If you are the road runner and you can’t outrun Wiley Coyote, what do you do? You’ve avoided the Acme anvil and the Acme dynamite but he’s still closing in. Well, you could try hiding in the barn under and behind a lot of detritus in the hope that he won’t be able to see you. And that’s exactly what this 1969 Plymouth Road Runner was doing. In this case, it’s in a garage in Hamlin, New York but you can lure it out by bidding on it, here on eBay, for an opening bid of $7,500, zero bids tendered as of the writing.
The Plymouth Road Runner was in its second year of production in 1969 and it won Motor Trend’s “Car of the Year” award. It was also the first year for the Road Runner convertible but contrary to the seller’s listing, it was not the only year as the convertible model was produced in ’70 too.
Delving into this Road Runner, a lot of issues are revealed. Besides the obvious, the front floors are pretty well gone and the seller tells us that, “where the cross member attaches to the rocker panels will need to be repaired” which I guess means part of the uni-body structure. Further elaboration indicates that the quarters will need to be replaced and “the inner wheel wells can be saved” so it sounds like they are problematic too. The front frame rails and torsion bar attachment points are supposedly OK. While the seller states that the, “Front fenders, hood, grille, doors, and rear deck lid are usable” is encouraging I guess, it’s not exactly a ringing endorsement. The seller claims that this convertible was stored for 10 years before he acquired it but based on what can be seen of the interior and the door cards, it looks like it was stored, at some point, outside with the top down. There is no top fabric for the convertible top frame though the frame is supposed to be OK.
Under the hood, there is no engine. The original one is gone though the seller indicates that he has a ’68 vintage 383 CI V8 block with internal parts and intake. No elaboration beyond that so there’s no telling what it does or doesn’t include – there is a matching number four-speed manual transmission, however. Out back, the wrong 8.75-inch differential is installed but the seller does have the correct one for this Road Runner and he’ll include it in the sale.
Checking out the interior, which isn’t hard to do with no top, there is mostly ruin. The door cards are done, the aforementioned front floor is missing (though the rear pan and under rear seat area is supposedly intact), no front or rear seats, the dash is missing some components, “A” pillar trim is gone, things of this nature. With this much missing that is obvious from the included images (and there are a lot of thorough images included in the listing), there is probably that much more that is needed that cannot be seen. All of the glass, however, is claimed to be present and good.
As this image illustrates, this Road Runner is going to need an enormous amount of metalwork. When the images are this revealing, there is probably still more that will be required – you just can’t fathom all of it until you get deep into a project like this. And then there is the entire matter of the motor that will need to be tackled. If this Plymouth Road Runner were a coupe or a two-door hardtop, I‘d suggest skipping it entirely and go look for a better candidate. A convertible Road Runner, however, is a different matter. Hotrod magazine cites 2,140 ’69 Plymouth Road Runners constructed out of a total of 81,000 produced – just 2.6%, a tiny number; so yes rarity plays a part. What do you think, too far gone for the Road Runner to make a getaway from Wiley Coyote or is this ’69 Plymouth Road Runner convertible salvageable and worth the effort?
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