…so this is cool 😊

Ok - all of us – all of us, have a story about ‘the one that got away’ – the one car or truck or bike or other favorite toy that we wish we’d never given up, whether it was sold, traded, stolen, wrecked, or otherwise reluctantly sacrificed to the pages of history. I am no exception to that unfortunate occurrence; my favorite toy from the hot rod era is a gold 71 Demon with a 318 and a 4-speed - loved that car - so fun to drive and own, but alas, it got away from me...but I am very delighted to say that I think I found a way to 'get it back'. Lemme take y’all back to 1992…

I was at my first duty station in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and my best friend was going through some rough times and came to live with me. I was ALL into hot rods – I had a 68 Charger and managed to bring it to Cheyenne with me, but was very quickly discovering just how difficult it was to keep a big B-body musclecar alive and well, meaning it takes a lot more money than I had, and parts were very scarce, even in the 90’s. Well, I’d just met a guy there who had a 66 Cuda, and once we started swappin’ hot rod stories and him telling me about his Cuda, well I started ‘looking’ at A-body’s. I checked out the first pages of my Chilton’s manuals which had basic but accurate pictorials of the front end of the cars represented in the manual, and one that caught my eye was the 71 Demon. Sharp lookin’ car – nice lines – had a bit of a menacing look to them, and being a coupe they just looked goooood. Well, it didn’t take too many weeks of scanning the Rocky Mountain News to find a 71 Demon for sale in Denver, and after a bit of logistical gymnastics and $500 bucks I managed to haul it home. It needed a lot of help, but I was up to the challenge. And in the process of rebuilding it I quickly came to realize that owning an A-body is not only cheaper but also much easier to maintain as parts were still in just about every junk yard, and again still at decent prices.

Well, my best friend now living with me needed a car, and I remembered a brown 71 Duster Twister I’d eyed in my local junk yard, and sure enough it was still complete enough to salvage, and…had a title. I don’t remember exactly how/where we found the driveline for it, but like my Demon it ended up with a 318 and an overdrive 4-speed, but with the smaller 8-1/4 rear with 3.21s (mine had an 8-3/4 with 4.10s). The car was super fun to drive and served him well, but unfortunately a short time later he got rear-ended which crunched both the back and front of the car when he got shoved into the car in front of him. Luckily he was okay, but the cars’ unibody was done. Well, we searched for another A-body, and wouldn’t ya know we found another running/driving 71 Demon hiding in Denver, this one had a 225 slant 6 and an auto. It took us ‘hours’ to swap in the Dusters’ driveline, and in no time that gold Demon was driving around just as easy as you please. About this time however my friend moved back to Pittsburgh, and in the midst of his move I ended up keeping the car.

Well naturally I drove it around and really enjoyed it, and had just moved to my second duty station here in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I made a few enhancements to the car, including having the rear wheels widened to 15x8s with new outer rims, and after watching the oil pressure steadily decline over the course of a month rebuilt the tired 318 and added a 4bbl cam/intake/carb. Not much else was done to the car because it just drove so well and was SO much fun to drive. The combination of the fresh 318, overdrive 4-speed, and 3.21s was just a ‘perfect’ combo – it’d fry 1st and 2nd gear, was fun to shift, handled great and got great mileage – the car got an honest 22 mpg!

I know it doesn't 'look' like much, but this was a super fun car, and I want it back -





But...well I was undeterred and always looking for something ‘better’, and around this time I was also suffering from ‘Challenger fever’…and (here it comes)…I traded the Demon to my friends in the local Mopar club for their 73 Ralley Challenger 340. Now…that really wasn’t a bad trade. The Challenger needed engine work, but it was a real ralley car, and I really liked it. It wasn’t a stick, which kinda sucked, but hey I could change that. So I freshened up the 340 and drove it for a while…..and that’s about when I heard…that the Demon got wrecked. OH I was bummed out – SUCH a great car. But, it happened, and there was nothing could do but move on…or could I…

Fast-forward about 25 years, and no…I haven’t moved on. I’ve owned a lot of cars n trucks – literally dozens of both, and among all of them…that gold 71 Demon has remained the one I wish I’d never let go. I’m much older now – got a family ‘n everything!, and while I’m still a major hot rodder...tho mostly now into off-roading, but still...I'd love to have 'something' reminiscent of my hot rodding/muscle car time - a 'tether' of sorts to that glorious fun RWD time, and I’ve been thinking, ’man...that gold Demon would be such a great machine for just that purpose - wouldn’t it be cool to have it back’. There aren’t many A-body’s hiding in the back yards and garages anymore these days, and most of what’s out there is pretty far gone or picked over. Still, undeterred, I’ve been keeping my eyes n ears open for any A-body’s that might serve as a proper candidate to ‘clone’ that 71 Demon. Tall order, but I can be pretty optimistic. One of the reasons for that is I actually have some of the body from that 71 Demon. After it got totaled, I asked if I could have some of the body panels from the car as spares for my other 71 Demon that I’d turned into a pretty badass race car, and my friends said ‘sure – take whatever you’d like’. So, I grabbed the hood, front fenders, grill, rear bumper, and tail section with the Demon taillight panels. Armed with those parts…if I found another suitable A-body…I knew I could build/restore the car to be a very close clone to that 71 Demon, and – and this is the big part – with such a machine in the stable I would very likely never need another hot rod – that car would serve as my ‘tether’ to the hot rod world…a physical reminder of how it all began for me. Bonus – my wife would also love to have such a machine for her to play around with for identical reasons – just a nice, simple, easy, and cheap way to remember what hot rods are like – carburetor n everything 😊…just gotta find a suitable candidate... and in 2021 that isn’t easy. Then came a particular trip to Moab...

About a month ago my off-road club, Bighorn 4x4s, had its annual trip to Moab for some serious off-road fun and frolic. To keep that particular long story short-ish, we almost inevitably end up stopping off at our buddy Ken’s place who lives there in Moab, for the use of his shop for repairs. Well this trip was no different - one of our number broke a ram-assist fitting at the top of Cliffhanger, and a few hours later we all rolled into Ken’s place…and upon peering around his property I was immediately reminded of previous visits there because of all of the cars Ken has there. Totally forgot about them all, but I hadn’t been to Moab in 4 years and have changed a LOT of poopy diapers since then, but nevertheless here we are, and there they are – 4 Mopar A-body’s, sitting under the trees just hangin’ out, one of ‘em appears to be a driver over in a parking area. Well...since I’ve been unofficially ‘searching’ for a suitable candidate for my 71 Demon clone I was naturally curious about the status and health of the cars, and struck up a fun conversation with Ken while the others wrenched on the broken gearbox.

The cars were all Plymouth Dusters between ’72-’75, and I was really interested in one of ‘em, a ’73 that was pretty complete, tho not running and in need a full restoration, nor did it have wheels on it. There was also a ’75 that was in worse shape but was similar in options, including interior parts and such. I didn’t really have a high expectation of either of these cars eventually coming home with me, but after talking with Ken and explaining this whole story, Ken said ‘...that is a really good story...’ and agreed to sell me not just the 73 but also the 75 as a ‘parts car’, for a very reasonable price. Plus my buddy Ben was also working a deal for a 77 Ramcharger hiding behind a tree. All we had to do now was organize a return trip back sometime soon to bring ‘em all home, and that's just what we did.

Just three weeks after the 4x4 trip, Ben, Homer n me made a quick weekend return trip back to Moab to retrieve the machinery – each of us in our respective trucks with a flatbed in tow. The trip was nice and uneventful; we departed early Saturday morning, made it to Moab in under 8 hrs, had a fun easy afternoon bolting on temporary wheels/tires to the Dusters and unearthing all three machines from their dirty, dusty cocoons, then giving each of them a bit of a scrub with a pressure washer. The day was capped off with dinner at the Broken Oar, an overnight at the Holiday Inn Express, and a smooth return trip home Sunday.

With both Dusters stowed in the barn the long cloning process now begins. Our ‘Demon’ will have a small block 318, an A-833 overdrive 4-speed, and a highway-geared rear end. I am seriously considering going with a nice Magnum 318 and enjoying all the inherent benefits of the Magnum series small blocks, or I can restore the original 318 in it already. I don’t need nor want the car to be a numbers and/or year-correct ’71 – I’m fully planning to incorporate as much ‘technology’ in the chassis as prudent (roller cam, serpentine setup, newer rear end with factory rear discs/e-brake, etc.) – things that will make the car easier to maintain in the long run, etc. It’ll be a nice warm 318 tho – nice lumpy cam but with a low overlap as possible, sipping any available 87 octane pump gas, but it will be carbureted – no EFI on this one – I want it to be ‘old-school’ that way 😊. It’ll be a ‘street machine’ – original-sourced parts but with some ‘hot rod’ mixed in – a true reminder of what the original car was while also having some modern conveniences mixed in. I do...however...have the thought of a nice carbureted 5.7 Hemi and manual trans floating around in me head...but I dunno...

Either way, this may likely be the last major project I do in my lifetime, and I’m fully intending the family to be involved in this one as much as possible – I think the kids will have fun scrubbing parts or moving stuff around, and when they’re old enough...well you can imagine what will come as soon as they can reach the pedals 😊.

So there it is – I just thought y’all might dig hearing about it 😊. Naturally...here’s pics 😊

the '73 Duster 'core' and the 75 Duster parts car (and Homie bolting on a wheel) -



me, with the core of my next big project -



before a scrub with a pressure washer...





and after - cleaned up pretty good -