1969 Plymouth Road Runner Hemi

This is the car that Joe Dirt wanted and I must say it is a pretty sweet ride. I could easily own one of these, but hey any of the old muscle cars would be pretty sweet to own. Around 35% of midsize car sales for Plymouth were for the Road Runner. In 1969 the Road Runner won Motor Trend’s Car of the Year award. The base price of this car was about $4,000, weighed in at 1,787 kg and around 788 were produced.

The Roadrunner was a tough car and very well built, it was said to have been very popular amongst moonshiners, as it was faster than most of the police cars and could take any bumps given. Management of Plymouth originally turned down the idea of producing this car, but it reportedly got produced despite the opposition.

This baby was indeed based on the cartoon and even the horn went “beep, beep” and the advertisement campaign featured Wiley Coyote. It depended on the year and model of the car, but some had a little Road Runner on the steering wheel, and had a cartoon with the logo “Coyote Duster” on the air cleaner.

The base engine was a 383, with heads, intake, cam, and exhaust manifolds from the 440 Super Commando with 335 horsepower. It had a four-speed manual as a standard and was free of the glitz and chrome to mostly reduce the weight.