Chrysler Corporation gave Plymouth a simple assignment: build cost-effective people movers. But that was rarely good enough for Plymouth. Fueled by its sibling rivalry with Dodge, the automobile company designed some of the coolest muscle cars to come out of Detroit–time and time again. One such car is the highly underrated Plymouth Duster. But HBO’s new “Duster” TV show has many muscle car fans asking how the Plymouth Duster got its name. And the story is almost as unexpected as the memorable car.

In HBO’s “Duster” Josh Holloway plays a getaway driver/mob enforcer who decides to help the FBI in 1972. His character shares a nickname with his car. The “Duster.” But that Plymouth car was almost not named the Duster. It was almost named after a character from a very different TV show. Looney Tunes‘ Tasmanian Devil.

Plymouth’s greatest muscle cars include the 1970 Duster

Plymouth launched the Road Runner–which shared a chassis with the Dodge Charger–in 1968. Warner Bros. doubted licensing to car companies would ever make it much money. So it charged Chrysler Corporation just $50,000 to use the likeness of the cartoon “Road Runner” from the Wile E. Coyote series. Plymouth paid another $10,000 for the rights to the car’s adorable and iconic “beep beep” horn. The big car at a competitive price point, with the funky cool branding, was a runaway success.

Fast forward to 1970, and Dodge and Plymouth were both pushing boundaries with V8-powered fastback muscle cars on their shared compact platform. Dodge had its Dart Swinger (soon to be renamed the Dart Demon) and even though Plymouth had no development money for such a car, it borrowed enough budget and body panels from its Valiant to build its own version. Plymouth approached Warner Bros. again about licensing a different cartoon character: The Tasmanian Devil.

Early designs for the Plymouth compact muscle car featured the Tasmanian Devil cartoon character on the badges. His legs are moving so fast, his lower half is observed by a spinning “dust devil.” It’s unclear whether Plymouth planned to name the car the “Tasmanian Devil” or just the “Devil”–with the cartoon character on all the badges.

Rumor has it that Warner Bros. asked for much more money this time around, and Plymouth didn’t have the cash to pay up. What we do know is that Thomas Bertsch, interior stylist at Plymouth, penned the final logo. The image was a spinning dust devil with a pair of eyes–but no Tasmanian Devil. Thus the Plymouth “Duster” was born.

The Plymouth Duster was a barebones competitor to the Chevrolet Nova and Ford Maverick. Engine options ranged from the iconic Slant Six to a 360 cubic-inch V8. Special editions included the lightweight “Feather Duster” the “Space Duster” with its fold-down rear seat, and the stylish “Silver Duster.” Plymouth kept the name through the 1976 model year. Check out the trailer for HBO’s “Duster” embedded below: