Jumping, speeding, and general fun; the Duster became my second car for all this craziness. It wasn’t exceptionally fast, but it could handle a good beating to make up for its inability to handle cornering. With a bullet proof slant six like my first car and the added benefit of being a sleeker two door, I really felt cool in it. It’s the first car I painted, installed a cd player and sub in, installed new carpet, touched up interior, and put on air shocks that would raise the back end (Monroe shocks). It had to be terrible to watch me pass by; racked with skinny tires, music blaring, and cut off mufflers with the drone sound from the oversized six cylinder.

It was so much fun, and I learned a ton from it. It’s like an awakening…… an awkward awakening. Plus, it ignited a Plymouth Mopar passion I would keep from then on. One exceptional memory of the Duster was jumping it over the tracks leaving an intersection. There was this set of tracks and even at slow speeds you could feel the car lift. I couldn’t resist the urge to see my more redneck side come out. During that summer, driving on my own, I flew through that intersection on a green light (I wasn’t totally devoid of reason!) I peddled the duster up to a solid sixty. Holy crap I flew, and it must have been a spectacle to the drivers waiting to go on the opposite side because mid-flight I could see the roofs of opposing traffic. When I landed my frame bounced off the ground and sparks started to fly from behind me. I limped the car to an industrial parking lot and found my entire exhaust system dragging under my car. Luckily, I had already cut into the exhaust, downpipe from the header to hear if it sounded better. I went behind the car, grabbed the muffler and twisted it around and around until the metal gave out. I opened my trunk, put down my California rear seats, and loaded up my exhaust system. After that I just ran a header and nothing else.

Man, that poor car; I was a horrible car dad at the time. Just excited to slide beat on it and feel cool. I did eventually sell it to a father and son who planned to build it to a hot rod project.  So, in a way I saved it from rotting next to a barn, sitting so long you’d have to cut the grass around it to get it out. That’s how I got it!

It’s probably garaged somewhere right now.

What do you do when you run out of hair product camping. Become one with the woods.