1972 Plymouth Road Runner – Coyote’s Nemesis – 29

Pontiac is widely credited with creating the first muscle car with its release of the GTO in 1964. The GTO was General Motors’ answer to its own ban on motor racing, implemented in 1963. Its Chevrolet and Pontiac marketing programmes were focused heavily on the performance youth market, using GM’s own motorsport involvement to portray a sporting image. With motor racing now off limits, Pontiac engineer Russell Gee and Pontiac chief engineer John De Lorean came up with the concept of fitting the 389ci (6375cc) V8 motor from the full-sized Catalina and Bonneville into the mid-sized Pontiac Tempest, thus retaining its all-important performance image. De Lorean thought up the GTO name, inspired by the Ferrari 250 GTO sports cars that were highly successful in motorsport competition at the time.
Fitting any motor exceeding 5408cc into a mid-sized car actually went against General Motors’ own policy, but the Pontiac GTO was purposely created as an option package to skip around this issue. Don’t you just love internal politics? With GM sales management unconvinced there would be a market for such a car, the company limited initial production to just 5000. In fact, in its first year Pontiac sold over 32,000 GTOs, and GM’s rivals soon began creating muscle cars of their own to cash in on this exciting new market.
By 1968, however, the original concept of the muscle car, a powerful, lightweight, affordable performer, was getting lost as manufacturers went crazy, adding bigger, heavier, more powerful engines, plush fittings and luxury items, turning these once sprightly tarmac shredders into lumbering battleships. Chrysler, through its Plymouth division, recognised this and set about creating a car that was true to the original concept of the muscle car.
Plymouth’s aim was to build an exciting, sporty, powerful car that could cover the quarter mile in under 14 seconds, that appealed to the youth market, but could be sold in base form for less than US$3000. For this to happen, the car would be strictly no-frills, sharing the Chrysler B-platform (as used in the Belvedere, Satellite and GTX models), raiding the parts bin, and borrowing almost everything from other Chrysler models. Standard options were kept to a minimum. Early cars didn’t even come with carpet or a centre console. This kept costs down and, just as importantly, kept weight down.
Plymouth named its back-to-basics muscle car the Road Runner, after the popular television cartoon character of the time. It paid Warner Brothers just US$50,000 to use the name and images, which appeared as decals on the car. Plymouth Road Runner cartoon advertisements were also played on television. The Road Runner was fitted as standard with a big block 383ci (6276cc) V8, rated at 335hp (250kW). However, for an extra US$714 customers could upgrade to the monstrous 426ci Hemi, boasting 425hp (6981cc, 317kW). This optional upgrade pushed the price up over the $3000 mark, but buyers didn’t seem too bothered. It was still a cheap car, and there was little on the road at the time that could touch it in a head-to-head fight. Plymouth set its Road Runner sales targets for 1968 at a modest 2000 units. By the end of the year it had sold 45,000. At the same time as Plymouth created the Road Runner, Chrysler’s sister company, Dodge, also released its own variant, dubbed the Super Bee.
A few cosmetic changes were made for ’69, along with the addition of a convertible. Another engine option was added, a 440ci (7210cc), with three two-barrel carbs. Sales went up yet again, to over 82,000 units. The next year, 1970, saw the last of the first generation Road Runners. The car again got a few cosmetic changes and the addition of an Air-Grabber bonnet scoop, which would pop up out of the bonnet if you flicked a switch under the dashboard.

Plymouth would also base its homologation special Superbird on the ’70 Road Runner. The Superbird was Plymouth’s variant of the Dodge Daytona, built in small numbers with a long pointed nose that added an extra 483mm to the length of the car, plus a tall rear spoiler that sat a full 914mm above the boot lid. The Superbird and Daytona were created for Nascar stock car racing, and aerodynamically designed for the high-speed Nascar super speedways.
The first major change for the Road Runner occurred in 1971, with the release of the second generation of the model. It was still based on Chrysler’s B-platform, but with a completely new, lightweight, but more rigid body style. Arguably, the second generation Road Runners were some of the best-looking flamboyant cars to come out of America.
The wheelbase was now actually 25mm shorter than first generation’s, but the track was widened by 75mm. The car featured plenty of frontal overhang, with a pointed nose housing twin headlights and wrapped in a slab of chrome. The A-pillars were heavily raked, as were the C-pillars which, as per the popular design trend of the time, were nearly horizontal.
The wheel arches were flared and framed, which added to the sleek styling. The second generation Road Runner could never be mistaken for something from any other period than the early ’70s!
Sadly, although the second-gen Road Runner featured fantastic new styling, its release coincided with strict new government-enforced emissions regulations that slowly choked the life out of the entire American performance car market over the next few years.
For the first time the Road Runner was offered with a small block 340ci (5572cc) engine, while the standard 383 of previous models was replaced with a 400ci (6555cc) big block. Also for the first time, a 440ci (7210cc) was offered with a single four-barrel carb. For ’72, the 426 Hemi was dropped. Power figures on all engines were reduced as emissions regulations took hold.
The second generation Road Runner continued on through 1973 and ’74 with annual cosmetic changes, while the base engine was now the 318ci (5211cc) small block, and the largest upgrade option was the 400ci big block.
The third generation Road Runner was released in 1976, with another complete styling overhaul. Its stodgy look and anaemic engine summed up the demise of the American muscle car industry. The third-gen Road Runner, based on the uninspiring Volare, was fitted with a 318ci V8, and with the bottom falling out of the performance car market, most of the upgrades were borrowed from the Chrysler police package.

By 1979, the Road Runner name had hit a low, with a slant-six engine being offered as standard equipment; a year later the model was dropped altogether. The once mighty US muscle car industry had died a slow death, thanks mainly to government emissions regulations, the mid-’70s fuel crisis and rising insurance costs.
Fortunately, as first-generation Road Runners were manufactured in high numbers, there have been plenty of survivors. The same can’t be said for second generation cars. In 1971 just 14,218 cars were produced, with that number halved the following year, which made them extremely rare, even when new. The old Dukes Of Hazzard TV series featured a second-generation Road Runner as Daisy Duke’s car, but finding enough similar cars to keep up with the furious filming schedule was a major headache, one the scriptwriters eventually overcame by simply writing the car out of the storyline by pushing it off a cliff and replacing it with a Jeep.
Long-time drag racer and muscle car enthusiast Steve Zahorodny is lucky enough to own a second-generation Road Runner, a very rare ’72 model. Steve has owned and raced a number of Top Fuel drag cars, and even a Jet Car, and owns a third of the Taupo drag strip. His wife Lynda is an equally keen racer, pedalling with great success the familiar Erotica-backed Torana Super Gas car, which Steve built.
The Road Runner wasn’t a car Steve had ever had any desire to own, but when he stumbled upon this one he was so taken by its striking styling, he had to own it. “I was driving down a main street and saw it parked in a guy’s driveway,” Steve recalls. “I thought, ‘Holy Shit, I like that’, and it really turned my head, so I turned around and went back and looked at it again, got the rego number, and went from there.” The car wasn’t for sale, but the owner set down a price ” one he wouldn’t budge on ” and Steve coughed up.
Steve’s Road Runner originally left the factory fitted with a 400ci big block, but it’s now fitted with a 440. “It’s the only genuine ’72 four-speed big block Road Runner that I know of in NZ,” Steve says. It has spent most of its life in New Zealand, and was repainted at least once before Steve came to own it.
While it was in very good condition when he bought it, Steve has impeccably high standards when it comes to the presentation of his cars, and it wasn’t long before the Road Runner received a full nut and bolt rebuild. “When I got it, it had had a really nice paint job done to it, but when it was painted, it was ‘bare metalled’ and left overnight, and when you bare metal a car you can’t do that, it’s got to be primered right there and then. What happened was humidity blisters started coming up under the paint, and although they were only slight, I’m so fussy that things like that really get to me. I looked at it and looked at it, and I couldn’t stand it. About two months after I’d bought the car I said ‘right, that’s it’, and I took it into the workshop, jacked it up, went underneath, pulled the diff, pulled all the suspension out, and had everything blasted and sanded back. Then I had it all painted, and then went onto the body.

“I stripped all the seats out, bonnet, boot, mudguards ” everything came off the car and I had it all plastic-ball blasted, because with sandblasting, if it gets in the wrong area and gets damp, it can cause rust. When we peeled all the paint off the body only had two little patches of rust in it, one in the door and one in the sill, and they were maybe the size of three fingers, but the affected areas were cut out and hammer and filed, so there is absolutely no bog in it. And that was done maybe 10 or 12 years ago, and the paint is still just as good.”
Amazingly, Steve’s Road Runner has travelled only 136,790km from new. Steve doesn’t drive it much ” he estimates he’s only clocked up 1000 or 1500km in it during the 12 years he has owned it, and it’s never driven in the wet. It’s kept in a garage with a dehumidifier that comes on whenever the weather gets damp outside, which has preserved the body perfectly. This is one of the nicest Road Runners you will find anywhere.
Steve has owned plenty of cars in his time but the Road Runner has remained while others have come and gone. So, is it a keeper? “Yeah,” says Steve, “I think so, and it’s really an investment as well. But it is pretty special to me. The other thing is, when my mother died, and this was years ago, when I was about 15 or 16, they didn’t leave me a lot of money ” it was just a little bit of money and I put that away. Then this car came up and I desperately wanted it, but didn’t have the money to buy it, so I used the money my mother gave me. I poured all my inheritance and bought the car. So it is a bit special to me.”