In the Coronatime, I’ve had the chance to take a lot of long strolls through various Berkeley neighborhoods. Not too long ago, I wrote of an unlikely Plymouth/Beemer pair living in harmony. About a mile from that pair, and parked about a block away from each other, I found another grouping! Seems like there is an unlikely but powerful attraction between Neu-Klasse-era Beemers and muscle-car era Plymouths. Who would have guessed?
This is a rare (at least in America) 1602 sedan, from 1970 according to the California smog-check database. The esteemed editor of this website has informed me that this example must be a later import, as the “1602” was badged simply as a “1600” in the U.S. – Learn something everyday! It has the round tail lights and small bumpers which it shares with the red 1969 2002 that I owned so long ago. I think these are so much better looking than the square tail-lights and large bumpers of the later 1974 models.
The rear of the Road Runner is amazingly clean. I go back-and-forth on the Fuselage-styled Chryslers. Somedays to me they look variously outrageous, stunning, massive, and unique. Other days they just look massive and heavy, with small windows and a claustrophobic interior as compared with the light and airy (IMHO) 1965-1968 Mopar products.
There are no callouts on the hood, so this is almost certainly powered by the Chrysler 318 cu. in V-8, a durable and reliable powerplant, though not the equal of the optional 360 small-block, or 400 or 440 big-blocks. I was not able to get a good shot of the interior, but it was almost certainly ordered with the 3-speed Torqueflite, though a 3-speed was standard and a 4-speed manual was optional for at least some engine combinations through to the end of the second-generation’s life in 1974. The exterior differences between the 1973 and 1974 Road Runner are very small, just a small change in the grille. As best as I can tell this is a 1974, it does not show up in the California Smog Check Database.
This Neu-Klasse-era BMW has a face that can take on a lot of different characters, from vaguely menacing to sweet and innocent. This face too me looks like the face of an old warrior, no longer menacing, but with all the memories of battles fought long ago, and smiles for you as it tells its stories. From my vantage point a 1602 BMW is a rare sight in America, I see many more of its 2002 stablemate, this car is definitely a survivor in more ways than one.
Inside the 1602, the interior has been tastefully redone, with some nice looking seats, but retaining the rest of the original features, if perhaps not the original materials. Is that some fake woodgrain on the dash? I would not have suspected that.
Berkeley is still issuing parking tickets for street-sweeping, and it looks like this little 1602 got caught.
I know you call a group of crows a “murder”, perhaps similarly a group of Mercurys is a “Maraud”, and I suggest a group of coupes is a “Scoop”. What names for different automotive groupings do you suggest?
It’s possible that the instrument panel was swapped in from around a 1974 BMW 2002 in order to gain a tachometer, at which point the cars were available with ‘wood’ trim. In 1970 the little BMWs were not expensive cars, and they were trimmed very simply.
Why did Chrysler put a 170 hp 318 in the Road Runner in 1974? CAFE wasn’t around, and the Road Runner name was built on the classic muscle car formula of putting a large car engine in a medium sized car. I believe that when the superb 340 was offered, it was a no-charge alternative to the 383/4 barrel. This could well be a 318 Road Runner, but I don’t recall ever seeing 400 callouts on a Mopar either.
Insurance surcharges were more of a killer of powerful engine musclecars than anything else. So, the 1973 Road Runner base engine became a 318. I think the feature car is a ’73, too; you can tell by the bumper guards. In ’74, they went to a slightly smaller guard that had a chrome base due to stengthening of the bumper supports. It’s the same with the bumpers of all A-, B- and E- body cars between ’73 and ’74.
I actually like these last ‘true’ Road Runners and would be willing to bet that there are a lot more of these lo-po 318 cars around than any others, at least in original, unrestored condition. The Daisy Duke cars don’t garner the attraction of the earlier, pure muscle cars that all came with with atleast a hi-po 340 engine. So, they don’t end up being hacked-up, beat into the ground, or ‘tributed’. A nice, original 318 survivor could be had for a fraction of the price of one of the earlier, more desirable cars.
Along about mid 1972 I can remember everyone bitching about fuel prices, which began rising pretty quickly around that time. The magazines were bemoaning the horrible fuel mileage of the new 1973 cars, so it doesn’t surprise me that this could be another reason for the standard 318.
After all, this was the company that would sell you a slant six Charger.
I get it that they extended the Charger down-market to eke out every last sale, but this car is the equivalent of a Charger R/T with a 318. The Road Runner was a high performance package, which distinguished it from a two-door Belvedere.
Actually, Dodge basically did, the insurance skirting Rallye replaced the R/T in 1972 and by 1974 the base engine in the Charger Rallye was the 318 2bbl
the Road Runner name was built on the classic muscle car formula of putting a large car engine in a medium sized car
Thing was the RoadRunner really wasn’t, it was at its core a 383 4bbl. Belvedere/Satellite, which was available well before the package existed on non-musclecar trims, and while 383 is big by todays standards it was pretty modest in displacement for a 1968 muscle car, which was at or exceeding 400ci by most rivals, including under the Chrysler umbrella. The Roadrunner 383 was warmed over of course, using 440 parts, but it was really a kid brother to the 440 GTX. It was packaging marketing and price that made the RR unique.
I think there was a lot of image attachment to Muscle cars and offering smaller cheaper to run/insure engines was an extension of the no frills but cool looking formula the original had. There were many other examples of this, The 69 Mustang Mach 1, what most people today revere as the most Muscular of classic Mustangs, came standard with a 351 2bbl with single exhaust, in 71 the base engine was the 302! Some people just wanted to look the part, like an unathletic sports fan wearing a jersey.
Someone in Chrysler product planning (Burton Bouwkamp?) who was instrumental in bringing the Road Runner to market actually had a 1966 Belvedere with a 383 and a 4-speed. So, yeah, the Road Runner’s mechanicals weren’t really anything that new.
The magic was in how they brought it all together. The Road Runner 383 ‘did’ get an upgrade with 440 heads and camshaft for a slight bump in performance. And then there was the cartoon and horn. All that together at just the right time (something Chrysler didn’t do all that often) made the ’68 car much more of a hot ticket than the earlier, quite similar B-body.
Upgraded as it is, keep in mind the RoadRunner “383 Magnum”, as used at Dodge, was optional in standard trim(non-R/T) Chargers and Challengers. It was treated as more of an entry level performance engine or top of the line “regular” engine until the 340 came around as a no cost alternative to it.
The Roadrunner was an ingenious package, it was-averagely quick among muscle cars but much cheaper, and had enough tweaks where one couldn’t make the cynical accusation that it was just a 383 4bbl Belvedere(though I would love to see a real world performance comparison of the two!) The other brilliant psychological ploy was placing the lone other engine option as the 426 Hemi, followed by the hot rod style 440+6 the following year! You still bought the 383 but you’d know you had a genuine performance car with that company! By 73-74 the aspirational engines were much more modest and down on power, so adding the 318 wasn’t that much of a stretch on that aspect of the marketing formula.
Indeed, Chrysler’s product planners were quite shrewd in not offering a Road Runner for 1967 so as to not compete with the just-introduced GTX. But it ‘was’ possible to get what amounted to an early Road Runner in a Belvedere hardtop with a 383-4v (complete with stand-up hood ornament) for sometime (all the way back to the downsized 1962 cars). Conservatively optioned, I doubt the price would have been very far from a 1968 Road Runner, either.
Truth be told, before the Road Runner arrived, smart street racers were already tuned into getting an intermediate 383 Mopar before the flashier (and more expensive) SS396 or GTO. Someone at Chrysler finally clued into that, but instead of competing directly with a typical, higher-trim (and more profitable) level musclecar, wisely offered a well-packaged, lower cost version, and the rest is history.
By averagely quick, are we talking about the arithmetic mean of Ford 390 paper weights at one extreme and Hemi Darts at the other? It isn’t like anyone with a 400 GTO or 396 Chevelle wanted to find themselves opposite a 383 Road Runner at a stop light.
Averagely fast as in not Hemi or ZL1 427 fast, but perfectly fast enough to be a drivers race with the average fast muscle car, indeed 396 Chevelles, 400 GTOs etc. they all ranged between low 15 to mid 14 second cars.
Matt summed up the Road Runner package well. IIRC, the original target was a performance metric of the base car doing the quarter mile in 14 seconds at a price of under $3000. While they hit the price target, they just missed the 14 second mark with a quarter mile time in the low fifteens. It wasn’t stellar, but certainly good enough to compete with a 325hp SS396 which, by most accounts, was one of the most prolific musclecars and arguably the one to beat on the street.
A regular schlub with a Torqueflite and open differential car certainly wouldn’t be able to beat, say, a 442 or 375hp L78 SS396 (and, despite what you might think by today’s car shows, there were few of those around, anyway). A properly optioned Road Runner with the right drivetrain (4-speed, low gears, Suregrip, better shifter than the crap Inland unit), the right state of tune, and good driver might even have made it into the high fourteens, easily good enough to stomp stuff like pre-CobraJet Fords and the average 389-400 Goat. So, ‘averagely quick’ does, indeed, sum up the typical sixties’ Road Runner.
The hood scoops on the Road Runner look weird when viewed from a head-on angle. At first glance I wondered why the owner had painted on a pair of cowbells…
“I go back-and-forth on the Fuselage-styled Chryslers. Somedays to me they look variously outrageous, stunning, massive, and unique. Other days they just look massive and heavy, with small windows and a claustrophobic interior as compared with the light and airy (IMHO) 1965-1968 Mopar products.”
I find this statement very relatable. I actually quite liked many of the Fuselage C bodies, but when these B bodies were new, they either invisible to me, or not much liked when I finally noticed one.
By the later ’70s, I occasionally came across one I would like, and I began to appreciate how they really offered something different from the GM large coupe look that eventually dominated all of the Big Three showrooms from 1975 on.
One of my favorites, and rarely mistaken for a Cutlass…
I liked those 1973-74 Satellite/RR coupes a lot more before someone was so inconsiderate to point out the differing treatments around the front and rear wheel lips. Something old, something new, I guess.
My conflict with the 73-74 Roadrunners is that they were preceded by my favorite design, the 71-72s, and there are reminders of that design throughout despite the thoroughness of the restyle. They are actually very good looking, the bumpers look dainty for 73-74 era cars, the stripes look nice and I actually might prefer the side window shape to the 71s. Like JPC the mismatched wheel openings bothers me, which is exacerbated by the bright sublime color. These look best in black or dark charcoal grey with the light stripes IMO. As far as Fuselage, I love it, I vastly prefer the 71-74 B bodies to the boxy 65-67s, and only slightly prefer the 68-70s over them (mostly because the fuselage Charger isn’t as attractive), I love late 60s-early 70s styling as a whole.
Those mismatched wheel openings are strange. It’s like two different design teams worked on the front and rear side profiles, and never coordinated with what the other was doing. The front team completely eliminated and smoothed the molding from the ’71-72 coupe, while the rear team kept it and softened the shape so it wasn’t as defined and didn’t go down and extend all the way front and back.
It’s bizarre how extensively the panel changed to retain that anachronistic detail, it’s like they modified the old die but forgot to smooth that part over!
Also strange is the 75 front fenders revived the shape, despite the formalized everything else
Another out-of-place touch is a faint Buick-like sweep from the front fender back to the top of the wheel stamping. The ’71-’72 car doesn’t have that.
That side-sweep really doesn’t fit with the wheel opening.
I really do love the way those 73-74 Plymouth B-body coupes look. Someone in our neighborhood had one when I was growing up (in the mid-80s), and it was well taken care of. it had a nice rake to it, sounded great. Left an impression on me and probably why I like these undesired B-bodies more so than the Chargers or the 71-72 Plymouths.
I feel these Road Runners, and more particularly the ’71-2 predecessor, were the purest, most successful expression of the Fuselage theme. They looked clean and futuristic, the way forward for design, as if reaching for the stars. The Chargers’ attempt at a sharp rear fender line, while understandable as a nod to the previous generation, diluted the fuselage effect. It’s a shame the intermediate sedans and ‘full-size’ fuselage cars didn’t look more like this.
CC in scale has built heaps of these, but here’s a ’74 that’s straddling the line between Satellite and Road Runner.
I had a 1973 Road Runner with the 440 four barrel and the Slap Stick automatic in Basin Street Blue with white stripes over a black interior. I’m one of the few that preferred the ‘73-‘74s over the ‘71-‘72s. My car had both the GTX and 440 hood callouts. I saw lots of these RRs with 400 callouts. Despite the detuning to accept either leaded (Sunoco 260/104 octane) or unleaded (Amoco Super Premium Unleaded), this was a beast!
If there was one constant in Chrysler’s marketing, it was that the 440-4v would never be offered in their lowest model musclecars from 1967-74. The 440-4v could only be gotten in the higher trim GTX and Coronet R/T through 1971. In 1972, the GTX and R/T were completely dropped as separate models.
However, when the 440-4v was ordered in the 1972-74 Road Runner, GTX emblems were added, making it a Road Runner/GTX. It was a low-key way for Chrysler to keep their biggest engine B-body Plymouth coupe in the line-up since I’m not sure that the Road Runner/GTX was ever advertised as such; the literature just showed the availability of the engine.
I still have the last car I drove in high school a 1973 440/GTX road runner it needs a total rebuild but that thing was crazy fast.