1970 Plymouth Road Runner. Scott Ross

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СКАЧАТЬ skills and encouragement while this book was being prepared were invaluable. Kudos are also due to the CarTech staff who turned the collection of sentences and the images supplied with them into the eye-catching book you’re now reading.

      A huge “Thank You!” to Henry Liebman, of Hollywood, Florida, whose Burnt Orange Metallic convertible is featured in these pages, as well as to Henry’s friend Gary Montoya, whose In Violet 1970 Plymouth GTX was photographed at the same time.

      Huge thanks also go to David Newhardt, who so graciously opened his archive and shared many wide-view and fine-detail shots of 1970 Road Runners, adding depth and style to the book’s account of the third-year Bird.

      Another source for images for these fine Plymouths was (where else?) Plymouth, Michigan. Vanguard Motor Sales not only has had many fine examples of the 1970 Road Runner in its inventory over the years, it also photographed them in exacting detail, including underbody details such as torque boxes, disc/drum brakes, and Hemi suspension details.

      Appreciation for the 1970 Plymouth Road Runner isn’t limited to the full-size car and its owners and restorers. Those of us too young to drive back then eagerly awaited Jo-Han Models’ 1/25-scale kit and remember the thrill of seeing that wildly-illustrated kit box on our local hobby shop shelves. That interest and excitement remains in the scale-model-car hobby to this day, and I thank Claes Ericsson (from Bagarmossen, Sweden), Ken Schmidt (from Huntington, New York), and Kevin Wallenhorst (from North Royalton, Ohio) for sharing their images of the original Jo-Han kit. Special kudos to Tom Carter of Spotlight Hobbies in Grand Rapids, Michigan; through the message board, I contacted those three gentlemen.

      In addition, my thanks to those 2015 Fall and 2016 Spring Daytona Turkey Run participants who brought their third-year Birds to those infield-filling events at the Daytona International Speedway, where I was able to capture fine-detail images.

      For the cover car and some other rare and distinctive 1970 Road Runners, my deepest thanks go to Christine Giovingo at Mecum Auctions, as well as to Dana Mecum.

      Reproduction-parts images were graciously supplied by these aftermarket sources, who are also due a big thank you: YearOne (Pat Staton), Auto Custom Carpets (Julie Tyson), and Auto Metal Direct (Aaron Hopkins).

      Major thanks are due to all those at Chrysler Corporation who planned, styled, engineered, and built the 1970 Plymouth Road Runner at these Chrysler assembly plants: Lynch Road Assembly (Detroit, Michigan), Newark (Delaware) Assembly, St. Louis (Missouri) Assembly, and Los Angeles (California) Assembly. Thanks also to those who promoted and sold the Road Runner within Chrysler and its Chrysler-Plymouth Division, as well as to the Chrysler-Plymouth dealers across the United States who sold and serviced them way back when.

      Plus a big shout-out to FCA Automobiles’ historic-services crew, who graciously let me use historic Plymouth images, including the 1970 Plymouth Rapid Transit System brochure.

      My biggest thanks go to you readers who’ve wanted a convenient source of information about the third-year Bird for your home reference libraries or to give to a friend or relative to grace their collections.

      A personal note: During the writing of this manuscript, my mother, Patricia Kindig Ross, passed away before she had a chance to read it and offer her editorial critique. An English teacher by training and the wife of a Chrysler materials researcher (my father, Stuart T. Ross) at the time of my birth, her inspiration and support will never be forgotten. Thanks, Mom!

      And, once again . . . thank you, readers!

       INTRODUCTION

      How did a comment from a car magazine editor evolve into a budget muscle car with a cartoon bird for a namesake?

      That’s the same kind of question as asking why that cartoon bird’s idea of having fun is running down the road.

      And, because it was the late 1960s when the first question was asked, the result was a legendary muscle car famous for its combination of high performance and low price: the Plymouth Road Runner.

      It combined the high-performance chassis and powertrain hardware (with which Chrysler had equipped its midsize B-Body cars since 1962) with the lowest-priced, barely trimmed 1968 Belvedere body, creating a car whose sub-$3,000 base sticker price drew buyers to Chrysler-Plymouth showrooms in search of a budget muscle car that Ford and Chevrolet did not have in their 1968 lineups.

      The Road Runner was a winner in its first year, and the midyear addition of a two-door hardtop model brought in even more young, prospective buyers to Chrysler-Plymouth dealers nationwide. The final 1968 sales tally showed that these young buyers purchased about 45,000 Road Runners, and the final results at many of the nation’s dragstrips showed Road Runners with lots of wins in Stock and Super Stock classes from coast to coast, many of them with cars that were, or could have easily been, driven to the track!

       The iconic Road Runner adorns the front fender.

      What did Plymouth do to improve on 1968’s success? It added a convertible Bird at the start of the 1969 model run. Then, in the spring of that year, it introduced an option package based on a ready-to-race 390-hp engine that cost about half of the Hemi’s extra charge.

      On top of that, Motor Trend magazine selected the Road Runner as its 1969 Car of the Year, citing its combination of high performance and low price.

      The 1969 sales of more than 88,000 Birds pleased Chrysler’s bean counters in Highland Park, who gave the Road Runner their blessing, as long as it continued to sell in big numbers.

      Thus, for 1970, the Road Runner’s list of standard features, available options, and interior and exterior colors grew even longer. In addition, other muscle Plymouths joined it to create the Rapid Transit System.

      Since 1961, Chevrolet had promoted its performance-minded models, equipped with a Super Sport option package, which included bucket seats, special trim, and any available Chevy engine. In 1968 it created the Chevrolet Sports Department to showcase the Super Sports along with the Corvette and Camaro Z28. Similarly, Dodge promoted its performance cars through its Scat Pack starting in 1968.

      Plymouth’s Rapid Transit System was more than a “me, too” response to Chevrolet and Dodge. It included performance models on all four Plymouth vehicle platforms, from the compact A-Body Duster 340 to the full-size C-Body Sport Fury GT and Sport Fury S23, as well as the new E-Body ’Cuda and B-Body Road Runner and GTX. It had its own sales brochure and accessories catalogs, which performance enthusiasts at the time snapped up, as well as Performance Clinics by drag-race champions such as Ronnie Sox and Buddy Martin, who had conducted them since 1967, advising Plymouth drag racers about how to set up their cars for ideal on-track performance. That was in addition to print and broadcast ads highlighting Plymouth’s 1970 performance models.

      If you were in the market for a new high-performance car in 1970, there was no better time to buy one. It seemed as though every new-car dealer on your hometown’s Auto Row (except Cadillac) had at least one high-performance model in its lineup, and those cars were front-and-center in print, radio, and television ads for the new 1970 cars during the late summer and early fall of 1969.

      Moreover, in the minds of many Mopar mavens, the Bird had it all: looks, performance, and that unique horn.

      1968–1969: THE СКАЧАТЬ