Hello from northwest PA! (Long post)

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My 72 340

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Location
Erie, PA
Greetings fellow A body lovers!

My name is Adam and I hail from Erie, PA. and this is my story and I'm sticking to it!

Back in 1978 my brother bought his first ever car, and what a first car for a then 17 year old. He came home with it and I was literally in awe, a 1972 Plymouth Duster with a 340 Engine, 4 Speed Transmission with a 8 3/4 Sure Grip rear end with 3.91 gears. It had a multi colored striped Candy Apple paint job on it with the main color being red, hood scoop and Cragar SS mag wheels with some fairly wide tires, and dual exhaust exiting out each side just ahead of the rear wheels.

But what really got my attention besides the paint job was that the engine had a very lopey idle, The list the owner gave him when he got it stated the block was bored .030 over, 10:1 Pistons, Crane Solid Lifter Cam, Cloyes Tru-Roller Timing Chain and gears, Edelbrock Torker Intake, Holley 800 Double Pumper carb, ported '71 340 heads, and Headers, and was painted black instead of the corporate blue. Definitely one heck of a first car.

Needless to say cruising around in that car over the next summer was definitely a fun ride and very quick. Many people would look it over think that the car was all "show and no go" and wanted to run it with their ride, but would suddenly change their mind when he fired it up. That I until the accident, he was in NY state and came up on a cure too fast, tried to power slide around it, the car sideways across the highway with the left rear tire dropping into a ditch, the tire then hit a driveway tube causing the wheel to totally separate from the rear axle leaving all 5 lugs and the wheel center section still bolted to the axle causing the rear end housing to crush the car's fuel tank as well as pulling the left leaf spring from the front mount and allowing the driveshaft to drop out of the tranny, the car then went airborne and landed on the opposite side of the road between 2 trees. The left rear fender also suffered some moderate damage from the wheel separation and at 3AM on a Sunday morning the car came home hooked to a wrecker with the crunched fender, the rear axle hanging by the right leaf spring and the driveshaft sticking out of the trunk.

New leaf springs, Gas tank, and a used axle housing and drive shaft were purchased and the damaged rear fender was replaced with a new one and primered ready for paint but was never repainted. Instead he put the car in rented garage and there it sat for years never to be driven again. Sadly my brother was killed in a snowmobile accident in January 1993 ironically also in New York state, since the car was registered in my mother's name for insurance purposes the car sat for a few more years in that garage until 3 years ago she decided it was time to do something with it.

The paint job looked terrible (picture looking at a dry lake bed and you get the idea what the paint looked like) and needed to be repainted so it was taken to a body shop, stripped down to bare metal and painted blue then returned to my parents garage. She then had it trucked it to a shop where new or re-chromed bumpers were installed, lights, Rally Wheels and new tires installed and a new exhaust system fitted, the engine was pulled and checked for any problems and reinstalled, new ceramic coated headers and new clutch and pressure plate installed after resurfacing the flywheel. Hearing that engine fire up after so long was definitely music to my ears.

Then my mother passed away last year. My father decided it was time to do something with the Duster, he wanted to sell the car, so a "For Sale sign went in the windows and either my other brother would drive it around, or I would take it to shows to give it some exposure to try and find a buyer. I refused to post it on eBay or even craigslist as I hear too many horror stories about people with collectable cars getting ripped off. and was thinking on submitting an ad in the Mopar Collectors guide after taking it to a local car show last June. Until about a month ago, my Father asked me if I wanted the car. I was kind of vocal anyway about keeping the car within the family seeing as it has been around for so long and would been a great tribute to my brother and mothers memory, if I didn't take the car then it would of been part of his estate and would of been auctioned off to the highest bidder, It didn't take me long to decide.

Which brings me here, even though I never owned an A Body Mopar before, I do now. The car has very low mileage (currently 21,900 miles), it had 17K on the clock when my brother bought it) and though I do not have a garage (yet) I do have a place lined up to store it for now. I would like to have the car painted back to it's original factory appearance over time including what my mom called an "ugly" color "Tawny Gold Metallic" but after seeing pics of Dusters that color, It really isn't that bad of a color, also get the factory style stripes put on it, Paint the Engine the original Mopar corporate blue, etc. etc. It will never be totally original but will be as close as I can get it over time and I feel joining here and networking with other fellow A Body people may help me stay the course.

So that's it, sorry for the long post but I felt that this story needed to be told. Other than pics of what it looks like right now! Oh and the shiny stickers on the rear side windows? My brother put them on back in '78, which reads, "If you value your life as much as I value this car, don't 'F' with it!" that will still hold true with me!
 

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Welcome Adam. Very nice of you to share the story of your brother. I'm sorry he was taken from you so young. You will fit right in here and find others who know our cars are more than just cold metal.

Tawny Gold Metallic is the perfect color.
 
Welcome I also am a new member from Warren Pa. I had mopars back in the 70's that I truly enjoyed a 1969 roadrunner 440 4sp. car. 1968 Charger 383 auto car. A 73 challenger on a dodge ramcharger chassis. They were awesome so now I got a project car a 1969 barracuda. I joined to find parts and check out other members cars and their experience. Again Welcome.
 
Well let me be the first to welcome you 340 cuda!

Obviously we live about an hour or so apart from each other. I usually go camping during Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends with a bunch of friends in the Allegheny National Forest off of a forest service road that runs between Pleasant Drive and Chapman Dam Road, we usually camp in one of a few different spots where the Rocky Gap ATV trail runs by. I definitely would leave the Duster behind though, the headers on the car kind of limits my ground clearance in the front so I would be better off leaving it at home. Maybe we can hook up sometime when I'm in the area.
 
Welcome Adam! My only son's name also.:cheers:

So sorry to here about the loss of your Brother and Mom. That's one sweet looking car. Can't wait to see how you move forward with it...
 
So you still have the car your brother bought back in 1978, which has been in the family for 35 years? Score!!! And that car is still in excellent condition with low mileage? Score!!! And it's an original Street Machine from the 70s? SCORE!!!! The engine is still the same and it's in excellent condition?! Score!!! The cool old paint job had to be removed due to an old "mishap"...well, you can't have everything... ;) But what a super story, super car and wonderful fate for both you and the Duster. Welcome and keep us posted!
 
I agree with your view that it's best to keep the car in your family, as a tribute to and reminder of your brother.

My own car is far from original, but remains "matching numbers" and having worked on the car with my son for 2 years, made good friends in the process and spent a small fortune (my guess is about € 45,000) I couldn't bear to part with it. For the next 36+ years the car will remain in my family.

I can imagine what the car looked like after spending years in a garage. Last week I owned a Moskvitch 408 for about 3 hours ; my son and I took the trunk lid and cut off the rear fenders (with the lights) and scrapped the rest of the vehicle. The blue paint looked like a dried riverbed.
 
Was visiting the car today and took a few more pics to share, even found another broadcast sheet while putting a newly acquired owners manual still in the plastic inside the glove box, enjoy.

Under the hood,

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In the trunk

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Front Seat

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Back Seat

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Dash, Yeah it needs a radio.

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Gauges

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Yeah it needs prettied up in some places especially in the engine bay, carb started acting up, acting like it's leaning out when the secondaries open, first thing I noticed is no inline fuel filter (wtf!), so I'm gonna pull it and find a kit and give it a good soaking come spring. AND PUT A DARN FUEL FILTER ON IT!
 
Very cool story and car. Bench seat and a hotrod 4 speed is not something you see every day. It would be neat to see some vintage pictures of the original paint.

There is an ad in the parts section with radios.
 
Update! I found some shots of the car from January of 2005 that I forgot I had, taken as the car was being readied for it's trip to the body shop.

All pinstriping seen in the pics are paint of various candy apple shades with either a gold or silver base, even the red had 2 shades, it had to of taken a heck of a long time to lay all of that out and spray. I'm still looking for 78 era pics of it.

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Notice the cracks on the trunk lid. The roof too had some cracks but can not be seen from all of the dust on it

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Picture that side mirrored on the drivers side

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I see from this pic, 362 miles have gone by since 2005!

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