While America seems to be in the throes of Bronco-mania where seemingly every yahoo with a rusty quarterpaneled OJ-era Bronco thinks it’s now magically worth well into the five figures and even the old K-5 Blazer is riding those coattails, here we have something that truly ticks all the boxes for today’s buyer that wants all the goodness but is a little more discerning and willing to not just be another lemming. And priced at what seems a very reasonable $4,500 for the pleasure. (Update – the price seems to have changed to $6,000 since this post was written on Sunday!)
This truck seems to meet all of the current requirements for a successful sale. It’s a full size SUV. It’s vintage with some patina, i.e. a dent or two. It’s even from a defunct marque with an extinct model name that sold in small numbers originally. And as the cherry on top of it all, it’s a camper, or at least carries one. How is this still on Craigslist five hours after being published on Sunday afternoon when I found it? I’m more than a little tempted myself to be honest, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing about it.
The Trail Duster of course is the corporate twin to the Dodge Ramcharger but if the Ramcharger can’t exactly be described as a resounding sales success, the Plymouth version has to be considered a relative failure. Offered starting very late in the 1974 model year and all washed up by 1981, (curiously after the first year of the redesign) I can’t recall the last time I’ve seen a Trail Duster in person.
This one here is from 1976, the third year, and the Craigslist ad claims that that the pop-up camper is original to the vehicle. I don’t believe they were offered that way from the factory, but the camper does seem to be of the correct vintage and likely was installed back when this was new or near-new. Since the tops were removable on the Trail Duster there is obviously some sort of cab-only covering, I can’t work out who offered those or how they install exactly, if you look at the pictures the camper is open to the cab in the back, so not just a pickup camper placed on top of the open rear portion.
It’s too bad there weren’t any pictures of it with the top actually popped up but the idea is that clips surrounding the top are unfastened and then the ceiling can be pushed up around another two feet wherein a fabric sidewall will unfold and it’s all held up with some sort of bracket system. My main clue that it isn’t completely original to the truck is that the trim on the camper is brown whereas the Trail Duster itself is likely “Medium Blue Metallic”, or at least that’s the color it looks like after perusing the 1977 brochure as I couldn’t locate a 1976 version. The manufacturer tag on the right reads “Four Wheel Pop-Up Campers” but I can’t make out the data tag on the upper left. However Four Wheel Pop-Up Campers is still in business today producing all manner of popups that fit on the back of pickups.
The ad even includes the Jim Klein “ready for action” pose photograph, how could I not like this thing! The white spoked wheels were an option when new and the tires look to be named “Mud King XT”. The chrome is shiny, there’s tread on the tires, and this thing’s already on a dirt road. Adventure beckons.
And if you’re in a hurry to bug out somewhere, you’ll get there quickly with the top dog engine in the lineup, the mighty 440 cu. in. V8 (that’s a 7.2l to our continental readers) with a four barrel carburetor mated to an obligatory 3-speed LoadFlite automatic. Of course range anxiety might be an issue out in the boonies as I can’t imagine it gets anything resembling fuel “economy”, even if the standard 24 gallon tank was swapped for the optional 35 gallon one.
The rear accommodations area is a little stripped out but the upper bunk seems to be in place, the roof above just needs to be popped up and I’m sure a little gray paint daubed judiciously around the back here will make it all look super modern. But really, after a day or week or month of four-wheelin’ action, any flat surface that isn’t the dirt ground will feel plenty welcoming. Pop a Schlitz open from the cooler (you supply both), and watch the stars while the dog lays there dreaming of rabbits and kicking a leg, well, that’s heaven on earth.
The cab even looks good, the saddle blanket bucket seat covers are appropriately vintage in feel, and the smaller steering wheel, while perhaps not what you want off-road, looks period as well. These were actually full time 4WD, no manually messing around with a transfer case, so just drop it in gear and go. In case you are inclined to take a closer look, here’s the link to the ad. In case it’s gone the VIN is AAOAF4X129676. For some good action footage of a Trail Duster, click the video below and enjoy, it also includes some of the apparently extremely rare 1974 version with the half-doors.
Swoon! What is there not to like? A badge engineered Dodge pickup, four-wheel drive, a very tasteful camper, and a 440? Sign me up!
This is a most awesome find.
If I were going off to college in a few years and was contemplating living in a van, for this I might reconsider. It allows for better weekend adventures and it has more panache.
Mechanically these Mopars just keep going. Last night I saw a video on YouTube of a similar vintage Dodge that had been in a salvage yard for 12 or 13 years. The guy put a battery in it, gave it a shot of starting fluid, and she fired right up.
People can keep those rust-o-matic Chevrolets and wheezy Fords of this era and into the ’80s – I’ll take a Dodge.
I have always liked these, and the Plymouth vans too. There is something so wrong about saying “Plymouth Trucks” it’s an oxymoron.
I always thought it was strange that the trucks weren’t Plymouths in the first place. GM and Ford used their low price brand for their trucks. (Yes GM also had GMC for the almost low priced Pontiac dealers to sell). So it sort of tarnished the Dodge name as a mid priced brand to me.
I’m sure that the C-P dealers were a big reason that they finally brought out Plymouth trucks as they complained about being left out of the increasing sales of vans and 4x4s as personal use vehicles.
Dodge was building trucks since 1917, long before Chrysler acquired them in 1928. Plymouth actually did sell pickups and sedan deliveries from 1935 to 1942, but the volumes were low, and presumably it was not seen to be profitable to sell them again after the war. Don’t forget that until 1961, Plymouth could also be paired with Dodge, so it made little or no sense to have two truck brands.
Trucks were just not that big in volume until the ’70s for Chrysler to even contemplate having two lines. As it is, they struggled with Dodge during the ’60s and into the ’70s.
The thing is they figured there was enough demand in Canada to give the Plymouth dealers Fargo trucks.
What it did is cause a number of dealers to pick up an International Harvester franchise. The small town I spent some of my early years in had a C-P International Harvester dealer.
Ernie Bisio the famed “last IH dealer” shared with me how he got into his Scout and then IH truck franchise. C-P dealers were the focus of selling franchises for the new Scout. The local area rep, Creed Brattain succeed with the C-P dealer on Sandy Bvld, just down the street from Ernie’s used car lot. He found according to Ernie that “his salesmen in their fancy suits didn’t know how to sell a Scout” so he passed the franchise along to Ernie at a fraction of what he had invested.
Talking with Creed he shared that yes C-P dealers were a focus when selling Scout and truck franchises in the 60’s. Yes Creed eventually bought out one of those dealers he called on and built Brattain International with 5 locations in OR, before retiring and selling them to Peterson a few years ago.
Canada was different, because of their much lower population and dealer density, which meant that there was very little likelihood of two Chrysler dealers in the same town or nearby. Dodge and Plymouths were of course essentially the same cars, hence the “Plodges”. Same thing with Ford and Mercury; they were in the same price class, and hence the reason there were Mercury trucks in Canada. Apple and oranges.
Ford and Mercury were not the same price class in Canada, which is why they brought out the Mercury 114, a Ford with a Mercury clip to give dealers a car in the low priced segment. That eventually led to the Meteor brand as the low priced car for the Mercury dealers.
I think there had been some talk in the 1960s about giving Dodge trucks to Chrysler-Plymouth dealers — the excerpt below is the only reference I can find at the moment, but it suggests that such talk had been going on for quite some time. (Admittedly this was before my time, so I’m just going on what I remember reading)
I think this “talk” took several forms — i.e., letting Chrysler-Plymouth dealers actually sell Dodge-branded trucks, or creating a separate vehicle line like GMC (though I presume it would have been light trucks only). I assumed that the early-70s Trail Blazer was some sort of compromise in this regard.
Anyway, it is amusing to think about what Plymouth would have been like if Chrysler promoted it more as a truck brand. Maybe we’d be sitting here today saying “Remember back with Plymouth actually sold cars instead of just trucks???
Actually, Plymouth trucks date from the late 30s, it’s just that the brand was left to wilt and die for a few decades before being re-vived in the early 70s with the Plymouth version of the Dodge Rampage and also this SUV…both of which appeared in dealer showrooms about the same time. (Though the Trail Duster, obviously lasted longer than the Scamp trucklet.)
And, of course, there was a Plymouth version of the Mitsubishi produced Dodge D-50, the Plymouth Arrow truck.
The Dodge Rampage (FWD Omni 024/Charger-based coupe utility) wasn’t around until the early ’80s, and the Scamp was only offered for 1983.
Great find and background. The Trail Duster and Ramcharger are perhaps two of the best named ‘twin’ vehicles of all time. The brand sibling connection with both, was brilliant. I thought Chrysler struggled to add ‘identity’ to these, and their pickups, in their grilles design. Almost like a late 60s grille treatment, with the nose looking anonymous. Liked the modern look of the ’79 Ramcharger, with the quad headlamps. Unfortunately, way too many of these came in orange, bronze, or tan.
Perhaps it’s my general distaste for stacked rectangles(though these are among the better executions) but I think the 77-78 grille with the rounds and vertical running lights brought a more distinctive identity. The 79s remind me too much of the 80s Chevy trucks with stacked headlights. I don’t mind the 71-76 variations, as being too late 60s during the 70s is hardly a bad thing, but what I don’t like about them is how tinny they look, like they went from the die as a raw sheet straight to the completed truck with no finishing to make them pop.
Totally agree with the names!
Poor old Plymouth. In prior years, there were times when they were on the forefront of a trend with names like Fury, Valiant, Satellite, Barracuda, and Road Runner.
But with the hard economic times of the seventies, seems like Chrysler was relegating low-priced Plymouth as an afterthought, and the attempt to add the thinly-disguised, Ramcharger-clone Trail Duster as a late entry into the SUV boom is one of the first examples, with the following year’s Cordoba (originally scheduled to be a Plymouth) moving to Chrysler, instead, being the first nail in the coffin. By the time Iacocca got on board, it was almost a foregone conclusion that the Plymouth brand was a goner.
The final insult might have been the lackluster ‘halo’ Plymouth Prowler. If Chrysler had, instead, given Plymouth the PT Cruiser (as originally intended), they might have made something of a comeback. But, by then, it was too late.
“By the time Iacocca got on board, it was almost a foregone conclusion that the Plymouth brand was a goner.”
Not counting the Prowler, I believe the last time Plymouth had a car that had any unique sheet metal and wasn’t just a grille-and-lights-swapped Dodge (or a rebadged Mitsu) was the ’77 Gran Fury.
Even then, I bet there’s plenty of sheet metal and glass from the ’77 Gran Fury that interchanges with big Chryslers and Dodges.
I would have thought that the last truly unique Plymouths were the ’73-’74 intermediates. Besides the drivetrains and chassis, I don’t think there’s much on those you can swap with a Charger or Coronet.
The irony is the square wheel openings and bulged fenders give this bodystyle more styling continuity with Plymouth’s Satellite than any Dodge passenger cars, the 77 front end even resembled the 75-77 Gran Fury. It’s weird how recently it was for Chrysler to spin off Ram as a separate entity from Dodge, when it would have actually made more sense when Plymouth was still around.
Ha!
Last year Hemmings featured a Bronco for sale with an identical pop-up camper, and below is a picture of the inside of that unit… copious amounts of wood veneer, plaid upholstery and a floral-pattern ceiling. Of course!
The link to the Hemmings Bronco is here:
https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2019/12/20/hemmings-find-of-the-day-1967-ford-bronco-with-pop-up-camper
…though in this case, it’s doubtful that the unit is original to the vehicle, since it appears like Four Wheel Pop-Up Campers started business in 1972.
Anyway, I love this Trail Duster, and I think I’ll fade off to sleep tonight dreaming about this camper, a plaid couch, and a Schlitz.
Thanks for the link to that truck/camper, that looks great inside, they say it was added in 1978 so probably right around the same time as this one. After writing this post I by chance (CC effect?) was watching videos and came across a new truck with one of the same company’s campers which reminded me that Four Wheel Pop-Up Campers is still around and apparently thriving so I amended the text right before getting lost down the rabbit hole of their website. It seems that they sell both full outfitted campers as well as basically bare shells with just the bed which may in fact be what this one was/is. It was nice to see that you do have the option to customize it yourself and they just supply the really hard part (the shell), although still not cheap. They even sell them in this same vintage-style aluminum finish.
Given all of the ups and downs of the RV and camper industry, I was mighty surprised to see that Four Wheel Pop-up Campers is still around!
Also, I had intended to attach the interior photo with my original comment… here it is:
The camper appears almost identical from the bed line up, but it looks like the Bronco’s model is narrower at the bottom compared to the Trail Duster’s. Check out the side overhangs. According to their website, 4WPUC made at least 8 models of camper, for different lengths of pickup bed and different widths of vehicle: http://rockymountainfourwheelcampers.com/overview/history/
They also make an option for them to either be a slide-in or a rail mount which is interesting too.
Your link is interesting but not the same one I found – here is another one that seems to give the same or similar info and uses the same logo etc. It seems the company has changed ownership a few times and perhaps now there are several of them?
https://fourwheelcampers.com/company/our-story-the-history-of-pop-up-truck-campers/
From the looks of it Rocky Mountain Four Wheel Pop-Up Campers is the authorized dealer of Four Wheel Pop-Up Campers in Arvada CO, as it is listed in the locations section of your link.
Yeah these weren’t a thing that could be ordered through the factory. For that you needed to visit the Chevy dealer for the Blazer Chalet.
The portion over the passenger area appears to be a factory top that has been cut behind the door openings.
That’s an interesting find. sort of like an alternative Blazer Chalet, and more flexible since it’s a bolt on. The 440 would give excellent tow capacity but I think this size vehicle is better suited to a 360 engine in the same way that a 350 was the definitive K5 Blazer motor. The basic design of the camper is very similar to the modern popups I see on compact pickups so it has staying power.
Just what I need for those places where the Promaster just can’t cut it. Maybe I should get a tow bar and tow it behind the van?
More likely something a bit smaller, as like in a certain CC coming up later this week.
Well I don’t know what is coming up later this week but a Samurai comes to mind as the base for a smaller version of this concept.
Ooh, a teaser, I wonder what it could be. We’ve already covered the Honda Fit House Car so it’s probably not that…
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/uncategorized/curbside-capsule-2007-honda-fit-house-car-id-fit-youd-fit-wed-probably-all-fit/
Hmm, is Paul adding a Honda Trail 90 or a Rokon on a rack behind the mighty ProMaster?
I remember these being in ChryPly dealers, but never in large numbers. But they were certainly seen more often than the Voyager vans.
I wonder if the camper has no photos with the top up to avoid showing the rotted and shredded canvas sides (that I presume these came with).
That truck reminds me of this truck, which despite the roughly-triple price sold within days (pic/vid links still work).
While America seems to be in the throes of Bronco-mania where seemingly every yahoo with a rusty quarterpaneled OJ-era Bronco thinks it’s now magically worth well into the five figures and even the old K-5 Blazer is riding those coattails
It’s weird when my tastes actually align with the zeitgeist, I’ve been lamenting the station wagonization of the 2-door open air SUV since it became clear to me how terminal the sedan decline was. It’s crazy when you look at the massive popularity of the segment that there’s only been 1 that fits that mold, and even crazier when you look at the demand for the new Bronco that Ford effectively replaced the thing with the big dumb Expedition! That said the OJs are still relatively affordable here, ~$5,000 unless they’re in excellent condition with low miles. I could see them going up though, the mechanicals are bulletproof and about as efficient as 5.8 liters gets in a rolling cinderblock, replacement panels are readily available and they’re not even that labor intensive to replace compared to rusty unibody passenger cars.
I’m not much into the camper thing but I sure do like the trailduster. The 70s D series trucks for some reason I can’t put my finger on don’t quite have the charm of the Chevy C/K or Ford F series, but in SUV form they seem more muscular than the Blazer in styling and more fun than the 78/79 Bronco with its plushy interior and fixed front roof. And the names Ramcharger and Trailduster are really cool, like they took the departed muscle car Charger and performance Duster off road.
Four Wheel Camper is not only still in business, but thriving as an alternative to #vanlife or pull-behind mega-trailers. In fact they recently launched a version which mounts to the bed rails of a pickup, using the truck bed as floor and lower sidewalls, for a cheaper lighter alternative to their standard slide-in campers.
85 ramcharger daily driver for 11 years and counting. Mopar or no car
Wow. Once again, a post brings back automotive memories….
Back in the 70’s, a man who worked at my dad’s store drove a ’75 Dodge Ramcharger the exact color of the Trail Duster shown here. His didn’t have the camper shell, though.
Don (the owner) had lost his legs from the knees down in a car accident. So the Ramcharger was fitted with hand controls.
He had traded his ’72 Ranchero GT toward the Dodge because he wanted to go 4-wheeling.