A couple of weeks back, I wrote a piece on a very perforated ’69 Plymouth Roadrunner convertible. The draw there was the fact that it was a convertible and that’s a very small production volume model for Plymouth that year. Well, I think I found its more commonly found two-door hardtop sibling; it’s quite similar in many ways. It is located in Bedminster, Pennsylvania and available here on Facebook Marketplace for a price of $4,900. Thanks to Gus B. for this tip!

Hard to know where to start with this one. The seller claims it to be in “Fair” condition per the listing. I’d move it a notch to the left and flag it as “Poor”. It has a lot of rust; hood, quarters, fenders, trunk floor, and interior floors. While the listing claims that the “frame and rails” are good, I would want a real up-close look at them as well as the entire underside of this Road Runner. I would imagine with as much disappearing real estate that is observable, coupled with the tendency for Plymouths of this era to rust, there’s more adversity going on underneath than one may suspect. The body appears to be still wearing its original “Vitamin C” finish but there is a lot of surface rust, and more, that has bled through in multiple places. All of this said the body of this Road Runner car does appear to be straight. There are no references made to the interior and no images available but you can probably conjure up a pretty good idea of what you might find.

This Road Runner is advertised as a “Real Deal” example with a 383 CI V8 engine and a four-speed transmission. The listing, however, contradicts that claim by stating that this car currently has a “400m/Auto trans”. I have no idea what that means. There is a GM Turbo-Hydramatic 400 automatic transmission but this Plymouth would have had an A-727 TorqueFlite three-speed automatic or that would have been the logical swap. Who knows, that’s an item that will require an inquiry. Any suggestions as to a transmission decode, please comment below. Whatever the case, this Plymouth doesn’t run and hasn’t moved since 1986. That being the case, the engine may not be salvageable, it just depends.

Regardless of receiving Motor Trend’s “1969 Car of the Year” award or whether or not this example is the “Real Deal” or not this Road Runner’s road running days are pretty far behind it. The seller tells that this is a “resto project but a good one”. The “resto project” part is spot on; the “good one” part is highly debatable especially when you consider the long term inactivity, which would seem to have occurred under adverse conditions. The almost postscript referencing this as a “Florida” car means nothing really. I know from very real experience that the salt air experienced along Florida’s very extensive Atlantic and Gulf coastlines causes rust and lots of it. And if it’s not that, it’s the 60 inches of annual, and frequently torrential, rainfall, much of it hurricane-induced, that an old car has to contend with – especially an old car left outdoors. I wouldn’t write this Road Runner off but it is going to be a significant undertaking in time, talent and dollars to make it right. Rust never sleeps and sometimes you have to disassemble something completely to find what you can’t see and arrest it completely. So, what do you say, worth taking on as a “resto project” or pass for a better example?