Plum Crazy Duster Packs Big-block Performance

When it comes to muscle, Mopar reigns supreme then, now, and in the future.

General Motors’ Pontiac division jump-started the muscle car craze in 1964 wit the birth of the GTO. Ford pumped out high-performance Mustangs by the tens of thousands, bringing muscle to the masses. However, Mopar is the undisputed king of the muscle car era, building the biggest, baddest, fastest, and meanest muscle cars to ever roam the streets.

Ask ten Mopar fanatics what the best muscle-era Mopar color is, and you’ll get ten answers. For us, though, there can be only one: Plum Crazy purple. When we see a Plum Crazy Mopar, we pay attention.

Recently, Hemmings profiled a Plum Crazy 1972 Plymouth Duster with a spec sheet that lives up to the name. There’s no small-block under the hood — instead, you’ll find a worked over 440 big block with Edelbrock aluminum heads and a hot cam, fed by an 800 CFM carb.

More Than Meets the Eye

There’s more performance parts than we can list here, but suffice to say that this Duster is a pretty stout machine. It breathes through ceramic coated headers, an H-pipe, and Dynomax Super Turbo mufflers. We can only imagine how rowdy this thing sounds on the street.

All of that big block muscle is sent through a Torqueflite 727 transmission and a 8 3/4″ rear end with Motive 3.73 gears and a Sure Grip locker. We’ve spent the better part of our workday daydreaming about this thing roasting both tires down the main drag in our town.

This car is sure to grab attention wherever it goes — either thanks to its loud color of its equally loud exhaust. It should come as no surprise that it’s a bona-fide automotive celebrity, too.

According to the original ad, this car is the cover car for the book Mopar Muscle by Marc Cranswick and drag racing legend Don Garlits. To be honest with you, we’d even be happy with just the book!

Dusters are awesome, and part of their appeal comes from the fact that they don’t bring the same sort of coin as their B-body and E-body cousins. This well-sorted muscle machine can be yours for under $30,000. At that price, it sure beats a new Challenger SXT for cool factor, let alone a stoplight drag race.

Photos: Hemmings

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Cameron Vanderhorst

Cam VanDerHorst has been a contributor to Internet Brands' Auto Group sites for over three years, with his byline appearing on Ford Truck Enthusiasts, Corvette Forum, JK Forum, and Harley-Davidson Forums, among others. In that time, he's also contributed to Autoweek, The Drive, and Scale Auto Magazine.
He bought his first car at age 14 -- a 1978 Ford Mustang II -- and since then he’s amassed an impressive and diverse collection of cars, trucks, and motorcycles, including a 1996 Ford Mustang SVT Mystic Cobra (#683) and a classic air-cooled Porsche 911.
In addition to writing about cars and wrenching on them in his spare time, he enjoys playing music (drums and ukulele), building model cars, and tending to his chickens.
You can follow Cam, his cars, his bikes, and his chickens at @camvanderhorst on Instagram.

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