Partially sunk in red clay, this 1969 Plymouth Road Runner in Lexington, South Carolina sports a black eye from a bar fight. Well maybe it’s just missing a headlight and some trim, but don’t start the eight-count on this Plymouth quite yet. Despite the Flintstone floorboards, most of its metal looks sound. The seller claims the original 383 remains, and some interior parts may be salvageable as well. Of course Mopar Madness would demand a decent price for a Road Runner that was redecorated by a collision with a freight train, but you don’t need much imagination to picture this one back on the roadways. The red ‘Runner comes to market here at Craigslist where a Rice Krispies box containing $10,000 cash makes it yours. Thanks to reader Nate for spotting this Palmetto State classic.
The Road Runner capitalized on Warner Brothers’ cartoon character known for out-smarting and out-running its competition. The bird-themed muscle car represented Plymouth’s entry level street brawler, and could be ordered with barely any options that didn’t relate to making the Satellite-based Road Runner go fast. Some even came with rubber flooring instead of carpet.
The manual transmission bump and D21 four-speed manual code tell the story of a factory four-speed, but the pedals, (wide brake, no clutch) point to a later conversion to automatic. While you could get a Road Runner with a simple rubber-booted shifter and a bench seat, this one came with a C16 wood grain console and M6X black vinyl bucket seats. Thanks to Passion4Mopars for some details. A R22 10 watt AM radio with 8-track seems to be the only upgrade relating to passenger comfort. The N85 tachometer helped the driver of this R4 Performance Red rocket keep an eye on RPMs.
What’s touted as the original E63 high-performance 383 cid (6.3L) four-barrel V8 made 335 HP. That potent default mill powered most Road Runners for ’69, according to Tripod. Manual steering, manual brakes, and no air conditioning tell a story of a car with one mission: leap forward on command. A black vinyl top dressed up the outside. Would you pay $10,000 for this Plymouth project?
$10 maybe if I could find a good part on it worth that much. Let it keep sinking.
Back in 1969my boss’ son got a brand new Road Runner, gold with an ‘alligator’ top and an AT. I had a ‘65 Mustang and loved cruising with him. And surprise, surprise my pony never outran a RR although I tried many a time! LoL. Re; this one, uh, no thanks. No commas in the price, maybe.
Sure has a lot of leg room in there.
I bet it ran when parked.
I think the Coyote finally caught the stupid roadrunner,,, after much trouble and broken bones.
Take my wife, please!
Okay, I’ll show myself out now.
Looks like a Thermoquad carb , 71 and newer.
Graveyard Cars could bring it back to life.
Can’t you just hear the horn ( sickly meeeep) Oh, this car gave it’s multiple owners thrills a plenty, and the car got progressively worse with every owner, until this is all that’s left. They were cheap, even the paperboy could have one, and had one purpose, to beat the crap out of, and we did. As my usual stance, be foolhardy to try and relive those Golden ’70’s and rebuild this. THAT, my friends, is classic MMTB. Plenty of decent ones, where somebody already did all this stuff ( and sadly lost their shirt in the process) and someone with deep pockets can ching ching ching, cash in on that tragedy, and that’s our classic car hobby today. Invest $50g’s, sell for $30g’s, nice hey?
Around 1974/1975 I worked with a guy at a chrome plating shop in Dayton Ohio who drove one just like this to some small burg in Tennessee every weekend. We got off work on Fridays at 3:00 P.M. and he’d hit the road returning late Sunday evening. He did this for a year or better every weekend. The car seemed to handle the wear OK. He soon got a better paying job at a machine shop and we lost touch but, he was still doing that weekend trip as far as I know. Same year, colors, 383 – 4 speed. He could eat a Big Mac, fries and, a Coke and drive that car at the same time. Funny memories…. Thanks Barn Finds..
That’s funny cause my BIL always bragged about smoking a cig, drinking a beer and shifting gears at the same time in his 69 RR ;)
Had one in ’78. 383, Green on yellow, bench seat, 4-sp.
Won alot of street races.
Met it’s match one day against a
Rat powered ’66 GTO.
Too much foot on the throttle gave me a rod thru the block big enough to stick your hand in. RIP.
CRS is kicking in lately but I seem to remember that the 383 that was in my ‘ 69 Road Runner, bought brand new in November of ‘ 68, was painted orange. If I squint real hard that carb, kinda sorta looks like it could be a Carter AVS & not a thermometer quad. What really hurts is that I sold it in 1971 to a friend for $1200.00 with a 383 2bbl. out of a ‘ 68 Plymouth Custom Suburban in it. I sold the 0.120″ over 383 to another guy for $600.00. Everybody was happy.
@ Todd: “The N85 tachometer helped the driver of this R4 Performance Red rocket keep an eye on RPMs.” RPM stands for “Revolutions per minute”, no need for an “S” to indicate plural. Just a small tip for an automotive writer. :-)
Sorry, I disagree. The letters “RPM” is like a stand alone word that means what you said, but when used like Todd does, a plural, while maybe not grammatically correct, is still okay. Like, “How many RPM’s will it go before it blows”, is used all the time.
Thanks, Moparman. Point taken. I simply wrote what sounded “right” as Howard points out, but I’d have to agree that you should use it as if the acronym was spoken as three words. Funny; I never thought about it with RPM yet one of my pet peeves is when web sites have “FAQs” since FAQ is Frequently Asked Questions and should therefore never be pluralized. I will endeavor to lock this in. Thanks!
Traded in my well worn 68 Roadrunner in on a new one in the early summer of 1969 . Sure tore up some back roads in the UP of Michigan. Prices are out of my league now. Plus I’m beyond the age of restoring anything
You’ll be happy to know that UP back roads are still being torn up by Mopars of your era. Greetings from Kingsford!