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Last Updated: Sep 9, 2008 - 2:11:40 PM |
“Beep! Beep!” Whether it was the 60’s, 70’s, or 80’s, this familiar
sound filled thousands of living rooms across the country as kids of
all ages turned on the tube early Saturday morning to watch the latest
misadventures of Wile E. Coyote as he tried to catch the ever elusive
Road Runner. But if you were a high-performance automotive enthusiast
in the late 60’s, this unforgettable sound effect had a much greater
significance than weekend cartoons. It was the sound of a renaissance,
the rebirth of the muscle car.
By 1968, the affordable
big-thrills-no-frills formula of the original muscle cars had been
replaced with heavily optioned high-performance luxury machines of
which only those with deep pockets could afford. Plymouth saw an
opportunity and took it, going back to the drawing board with the goal
of building a muscle car that was not only super fast, but also one
that would be within financial reach of the everyday performance
enthusiast. After paying Warner Brothers $50,000 for the use of the
name and cartoon image of their Coyote dodging bird, the 1968 Plymouth
Road Runner was well on its way to restoring what Pontiac had
established in 1964 with the GTO.
Based on the same platform
as Plymouth’s Belvedere, Satellite, and GTX, the 1968 Road Runner was a
stripped down variation of its B-body siblings. Amenities like bucket
seats, carpeting, and other “doodads, gegaws, and falderal” were out in
the interest of weight reduction while heavy-duty suspension and
transmission upgrades were the order of the day. The base engine in the
Road Runner was the 383-cid V8, which, when assembled with the heads,
intake, camshaft, and manifolds of the race-ready 440 Super Commando,
made this one of the fastest 383’s ever built with 335bhp and 425lb-ft.
of torque, good for 0-60mph times in the 7-second range with quarter
mile passes in 15 seconds at 96mph.
While the Road Runner’s sub-$3000 sticker price was the real draw,
equally as appealing was the availability of Mopar’s top-of-the-line
power-plant, the 426 Hemi, which tacked on an additional $714 to the
invoice. Although this was no small expense back in 1968, the Hemi’s
425hp and 490lb-ft of torque were more than enough to cause you to
throw any monetary concerns to the wind as you catapulted from 0-60mph
in 5.3 seconds and blasted down the quarter mile in 13.55 seconds at a
breakneck 105mph. The Hemi option also included a Dana Sure-Grip rear
axle along with a larger radiator, power front disc brakes, and 15-inch
wheels with F70 Wide Oval redline tires.
Adding some character
to the Road Runner package were a set of small black & white Road
Runner birds and emblems that could be found on the doors and rear
trunk lid along with a horn that went “beep-beep” when activated, just
like in the cartoons. Plymouth’s original estimate conservatively
called for 2,500 Road Runners to be produced in 1968, but when the year
was through, over 45,000 copies had been sold, with 1,011 units
accounting for Hemi equipped models. Today, the 426 Hemi powered 68
Road Runner is not only worshiped by thousands of Mopar enthusiasts, it
is respected in general as a significant milestone of the muscle car
era and a highly collectible piece of automotive history.
Speaking
of collectible Road Runners, the Iowa based organization known as RC2,
formerly known as Ertl, introduced a series of 1/18-scale diecast
replicas of the 1969 Road Runner back in the mid-1990’s. Over a decade
later, RC2 has retooled the mold and regained the licensing rights from
Warner Brothers, this time around presenting us with some nice
1/18-scale Road Runners from 1968. Originally released in blue a few
months ago, these latest Hemi-powered examples, special ordered by Bob
Malinovsky of Tara Hobbies, capture the 1968 Road Runner in two
additional genuine Mopar shades - black and burgundy.
Part of
the classic American Muscle series, these 68 Road Runners weren’t
assembled with the high detail frills and features many of us have
become used to over the years - like realistically hinged opening
panels, working suspensions, rotating driveshafts, and photographic
detail from bumper to bumper. The one thing these 68 Road Runners do
have going for them though is the look, and a mighty cool one at that.
Straight out of the box, both Road Runners have that aggressive Super
Street stance with custom Keystone wheels and wide Firestone Drag 500
slicks filling up the rear wheel wells.
What’s really neat are
the included set of color keyed steel wheels with chrome plated dog
dish caps and redline tires, if you should be so inclined to want to
return these 68 Road Runners to their stock appearance. Another
interesting detail is the different rear end treatments these two
B-bodies have received. The black Road Runner features the deluxe
appearance trim with a chrome plated panel positioned between the rear
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