Plymouth does not build many cars like the Plymouth Road Runner: a 2-door coupe / 2-door hardtop / 2-door convertible with 383 cuin 335 hp V8, built from 1968 to 1980 in the decade that gave the world the pony car and the mid-engined supercar. Its designer of record is Jack Smith, Dick MacAdam.
How it came about
The Plymouth Road Runner is a muscle car introduced by Chrysler in the United States for the 1968 model year and marketed under its Plymouth brand. Initially based on the Belvedere, the brand's basic mid-size model, the Road Runner combined a powerful engine with a spartan trim level and a price that undercut increasingly upscale and expensive muscle cars such as the Pontiac GTO and Plymouth's own GTX. It was initially a sales success.
The Road Runner was built in three generations on the mid-size B platform. Like most muscle cars, its performance and sales declined in the 1970s due to an increasing focus on fuel economy and the adoption of more stringent U.S. emission standards. The nameplate became a trim package for the compact Plymouth Volaré for model year 1976—no longer offering any special performance capability—and was discontinued in 1980.
The hardware
Under the skin sits 383 cuin 335 hp V8; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. The gearbox is a 3-speed automatic / 4-speed manual. The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. The wheelbase is 116.0 in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
Where it sits in Plymouth's history is not in doubt: it was built at Detroit, Michigan. On a showroom list of its day it stood against the Peugeot 504, the Toyota Hilux, the Pontiac Firebird. Its Plymouth stablemates include the Plymouth XNR and the Plymouth Laser.
The money
There is no federal ownership record for the Plymouth Road Runner — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.