Last summer when we first saw this Road Runner (here), I was debating whether or not I liked it. Eventually, I decided I did. The question now is whether or not the owner likes his Road Runner. I’m guessing he likes it very much.
After snapping the initial pictures and having its own CC, I did recycle a picture of it for this fanciful Saturday evening event.
This is the picture I took in May for the CC in July.
In mid-October, I was in the area and captured another picture of it. You can see the Halloween decorations in the background. It doesn’t look like it has moved, does it?
After some freezing rain and sleet recently, I was back in the area with my curiosity running high. The Road Runner has been relocated to the side of the house. How long has it been since you’ve seen icicles hanging from the front of a Road Runner?
That front driver’s side tire looks a bit flat – not a sign of a driver.
These cars always have a visceral effect on me. They reflect the end of an era at Detroit, when genuine new design ideas were still being explored and produced.
What followed this was the descent into the retrograde Brougham Era, lacking in almost any genuine originality or creativity. This car’s design is far from perfect, but it makes me sad to think what followed. The final blowout; the end of the sixties’ party.
My eyes see what you are saying, and it is the truth. Unfortunately, my ears hear the door handles echo in those dreadful hollow doors and my fingers feel the cheap, horrible molded plastic bits inside and send me running back to the 1968-70 generation again. I oh so wish that Chrysler had built these with decent materials so that they felt as good as they looked and as good as they ran.
When I see this generation of intermediate Plymouth, I remember two of them from my childhood, both bought brand-new.
The first was a 1972 Satellite Sebring Plus, driven by the rich boyfriend of my friend’s older sister. His family had money (his banker dad always drove an Imperial hardtop sedan), and he had traded a 1970 Plymouth Road Runner hardtop coupe for the Satellite. His 1972 Plymouth was medium-metallic blue with a black vinyl roof. I always wondered what made his car a “Plus” compared to plebian Satellites.
The other was a 1973 Satellite Sebring owned by my grandmother’s cousin. It was some sort of special edition, as it had a burnt orange metallic exterior with a white vinyl top and a wild, striped cloth interior. Even with that interior, my 11-year-old mind still wondered why anyone would buy a Plymouth Satellite Sebring instead of a snazzy Cutlass Supreme or Grand Am Colonnade coupe.
These seemed to get stale pretty quickly. I think part of the reason was that Chrysler designed them with muscle-car buyers in mind, and by 1971 the Brougham era was in full swing. Like it or not, in 1970s middle America (or at least small-town Pennsylvania), most people wanted a Monte Carlo or a Cutlass Supreme that looked like a cut-rate Eldorado.
I agree. The ’71 and ’72 had the stylings that reminded of the 68-72 GM intermediates. Not a bad style to emulate. The last of the Hemi and other high comrpession V8’s found their way in this body style. High insurance rates doomed this and other muscle cars, the OPEC oil crisis was the final nail. To follow were High Performance Tape Job packages on the options list…… A special find to find a car like this in someone’s driveway in 2013.
I used to not like these cars until I saw this one:
http://www.supermusclecar.com/cars/gtx/gtx.html
This body style works well with oversized modern wheels and tires, much more so than the smaller scale muscle cars of the 60s. I always thought this generation of Mopars was simply too big and fat for the fitted wheels. Upsizing the wheels returns the proper proportions. I would buy one for sure.
I like the prior style better but I do like this. Had a roommate with that style in Panama and it seemed to be pretty reliable and had more power than he could use there.
Very underated member of the RR family. The 71 and 72 MYs had great style.
Its a shame this particular car isnt being shown any love at the present time.
A friend of mine had a 1974 Sebring Plus which is the same basic car. I parked my 1980 Firebird next to it once, and we were both surprised at how similar the cars were – coupes with bucket seats and consoles, V8’s, floor-shifted automatics, and about the same length and height within an inch or so with about the same amount of room inside. Yet there was certainly a difference in the styling of the two.
I preferred the 68 to 70 models the 71 model has a bloated look.Mopar was guilty of taking a step back in styling for 71 the Charger was another example,they weren’t alone AMC and Ford made the Javelin and Mustang worse looking than the previous models.71 was the end of the golden age of Detroit iron curious styling and cuts in horsepower saw to that..
Had a few HS buddies that owned this generation of Sebring and Satellite. None were a HP version like the feature car. Funny how my Mopar gearhead friends wouldn’t touch one of these if it was free.
I was reading news about the Detroit auto show and ran across this pic from the 1975 show. Look under the Linc-Merc sign and you’ll see the 75 RR. My dad had a 75 Coronet coupe. Don’t recall the engine size but it was no hot rod.According to Plymouth you could still get the 400 in this 75. OK? Which generation takes the cake for styling?
I can’t help but love the front end styling on these cars. All love was lost after ’72.
’71 with a 440 6-pack, please
The placement of the strobe-effect stripe anticipates the “Starsky and Hutch” Gran Torino.
There’s a blue one of these in a little-seen 1994 crime drama called Love and a .45, one of Rennee Zellwegger’s earliest films. The car is featured pretty prominently in the film, although not so much so in this trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3AqG25J_Vo
I used to know the filmmaker a little bit, and I remember he once told me that he’d wanted to buy the RR after the movie was completed, but couldn’t quite afford it so it slipped away…