The nicest thing about the 340 was the light weight it hung between the front fenders, and these small-blocks tended to be better handlers than many of their big-block kin.
The little tornado with eyes that symbolized Duster was akin to the Road Runner graphic, which Plymouth had marketed with great success. Ironically, it is thought that the budget Duster cut heavily in the new 1970 Road Runner sales.
Though the engine is original to the car and has been rebuilt to stock specs, the use of an open-filter air cleaner and see-through fuel filter doesn’t make this a restoration.
Due to his close association with Chrysler, Bill was able to purchase an “almost new” 1970 Plymouth Duster at discount for the program. This was the east coast press pool car, a Vitamin C-hued A-body that had been thrashed for readers on the pages of Car & Driver and Super Stock & Drag Illustrated magazines. The best ET was a fat 14.09 by Jim McCraw, reported in SS&DI in March 1970. The new Duster fastback had been built on an unbelievably rapid development schedule off the Valiant A-body platform; Dodge stuck with Swinger on the Dart body. Available only with sixes and small blocks, the car proved to be quite popular with the public that year. The 340 Duster package like this one was at the top of the production line-up performance-wise, but modified Hemi-powered Pro versions were already getting track time thanks to guys like Arlen Vanke and Herb McCandless (Sox & Martin team).
 The Duster 340 used a pretty healthy AVS carb in 1970, though many drivers appreciated the more rapid throttle response from the spread-bore ThermoQuad, which became standard equipment the following year. |
Purchasing the car through Manhattan Used Car Sales in New York City, the factory picked up $2,000 of the cost, leaving Bill to pay just $1,147.60 to get the title. The abuse it had suffered under its editorial conditions didn’t matter, as it was going to be stripped down and all the extra parts would go onto into an acid-dipped Pro Stock body already at the shop. However, it didn’t work out that way.
Not long after, Bill found a wrecked 1970 Duster in a junkyard for his extra parts and the 4,200-mile Vitamin C Orange 340 car (which Sam Posey had stated “was a ball to drive” during the C&D test at Lime Rock, Conn.) ended up back on the street as a parts chaser. As a result, it was also on hand during several of Super Stock magazine’s best-known Mopar road tests. Today, because the editors were doing tires swaps one day and the tires off the Duster ended up on another car for a comparison, the car sports two 1970 light centers and two 1971 darker centers (as did the factory test car on hand when that day ended!).