Guess the year, make and model!

This purple two-door might look like just another vintage Mopar, but its shape hides a story about Detroit’s last stand before emissions regulations changed muscle cars forever. Fewer than 13,000 of this exact performance trim were built in its final full-strength year, and even fewer wore its rarest one-year-only styling package. Can you guess what’s parked here before reading on?

Classic purple muscle car parked indoors.

A deep purple two-door with a semi-fastback roofline sits parked indoors, and if you know your Mopar history, something about the proportions is already nagging at you. This isn’t a car that leans on big fins or gaudy trim to get noticed — its whole reputation was built on being the cheap, quick option nobody outside Chrysler dealerships expected to take seriously. By its final year of true high-compression muscle, fewer than 13,000 of this specific performance trim were built, making cars like this one rarer than most people assume. So before you scroll past assuming you already know the answer, take a second look at what’s actually under that hood.

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The Budget Muscle Car Nobody Saw Coming

The Plymouth Duster launched in 1970 as a semi-fastback version of the compact Valiant, built to give Plymouth a sporty body style without the cost of an all-new platform. It worked almost too well — the Duster quickly became one of Plymouth’s best-selling nameplates, largely because it let buyers option into real performance without paying full-size muscle car money.

1971: The Last Year Before the Rules Changed

By 1971, Plymouth built 186,478 Dusters total, but only 12,886 were the performance-oriented 340 model, and just 10,478 of those went to U.S. buyers. That made 1971 both the lowest production year for the Duster 340 and the last year Chrysler could offer the high-compression version of the 340 V8 before tightening emissions standards forced power down. A Carter four-barrel carburetor helped the 340 make an official 275 horsepower and 340 lb-ft of torque, backed by a standard three-speed manual, with four-speed or TorqueFlite automatic options and available 3.55 or 3.91 limited-slip gears.

A One-Year-Only Look

1971 also brought exclusive styling cues that never returned, including the blackout hood with a bold ‘340’ callout — only around 1,200 of which were built — plus stiffer springs, bigger sway bars, and Rallye wheels that separated the 340 from the base Duster on sight.

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