(first posted 3/12/2018) This weekend in Curbsidelandia (better known as Portland, Oregon) the sun came out and temperatures topped 60 degrees, so lots of fine CCs came out like spring flowers. The brightest one I saw was this brilliant 1969 Plymouth Road Runner hardtop. Plymouth created a novel sub-class of the muscle car when it brought out the Road Runner in 1968, the low-priced minimal muscle car.
The formula was simple, take a base mid-size Belvedere with no extras, and drop in a muscle car drive train. Maximum speed per dollar. For fun, spice it up with a bright color and the cartoon Road Runner, who was forever outrunning the desperately hungry and inventive Wile E. Coyote.
It was a hit, selling over 40,000 cars in its first year and 81,000 in this car’s 1969, when it was Motor Trend’s Car of the Year.
Here’s where the action is, a special version of the big block 383, with heads, intake manifold, camshaft, and exhaust manifold from the 440 Super Commando, and a .25 raise in compression to 10.5:1. (Photo of another car.) The Road Runner 383 was rated at a conservative (insurance-happy) 335 bhp (250 kW) and 425 lb⋅ft (576 N⋅m). This car drove out right after I took these photos, and I heard a loud, throaty and menacing V8 exhaust note.
A four speed stick shift was standard, and the legendary 426 Hemi was optional.
This car was fitted with period-correct Cragar S/S wheels. I love the clean lines of this car, and its airy hardtop greenhouse. The tapering C-pillar really works for me.
Bare bones inside, but nicely done. The steering wheel has a picture of the cartoon Road Runner in the center. The only options I see here are the 3-speed TorqueFlite automatic and an AM radio. Between the missing antenna and the wiring from under the dash it appears the radio is getting some work done.
Clean attractive front end too. The owner said it’s got the original “meep-meep” horn. This hood lacks the blackout paint seen on other Road Runners. Was that an option or was it left out after a repaint? I like it this way myself. You could optionally get functional hood air intakes called an “Air Grabber”, which have red grilles, but if I’m not mistaken these black grilles are standard and non-functional.
Nothing like a bright sunny weekend after a winter of overcast rainy and snowy skies. Makes you feel like getting out for a run. “Beep-Beep”!
It’s a factory grille. It was the 1968 that got the blacked-out grille; the ’69 had black accents, but wasn’t blacked-out.
And, yeah, the 1969 non-Air Grabber hood scoops had non-functional black fins on the top; the Air-Grabber fins were a red cross-hatch. I prefer the 1968 hood (and the rest of the car, as well). Those Air Grabbers (Dodge called their’s Ramcharger) weren’t good for much of anything other than making noise.
But there’s some odd things about this car. I don’t think that’s a factory color. The ’69 yellow (‘Sunfire Yellow’) was much lighter and more of a pastel shade. This seems more like a later 1970 ‘High Impact’ respray. The missing antenna is also kind of a tip-off to that. I personally like the earlier non-High Impact colors and it keeps the OEM look. Another fail is the non-OEM exhaust tips. If the guy is going to do a proper restoration, he should at least cough-up for the correct tips.
But if it was repainted, whomever did the work, somehow, got OEM door decals (which don’t look like they’re located exactly right, either). You can tell the difference between the originals and the repops; the repops don’t have the Warner Bros. copyright logo along the bottom of the dust trail (which these seem to have). It’s worth noting that a Chrysler styling head, Dick Macadam, hated the cartoon birds and was responsible for the bland, black-and-white 1968, one-year-only ‘walking’ bird decals. When the car became a hit, the decals went to the proper color and running style for 1969 and later cars.
But, overall, this isn’t a bad car. The low price, combined with questionable quality, meant that the vast majority of early Road Runners were usually modified and beat to hell. Finding a clean, original survivor is difficult.
1969 was the Road Runner’s biggest year, beating other perennial musclecar sales chart toppers Chevelle SS396 and even the Pontiac GTO, which came up third.
You can’t really see it in the photo, but the Road Runner figure on this car’s door is a badge, not a decal.
Yes, it was a lucky catch. I don’t think I’ve seen one out on the street for decades.
A Road Runner door badge instead of a decal is definitely a first. Sounds like a custom, one-off effort.
Here’s a zoom-and-crop. It’s definitely got some thickness, you can see its shadow. And I don’t see the hidden copyright. I think you are correct about it not being quite stock.
It looks like an aftermarket decal that was built-up by applying it to a thin, separate, white piece of plastic, then the plastic was trimmed from around the decal with an Xacto knife. The white plastic can be seen around some edges of the decal; that’s why, from a distance, it looks like it has the copyright which was located around the edges of a couple of the forward dust-trail swirls. If it had been done a bit better, it would have looked okay.
The trunk lid decal is also not quite perfectly centered vertically, either. Based on the decals, alone, I’d say it’s definitely a repaint. Like I said, he should have stuck with a factory color, like Sunfire Yellow.
That’s what I’m thinking too, I could see the rationale since a decal could potentially get damaged during a buff/polish session. I actually wonder if it’s a magnet
Upon further inspection, I doubt it was a decal attached to, and trimmed from, a separate piece. More likely, maybe it was a 3-D printing effort that someone is selling, and that’s how the guy came upon it. There’s a market for these reproduced Mopar decals but zero quality control.
As to the logic, it kind of escapes me unless, as I said, it’s simply a quality-control issue. The OEM decals were plenty stout and were designed to last. But a repaint would require new decals, this is what the guy found and decided to use. Maybe the selling point was an increased thickness of the material the decals were printed on. Or maybe that’s just how they were made.
I agree with the author. The clean, neat, uncluttered design makes the 68-69 Road Runner one of my favourites from that era.
This body marks for me an almost perfect marriage of angular and curvy. The 68-70 B body has been a favorite of mine for a long time. I just wish I could have found one when nobody else wanted them, around 1980.
I have begun to get Mopar muscle car fatigue and would have been happier if this had been a nice Satellite hardtop. But then I am happy that Chrysler’s efforts have finally been acknowledged and rewarded in the marketplace. As I have long said, there was never anything wrong with even the worst of these cars that a careful re-assembly wouldn’t cure.
And to your point, seeing something like this on a warm day does put a spring in a guy’s step.
Awesome! Growing up a high school kid up the street had a white/black vinyl top ’68 Roadrunner. To my 9 year old senses it looked and sounded so bad-ass. Don’t recall what motor he had in it, but his daddy was pretty wealthy so could have been a Hemi.
Love the “Day 2” look w/ Cragar S/S wheels/big tires and resulting rake on this one. These are the definition of late ’60s Detroit muscle, and my favorite Mopar. Prefer a dark color for the low-key street fighter look. Mine would have to be a Hemi/4-spd.
By 1969 more and more GTO’s were going upscale, with automatics, A/C and many options becoming prevalent. The RR seemed to stay true to its roots, as I recall most were pretty bare bones. A favorite with young working guys who had to scrape some money together to buy one. Rich college guys with Daddy’s money bought something else. Remember back in college when the hometown friend of a friend came to visit him with his new ’69 RR. Only option was an AM radio. Plain bench seat. Got to drive it for a bit. Recall it was a handful with manual steering and brakes and a none too slick 4 speed. A nice design though and the 383 was teriffic. A rare greatest hit for Plymouth.
“Rich college guys with Daddy’s money bought something else. ”
For those guys Plymouth had the GTX. The only-child next door neighbor got his dad to buy him one when I was a tot. It replaced a 65 GTO.
One coworker had a red base ’70 with only AM radio. It was his first new car and he still has it. His wife is also a Mopar fan with a ’69 340 Dart.
I drove the RR once. It is a beast to drive with manual steering and a very truck-like clutch.
As an interesting aside, the ’68 Road Runner was originally only available as a pillared coupe, sharing the hardtop roofline. The real hardtop came along in mid-year. According to the 1968 catalog, the black hood was an option.
For the most part, Chrysler’s marketing material stayed true to what was actually offered. Chrysler really didn’t think they’d sell too many Road Runners and only planned on building around 4,000 or so of them. They were taken completely by surprise when the final tally for 1968 was over ten times that amount and the reason the following year’s car veritably exploded with options (including a convertible version).
That’s why the midyear introduction of a hardtop model, as well as the Super Bee from Dodge variant. The story goes that Dodge really had to scramble to get the Super Bee into production. For example, when Chrysler was setting up the computer punch cards that detailed the assembly line equipment, they asked Dodge if they wanted a stack in case they decided to build a version. Some bonehead at Dodge declined, meaning yet another delay when they changed their mind.
While I like the Super Bee hardtop (’69 version), I like the 1968 Road Runner’s ‘flipper’ quarter window coupe bodystyle better.
Someone once told me that the first Road Runners were ‘really’ stripped with stuff like the passenger side windshield visor being deleted. I’ve never actually seen one like that so I have my doubts that Chrysler went ‘that’ far. I don’t ever recall seeing one with rubber floor matting, either.
The early build post coupes had Belvedere interiors with rubber floors. The hardtops were added mid year with Satellite (fancier bench seat) interiors with carpet. The Satellite interior also became optional for post coupes.
One oddity is that they all had vinyl seats, to get cloth trim in both the Belvedere and Satellite series you had to get a four-door sedan and the Road Runner wasn’t offered as one.
Good call on the Road Runner’s interior. In fact, despite looking like a strippo with only a couple options, the feature car does have the deluxe interior seating. The standard Road Runner interior was really bottom of the barrel, with very thin (and cheap) vinyl being used. It’s easy to spot, too, because it’s a sort of two-tone silver with black inserts.
This car reminds me of a 1970 RR that a friend of my family was selling @ his gas station in the early ’70s. It was yellow w/Cragar SSs & it certainly made an impact on my young self.
Complaining about Mopar muscle car fatigue to me is like complaining that there’s too much air.
…and nobidy fakes Road Runners, like so many do counterfeit GTOs, SS396s, Z/28s…
This car is brilliant! I hope it is awaiting radio work and a new, original antenna. For some reason many aftermarket radio antennae didn’t work well with Chrysler radios. Even if you adjusted the trimmer provided on the radio, they would provide weak reception at the high end of the AM dial. The problem was actually excess capacitance in the cable.
I just recently tossed a couple of Chrysler “radio delete” snap-in filler plugs for the antenna hole in the fender!
Those ’67-’69 Chrysler ‘thumbwheel’ radios were another interesting Chrysler experiment that didn’t pan out. The problem was that the metal wheels were, evidently, too close to the radio chassis and got hot, fast, meaning singed fingers. I can only guess it was some kind of cost-cutting effort.
Soon enough, they went back to regular radio knobs (and plastic ones, at that).
Always liked the Road Runner, but prefer the `68 and as original as possible. I agree with rudiger about the exhaust tips, but otherwise nice car.
A genuine muscle car on CC? I must be dreaming! 🙂
I agree with jpcavanaugh, the balance between curves and angles is superb, and the proportions are perfection. That this is a Roadrunner is all the sweeter because I always have preferred the Plymouth Body to the Coronet in the 68-70 bodystyle, which has too many exaggerated details, especially the 69, whereas the Sattelite was so clean it’s almost invisible at a glance, until you step back and take it in. In fact, we often compare subsequent cars to the 55 Chevy, and most of the time they’re subsequent Chevy’s like the 64 Malibu, but to me the 68-69 Roadrunner in every single aspect captures the formula better than every other Chevy comparison, down to the clean yet elegant style.
Plus I just love the fun nature of it, the name, the silly horn, and the excellent marketing. Not just the Warner Brothers tie ins either, but every ad describes the car to a tee, even explicitly stating it was a 383 with heads, intake and cam from a 440, in an ad! – you NEVER see that, most marketers, even then wanted you the customer to think the engine was created in a lab environment with optimized flow testing and research to create the perfect engine – nope! They essentially used the same trick hot rodders did with junkyard performance upgrades, getting the high flow parts off a bigger engine and slap them on on our smaller engine. Despite the hoopla over the Hemi, for that reason I don’t feel it fitting to the image of the Roadrunner, the souped up 383 was just a perfect match in the spirit of it.
I also love the interior. Even though the interior is stripper, it doesn’t look offputting like a penalty box, it’s actually attractive. Everything it has is visible, and everything it doesn’t have is invisible. No block off panels and the like to remind you on what is missing. In fact I could live with this interior every day for the rest of my life and not miss any amenity we’ve been trained to find important that isn’t present in there.
Mom had a ’69 in Jamaica Blue (a darker shade). I remember it had the 8-track player, road wheels, and floor console/4 speed combo. It probably had more options I can’t recall. Mom always got a kick out of being pulled over fairly frequently by cops, who upon approaching the door, would be stunned a pretty petite 20 something lady was driving such a car. She says she never got a ticket. What mom did not get a kick out of was how many times people would break into the car while she was at work to steal that 8-track. It was I think the third or fourth time that happened when she decided enough was enough. She sold the car to a guy she knew who promptly blew the engine up weeks later. She moved on to a Honda motorcycle after that (!). Yes, my mom was not your typical lady.
Who would have thought it would take this long for someone to find and shoot a gen1 Road Runner? Congratulations, Mike; there’s not a lot of cars left that have escaped our cameras.
Thanks! Sheer luck and having a smartphone handy.
Even Portlandia has its share of real muscle cars, though they’re badly outnumbered by the Asian fart-can drifters.
1969 Road Runners have been one of my all time favorites for pretty much all of my life.
Some of my best automotive memories are of my brother’s white ’68 Hemi RR jacked up on N50s on Cragars through Thrush Super Turbos and a Molly Hatchet 8 track., circa 1979. The late ’70s and early 80s was a great time to be a kid that was into cars and to have 2 older teenage driving age brothers was a bonus, as cheap, used, ratted out musclecars were there for the taking. My brother had the RR and his close buddy and neighbor had a brown ’69 Charger R/T with a 440 that was nowhere near stock and those 2 cars were frightening, fast, and so cool to my 7 year old self.
When it comes to Road Runners, I like the ’71s more than the ’69s; I just think they look better. Yes the market changed, they were a little heavier, sales were down, blah blah; they just look meaner. But still, a 69 Road Runner, or any 68-70 B-Body Mopar for that matter, is a classic among classics.
I with you Dan, I prefer the ’71 RRs to the ’69’s too. For ’69 make my Mopar a Charger. These Plymouth B-bodies are pretty common around here. I tend to pass by these at cruise nights and car shows because I have seen so many. Although, most around here are well used and are rarely stock.
Amen, the ’70s and early ’80s were a great time to be a teenager who was into these cars. No one else cared about them or wanted them. While I enjoy the 100 point restorations, the reality on the street was that most of them did have the mods our yellow example here does once they were on thier second or third owner.
Just not as clean and straight, as cars from this era rusted quickly, particularly the Mopars, and in those days the guys who owned them solved the problem with Bondo and not sheetmetal. If they worried about it at all. Fun times.
Gotta say though, if you ever drove one without power steering and brakes it gave you new perspective on the meaning of “Musclecar”….
Great find / post / start to the Monday, Mike! I was slow to warm to the looks of these, initially preferring the swoopier GM intermediates, but this RR has so much appeal for me – just a really clean design, and its no-nonsense lack of frills actually makes it better.
I feel that I used to slightly prefer the 68-72 GM A bodies as well, but in the grand scheme of things it seems all their split wheelbase for coupe stratagy did was make coupes less practical, as they they essentially became large ponycars. I’m not saying the 68-70 B body was the paragon of space efficiency, or that I even care about maximum space efficiency for that matter, but they seem to be more effective everyday muscle cars than the 112wb GM coupes, and with zero downside in style. I almost feel as though the 68-72 GMs sowed the seeds for the ultimate demise of the 2 door bodystyle of the non-sports/ponycar variety.
The ’68-’69 intermediate 2-door coupes were a high-point for both Chrysler and GM. Even Ford made up for their dowdy entries in those years with the addition of the potent (and intentionally underrated) 428CJ engine which, to me, was the best musclecar bang-for-the-buck.
Now THAT’S a ’70’s high school car nut flashback vehicle.
Road Runners had tail lights that were only for them. Others wouldn’t fit.
Not really:
1968 – Same taillights across all lines.
1969 – Road Runner uses lower trim (Belvedere) taillights. Higher trims (GTX, Sport Satellite) have more stylish, inset taillights.
1970 – Road Runner gets the higher-trim taillights with a split bezel.
Yep – here’s the base Belvedere two-door.
The 70 tails are semi-unique for the RoadRunner, the bezels were simpler and body color on the RR, and black on the GTX with some extra bright trim accents. I could be mistaken but mid 68 RR hardtops with the trunklid trim between taillamps was also RR specific if that counts. Those had GTX style red reflective tape connecting the taillight lenses vs. the all aluminum finished version used on regular Satellites.
I owned one of these back in 1973-74. 383, 4-speed pistol grip, same yellow color. Bought it for $550. It looked good from 20 feet, but up close you could see plenty of rust, bondo & bubbling paint. I traded it in on a new 1974 Duster.
Spring is here in the Bay Area last Sunday
Thanks for re-posting this. My brother-in-law – who died in a scuba diving mishap at Solana Beach, Ca. in March of ’81 – had a ’69 RR in yellow with a pistol-grip 4 speed and black vinyl interior back in the day, same time I had my ’64 GTO. He loved that car!
Thanks for bringing back some cherished memories!
Let’s go back in time to the spring of 1971, I was a poor college student who needed to replace my 1963 Plymouth. The Plymouth had given me two years of faithful service but, with 105k miles, it was to the point where it was no longer economical to fix. At this same time our town’s Plymouth dealer was going out of business and was selling off his new and used inventory, at a fairly steep discount. Among this herd of Mopars were several 1968-69 Roadrunners, in various states of use and abuse. The one that caught my eye only had about 30,000 miles and was lightly optioned, as I recall the only options were the Torqueflight and an AM radio, I don’t think it had power steering or power brakes. This 1969 Roadrunner could have been mine for only 1600 dollars, pocket change today but serious coin (at least to me) in 1971. Of course I didn’t have $1600, I had about 600 dollars I could use for a “new” vehicle. I tried for several weeks to get my grandmother to loan me the thousand dollars I needed for the Roadrunner. I had just about talked her into the deal when she asked me what my father thought about it; I wasn’t about to lie to my grandmother and had to tell her that my father didn’t think much of me buying the Roadrunner at all. So that was that, I ended up buying a 1965 Pontiac for 400 dollars and spent the other two hundred buying some tires and other miscellaneous items the Catalina needed. Eventually I reached the point in my life where I could have purchased a decent Roadrunner but by then I had lost interest.
These are it, my absolute favourite cars ever made, I dream of owning many different cars, but it always comes back to these.
So many fine details apart from the gloriously simple shape. The C pillars with the degree of taper varying depending on which angle you look at the car, in side view almost no taper, so clever, so original.
The W shape of the front end (in plan view) may have been done before but perfected on these, the cooling slots in the bumpers with the lights.
They way the roof curves down tightly to the rain gutters… I should stop now.
But only the 68/69 cars, the 1970 model while still beautiful, lost some of the magic of the earlier cars, the front and back were too flat in my opinion.
It wouldn’t have to be a Road Runner either, you get all the same great detailing in the base cars, but I’ve always thought Belvedere was a dorky name though, so it would have to be a Satellite,.
Besides the front and rear changes to the 1970 B-body, the sides lost the upper character lines and were replaced with a single, fake, quarter panel side-scoop.
It was a lot of work (and cost) for small changes to the same basic body. And, I suspect, it was all due to the rush to get the half-baked E-body to market. Imagine if the all-new 1971 B-body had, instead, made production in 1970 and they had just skipped the E-body, altogether.
Today, one of the most valuable collectable cars is the early E-body. But, in reality, it was a miserable car that sold poorly and, frankly, comes very close to being a Chrysler Deadly Sin in how it would ultimately affect Chrysler’s fortunes by setting back development of other mainstream cars like the 1976 F-body Aspen/Volaré and 1978 Omnirizon.
I like the rear of the 70 the best but otherwise agree, the 70s are really boxy overall, I feel like they got a little too overdressed in stripes graphics and spoilers too, the understated subtlety of the 68-69s is so much of their appeal.
There was one silver lining to the 1970 Mopar intermediates, and that was that the Charger remained virtually unchanged except for a loop-type front bumper.
And the 1970 Road Runner still came out looking better than the Coronet Super Bee with its quite bizarre rehash of the front end of a 1961 Plymouth. I’m still convinced that the loop-front-bumper of the Coronet was done specifically so the front fenders would mate with the NASCAR nose cone. Chrysler wanted Dodge to get the wing-car again but had to switch the Coronet fenders and hood onto a Road Runner to make a Plymouth for Petty to race.
I have a Collectible Automobile magazine with an article on the 68/70 Coronets by former Chrysler stylist Jeffrey Godshall, in which he describes the origin of the 70 front in some detail.
It was based on a 1967 sketch by Diran Yazejian but by the time the design got to production it didn’t look right.
There was another drawing from later in 1967 that updated the twin grilles with loop bumpers that they used for the final design.
I would love to see that those 1967 drawings, they wern’t shown in the article.
Eh, I’ll be honest, I might just like the 70 Coronet hardtop styling better than the 70 Charger, the loop bumper made the Charger look like an ant eater. The Coronet nose is definitely wierd looking but unlike the now unbalanced Charger it actually compliments the somewhat cartoonish bodystyling the Coronet has better than the 68 nose and as good or better than the 69.
I would however pick the 70 Plymouth over both personally. It may not be a 68 or 69 but it’s a solid design bumper to bumper with just enough nice details to please the eye.
Had a red ’69 post model, bench seat, 383 4speed in 70-71. Paid $1500 for low mileage, used. Lot of fun, had to replace the clutch as I wasn’t easy on it. One of the cars I should have kept forever….Does anyone here remember Belmont Motors in Vancouver? They bought the car from me [stole it is more like it] as I needed the money.
Obviously, my brain had not yet developed.
Expert doctors say “The rational part of a teen’s brain isn’t fully developed and won’t be until age 25 or so.” I can attest to that personally.
It’s not particularly difficult to understand why there hasn’t been a Road Runner CC prior to this one. They were cheap, disposable musclecars that were beat to hell when new. The term “rode hard and put away wet” applies. Chrysler products weren’t the best-built domestic cars, anyway, and, considering the abuse heaped on something as cheap as the Road Runner, it’s a wonder any of them survived.
Combine that with a dearth of restoration parts, well, the only Road Runners left will be seen at car shows with none of them on the street.
I have no evidence but the way the Road Runner was accessible to a lot of people who probably shouldn’t have been driving them (resulting in some nasty accidents), I wouldn’t be surprised if the Road Runner played a major role in the insurance industry charging exorbitant musclecar surcharges which, ultimately, helped kill them off..
Every spring when the weather gets warm
They come pourin’ into town straight off of them farms
Driving 455s running hard and strong
They’d scratch built in them tool sheds all winter long
‘Neath the trestless drinkin’ the beer and the wine
Now some came on run, some just to pass the time
With the brothers under the bridges
– Springsteen
Mopar Action has had a 1969 RR (the “Bold Beeper”) in their project fleet for 20 years now. I think it’s a legit 6-Pack car, now has a 496 Ray Barton stroker.
https://www.allpar.com/attachments/01-jpg.77442/
It’s also the car Rick Ehrenberg prototyped his big disc brake swap on…and his caliper upgrade. This is NOT photoshopped: https://www.allpar.com/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,onerror=redirect,width=1920,height=1920,fit=scale-down/https://www.allpar.com/attachments/16-jpg.77460/ .
My dad had a 56 210 Chevy, it beat him in my grandfather’s Olds Rocket 88 Tripower so he bought it. 292 stroker and a cam that made it bounce at a stoplight. In 65 when I was 3, he got a 65 GTO Tripower 4 speed, and put a Bobcat kit in it. On cheater slicks he beat another 65 GTO at LaPlace Dragway and still has the 1st Place trophy. In 69, I went with my parents to get their B5 Roadrunner 383 auto AC. My dad was a cop, and we were on I10 going up a bridge when a speeder blew by. My dad floored the 383 and caught the speeder in a half mile.
My wife has a 65 Royal Bobcat tribute, real GTO w/a 421 Tripower and 4 speed, TKO-600 in the box ready to be installed. A Quick Performance 9″ with 3.80 gears. I have a 70 V-code Roadrunner (440 6bbl) and the factory 18 spline “Hemi” 4 speed is a spare if my Passon Performance 855 5 speed needs repair. I have a Bill Mitchell aluminum RB block TF270s and a solid roller cam that’s going to be a 572 when it’s finished. I’ve already installed chromoly everything from slip yoke to pinion yoke in the 4.10 Dana 60 (which turns 2,750 @ 72 in 5th). Back in 78 I bought a “cool used car” in high school at 16. It was a 71 Charger R/T 440 4bbl auto AC car. I loved destroying the late 70s Trans Ams that were popular graduation gifts.