Obviously I spend a lot of time at drag strips across the country at a multitude of different events. From stuff like the NMCA finals which we just finished on Monday morning (like 0’dark thirty Monday morning) to NHRA national events, the Street Car Super Nationals, and more. Because of that I can’t help but develop some favorites when it comes to cars, styles of cars, etc. This 1970 Plymouth Duster punches all of the right buttons for me and when you consider the neat racing history that it has, I think BangShifters will dig this car as well.
You are looking at a car that won the NHRA Division 5 PRO class title in 1980 and then traveled to the NHRA World Finals which were then held in Ontario, California to battle for national supremacy in the world of bracket racing. Powered by a 345ci small block, it has an old school cage (check out the “door bar” on the driver’s side!), an old school stance, all kinds of tires under the back, and was a 10-second zipper in its day. Want to talk about hardcore? The thing has 5.57 gears in the rear end so the little 345 is singing hard when it crosses the traps at the end of the quarter mile.
The car is not historically significant in the greater world of drag racing but it is kind of a time capsule look at what was (and still is) a really nice bracket car that was run as a class car as well in the super stock ranks as well. The story of the guy from Kansas City who had it and raced it in California is a heart breaker but not in the tragic way, just in the “that’s racing” way. It is worth a read and the ad is packed with great photos of this cool car.
I know that there are more efficient, modern, and “better” ways to build a car like this today but if I had the scratch for this car, I’d service the engine, trans, and axle, then hit the track. Big tires, some altitude in the stance and a couple shades of brown? Hello 1970s!
Click here for the Craigslist Ad featuring this really cool 1970 Duster with neat history
Dan used to sell tractors at Marion co imp which is like 3/4 of a mile from my shop.
This car was quick and dead consistent and its not a hack job.
Why would the original builder remove the VIN plate? The ad says it has 50000 miles on it before it was turned into a race car, that would rule out a “body in white” that never had a VIN.
There are still nice, simple cars like this all across the country racing at little 1/8th mile tracks, having fun..
Why the hell would you put that fugly tail panel and hood/grill on?
A number of Mopar Pro Stockers, when they were built from body-in-white packages, had that high door bar, as did some BIW factory Super Stockers. Apparently, moving the door bar up that high stiffened them quite noticeably with no weight penalty over the more usual lower positioned bar.
If you check out some of the threads over at ClassRacer.com, especially those dealing with 70’s and 80’s S/S Mopars, you’ll see a lot of those high door bars.
The only question I have is what’s the deal with the door bars? I’ve never seen a race car with bars that high across the door. That would be the first thing to change.
Those bars were originally done that way by Ron Butler in the 70’s. (search: Butch Leals B/MP ’75 Duster) They run all the way to the end of the unirails and it was to triangulate the chassis. The lower driver side bar was not a rule back then.