Start with what the Plymouth Duster is: a 2-door coupe with 198 cuin Chrysler Slant 6 engine, built from 1969 to 1976, in the decade that gave the world the pony car and the mid-engined supercar. What it meant takes a little longer. The shape is credited to Milt Antonick and Neil Walling. 1,332,846 were built.
Where it came from
The original Plymouth Duster is a semi-fastback two-door coupe version of the compact-sized Plymouth Valiant automobile that was marketed by Plymouth in the U.S. from 1969 until 1976 model years.
Under the skin
The engine is 198 cuin Chrysler Slant 6 engine; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. Drive goes through a 3-speed manual transmission / manual / 4-speed manual / 3-speed TorqueFlite automatic transmission / automatic. The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. The wheelbase is 108.0 in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
In context
In the Plymouth line-up the Plymouth Duster has a clear place: it replaced the Plymouth Valiant Barracuda; it handed the line to the Plymouth Volare (United States) / Plymouth Gran Fury / Plymouth Caravelle coupe (Canada); the factory was Hamtramck, Michigan (Dodge Main. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Range Rover Range Rover, the American Motors Corporation AMC Gremlin, the Chevrolet Impala. Nearby in the Plymouth catalogue sit the Plymouth XNR and the Plymouth Laser.
Owning one today
MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the Plymouth Duster has none: too old, too rare, or never sold there. Its value today is a collector's question, decided by provenance and condition rather than by a class average.