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MM Retro Write-Up: 1968-70 Plymouth Road Runner.
I talk a lot about both the compact and big American luxury cars of the 1960s (and, it's true that, as a teen and young adult, I was mesmerized by big Oldsmobiles, Buicks, Mercurys, Chryslers, Cadillacs, Lincolns, etc...). However, like any normal teen-ager of the period, I also liked the classic American muscle-cars, although the ones I had a chance to drive or sample, unlike many normal teen-agers, I drove sensibly even while pushing them a little, as safety was (and still is) my top priority.
One of my favorite classic American muscle-cars (if not my absolute favorite, period) was the early versions of Plymouth's famous Road Runner....particularly the 1968 / 1969, and 1970 versions. The 1968 (its first production year) and 1969 models were quite similar inside and out, although with some slight differences in front and rear-end-trim. The 1970 version (which was more tinnily and loosely-built than the 68/69), had some more more significant (but not huge) styling-changes, and had the most dramatic paint-colors/graphics/hardware of any of the Road Runners.....bright-rainbow/Easter-Egg paint-jobs, "Shaker-Scoop" on the hood, and ultra-cheap interior materials. The 1970 also featured the dramatic NASCAR-inspired "Superbird" version, with the high mounted trunk-wing and the wedge-rounded nose. The 1971-75 models (which I never liked) had a radical interior/exterior restyling and used even worse exterior/interior materials (leave it to Chrysler in that regard). The late 1970s Road Runner was simply a Volare two-door coupe compact with a bird-decal and some color-stripes on it.....didn't even have a real performance engine any more; the 3.7L (225) Slant-Six engine had technically become standard, which, by then, couldn't get out of its own way, though the 5.2L (318) V8 was an option.
But one thing that ALL Road-Runners had (and was the car's classic trademark) was the bird-graphic decals stuck in various places both inside and outside the car, and the specially-tuned horn that mimicked the cartoon character's "Beep-Beep". Chrysler, of course, paid Warner Brothers, the firm that produced and filmed the Road-Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoons, for the rights to use the graphics and horn.
The idea for the Road Runner (and, IMO, it was simple but one of the most brilliant marketing concepts Chrysler ever came up with until the first 1984 minivans) was to take a standard, run-of-the-mill Plymouth Belvedere/Satellite mid-sized coupe or convertible, use big power plants under the hood like on the GTX version, but decorate the car with the bird-graphics and horn. It was much the same thing that John Delorean had done five years earlier, at Pontiac, with the GTO and its enormous success, except that the Road Runner offered a competitor with more personality/character, a lower price, and, unfortunately, second-rate build-quality/materials except for the durable engines and Torquefite transmissions. The first Road Runner debuted in 1968, and was a instant success, making serious dents in the sales of the hot-selling GTO and Chevy Chevelle SS. GM and Ford took one look at the Road Runner's sales and saw that they had do do something, quick, to try and center it. One reason why we saw the more flamboyant GTO "Judge" model of 1969/70, with its bright orange paint and flames on the body-side, and Mercury's Cougar "Eliminator", with similar colors/graphics, was in response to the Road Runner.
Standard engine in the Road Runner was a big four-barel 6.3L 383 c.i. V8 with some 335 HP, although several different engine-options, including the 7.2L 440 c.i. with the (Six-Pack) three-2-barrels, ranging up to the most powerful one...the 7.0L 426 c.i. Hemi with 425 HP and some 500 ft-lbs. of torque. There was a dual four-barrel Hemi version, but Chrysler would not sell it unless the buyer showed evidence of completing a serious course in high-performance driving, as, by this time, cars like this were becoming dangerous in the hands of careless or unskilled drivers, and insurance-premiums were increasing.
I would have liked to have had a Road Runner myself at that time, especially a new one, but I was young, still in high school, with little or no money, living with my parents, and simply couldn't afford one. However, the eldest son of the family that lived right across street from us (though he was still significantly older than I was) had a medium-blue '68 or '69, (to be honest, I can't quite remember which), with a more or less-matching bright-blue vinyl interior. He had been a motorcycle cop, just like his dad, but had a serious enough accident on his police-bike that he had to retire from the force, with a disability-retirement, with a bad back. He knew that I liked Road Runners, and he knew that I could be trusted with a car, and not try and rag it out like so many teens back then. He called me over one day, tossed me the keys, and said, "Here, Mike....take it out for a spin and tell me what you think of it". So, of course, I jumped at the chance....as I had with my other friend's 1970 GTO not long before (I've already done a thread on that GTO).
Gosh, for me, was that a nice and fun drive. I didn't drive it like Grandma, but I was careful not to rag to or overdo it. I was not used to that kind of power, in the days before Traction-control, and it didn't take much throttle, even with the base 383 engine and Torqueflite automatic in that car, to start to break the rear tires loose. I'd let up on the gas, of course, before it turned into a real burnout. From what I remember, it did not have power-assist for the steering, so it took some arm-muscle to crank that large steering wheel around with that big heavy cast-iron V8 up front (which probably didn't help his back-injury any). I don't remember if it had the front power-disc-brake option or not....which, IMO, was a must, as the 60s/70s-vintage Chrysler drum brakes, particularly without power-assist, were known for serious fading and ineffectiveness. The loosely-built interior and cheap materials, despite the underlying unibody structure (different from the GM/Ford body-on-frame cars), rattled and squeaked, and the road/wind/engine noise level, especially compared to today's well-insulated cars, was deafening. Ride comfort, from what I remember, was not bad, even with the firmish (for the period) torsion-bar front/leaf-rear suspension...tires, for one thing, were much higher in profile back then, even on high-perfomance cars, and this was not a small car, and had a decent wheelbase, which helped.
He didn't keep the Road-Runner very long after that (apparently he didn't like it as much as I did, but I couldn't afford it even used) and got a jet-black 1970 Pontiac GTO, simliar to my other friend's light green 1970 GTO except with a classic Hurst 4-speed shifter instead of the Turbo-Hydra-Matic transmission. Apparently his back, from the injury, didn't hurt enough that he couldn't row his own gears.
A few years after that, of course, came the infamous Oil Embargo, gas-rationing, long lines at the stations, and ever-increasing gas and vehicle-prices, which changed the industry, as we know it, for decades. For the most part, the Great Age of the American muscle-car was over.....at least for a long time after that, although the Pontiac Trans-Am managed to carry on in reasonably good fashion for a while longer.
And, as Always, Happy Car-Memories.
MM
^^^^^Road Runner horn assembly
DRIVING IS BELIEVING
I talk a lot about both the compact and big American luxury cars of the 1960s (and, it's true that, as a teen and young adult, I was mesmerized by big Oldsmobiles, Buicks, Mercurys, Chryslers, Cadillacs, Lincolns, etc...). However, like any normal teen-ager of the period, I also liked the classic American muscle-cars, although the ones I had a chance to drive or sample, unlike many normal teen-agers, I drove sensibly even while pushing them a little, as safety was (and still is) my top priority.
One of my favorite classic American muscle-cars (if not my absolute favorite, period) was the early versions of Plymouth's famous Road Runner....particularly the 1968 / 1969, and 1970 versions. The 1968 (its first production year) and 1969 models were quite similar inside and out, although with some slight differences in front and rear-end-trim. The 1970 version (which was more tinnily and loosely-built than the 68/69), had some more more significant (but not huge) styling-changes, and had the most dramatic paint-colors/graphics/hardware of any of the Road Runners.....bright-rainbow/Easter-Egg paint-jobs, "Shaker-Scoop" on the hood, and ultra-cheap interior materials. The 1970 also featured the dramatic NASCAR-inspired "Superbird" version, with the high mounted trunk-wing and the wedge-rounded nose. The 1971-75 models (which I never liked) had a radical interior/exterior restyling and used even worse exterior/interior materials (leave it to Chrysler in that regard). The late 1970s Road Runner was simply a Volare two-door coupe compact with a bird-decal and some color-stripes on it.....didn't even have a real performance engine any more; the 3.7L (225) Slant-Six engine had technically become standard, which, by then, couldn't get out of its own way, though the 5.2L (318) V8 was an option.
But one thing that ALL Road-Runners had (and was the car's classic trademark) was the bird-graphic decals stuck in various places both inside and outside the car, and the specially-tuned horn that mimicked the cartoon character's "Beep-Beep". Chrysler, of course, paid Warner Brothers, the firm that produced and filmed the Road-Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoons, for the rights to use the graphics and horn.
The idea for the Road Runner (and, IMO, it was simple but one of the most brilliant marketing concepts Chrysler ever came up with until the first 1984 minivans) was to take a standard, run-of-the-mill Plymouth Belvedere/Satellite mid-sized coupe or convertible, use big power plants under the hood like on the GTX version, but decorate the car with the bird-graphics and horn. It was much the same thing that John Delorean had done five years earlier, at Pontiac, with the GTO and its enormous success, except that the Road Runner offered a competitor with more personality/character, a lower price, and, unfortunately, second-rate build-quality/materials except for the durable engines and Torquefite transmissions. The first Road Runner debuted in 1968, and was a instant success, making serious dents in the sales of the hot-selling GTO and Chevy Chevelle SS. GM and Ford took one look at the Road Runner's sales and saw that they had do do something, quick, to try and center it. One reason why we saw the more flamboyant GTO "Judge" model of 1969/70, with its bright orange paint and flames on the body-side, and Mercury's Cougar "Eliminator", with similar colors/graphics, was in response to the Road Runner.
Standard engine in the Road Runner was a big four-barel 6.3L 383 c.i. V8 with some 335 HP, although several different engine-options, including the 7.2L 440 c.i. with the (Six-Pack) three-2-barrels, ranging up to the most powerful one...the 7.0L 426 c.i. Hemi with 425 HP and some 500 ft-lbs. of torque. There was a dual four-barrel Hemi version, but Chrysler would not sell it unless the buyer showed evidence of completing a serious course in high-performance driving, as, by this time, cars like this were becoming dangerous in the hands of careless or unskilled drivers, and insurance-premiums were increasing.
I would have liked to have had a Road Runner myself at that time, especially a new one, but I was young, still in high school, with little or no money, living with my parents, and simply couldn't afford one. However, the eldest son of the family that lived right across street from us (though he was still significantly older than I was) had a medium-blue '68 or '69, (to be honest, I can't quite remember which), with a more or less-matching bright-blue vinyl interior. He had been a motorcycle cop, just like his dad, but had a serious enough accident on his police-bike that he had to retire from the force, with a disability-retirement, with a bad back. He knew that I liked Road Runners, and he knew that I could be trusted with a car, and not try and rag it out like so many teens back then. He called me over one day, tossed me the keys, and said, "Here, Mike....take it out for a spin and tell me what you think of it". So, of course, I jumped at the chance....as I had with my other friend's 1970 GTO not long before (I've already done a thread on that GTO).
Gosh, for me, was that a nice and fun drive. I didn't drive it like Grandma, but I was careful not to rag to or overdo it. I was not used to that kind of power, in the days before Traction-control, and it didn't take much throttle, even with the base 383 engine and Torqueflite automatic in that car, to start to break the rear tires loose. I'd let up on the gas, of course, before it turned into a real burnout. From what I remember, it did not have power-assist for the steering, so it took some arm-muscle to crank that large steering wheel around with that big heavy cast-iron V8 up front (which probably didn't help his back-injury any). I don't remember if it had the front power-disc-brake option or not....which, IMO, was a must, as the 60s/70s-vintage Chrysler drum brakes, particularly without power-assist, were known for serious fading and ineffectiveness. The loosely-built interior and cheap materials, despite the underlying unibody structure (different from the GM/Ford body-on-frame cars), rattled and squeaked, and the road/wind/engine noise level, especially compared to today's well-insulated cars, was deafening. Ride comfort, from what I remember, was not bad, even with the firmish (for the period) torsion-bar front/leaf-rear suspension...tires, for one thing, were much higher in profile back then, even on high-perfomance cars, and this was not a small car, and had a decent wheelbase, which helped.
He didn't keep the Road-Runner very long after that (apparently he didn't like it as much as I did, but I couldn't afford it even used) and got a jet-black 1970 Pontiac GTO, simliar to my other friend's light green 1970 GTO except with a classic Hurst 4-speed shifter instead of the Turbo-Hydra-Matic transmission. Apparently his back, from the injury, didn't hurt enough that he couldn't row his own gears.
A few years after that, of course, came the infamous Oil Embargo, gas-rationing, long lines at the stations, and ever-increasing gas and vehicle-prices, which changed the industry, as we know it, for decades. For the most part, the Great Age of the American muscle-car was over.....at least for a long time after that, although the Pontiac Trans-Am managed to carry on in reasonably good fashion for a while longer.
And, as Always, Happy Car-Memories.
MM
^^^^^Road Runner horn assembly
DRIVING IS BELIEVING
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