The all new Duster. Your eyes are not deceiving you. Image: Allpar

A new Duster will soon be on the market, but it won’t be a 2-door rear-wheel-drive Plymouth. In fact, it won’t even be a Chrysler/Fiat machine at all. The new Duster pictured here is a small 4×2 or (optional) 4×4 and is a crossover developed by Automobile Dacia, Renault’s Romanian subsidiary. It utilizes a Nissan B platform that is used on the U.S. Nissan Cube and Juke, and is a result of the Renault/Nissan partnership. It will not be sold in the U.S., but will be sold in in some European markets, Ukraine, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt and some African countries.

While we can’t stop an automaker from reusing a model name, we do cringe a bit when we see things like this. We all know how we’d feel if all of a sudden Ford dropped the rear-drive V8 Mustang that we all know and love only to have the Mustang name be re-used on the next Toyota hybrid. Quite frankly we can think of dozens of names that might be more appropriate for this little Romanian bread truck if only someone from Renault would like to ask. We’re not at all stating that we don’t think these types of vehicles have a place in the world, but what we do ask is that they not take the name of a Plymouth Duster in vain.