bear was not nearby) on I-5 for 260 mile with nary a complaint from the slant-6 and the temp gauge never climbed above normal.
A mighty-fine machine and I miss it immensely.
Sniff.