70 Plymouth GTX Commercial

A decades-old Plymouth GTX commercial resurfaces, and its comment section turns into something more than nostalgia — a detailed 0-to-60 report from a former owner, an argument over which B-body Plymouth actually looked best, and one story about a nearly identical burnt orange GTX destroyed in a 1980 drag race that one viewer calls almost too painful to watch.

Somewhere in the comments under this decades-old Plymouth commercial sits one of the more quietly devastating stories you’ll find on a car video: a burnt orange 1970 GTX, identical to the one in this ad, that a viewer says was destroyed in a drag race back in 1980. He calls it almost too heartbreaking to look at. Everyone else in the thread is busy arguing about a vacuum-operated hood scoop, real horsepower numbers, and whether this was, in fact, the best-looking B-body Plymouth ever built.

The Vacuum-Operated Hood Scoop Nobody Could Stop Talking About

The commercial leans hard on the GTX’s functional hood scoop, and one commenter — clearly unimpressed by the ad’s restrained narration — insists the vacuum-operated feature was, in their words, plenty impressive on its own without needing extra hype. That scoop wasn’t just for show. It fed cooler outside air directly to the carburetor, and its vacuum-actuated opening mechanism was a genuine engineering detail Plymouth’s marketing team had every right to brag about.

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Boss of the Mopar Muscle Car Line — Marketing That Meant It

Plymouth positioned the GTX as the upscale sibling to the cheaper, stripped-down Road Runner, sharing the same B-body platform but wrapping it in more standard equipment and a higher price point aimed at buyers who wanted comfort alongside horsepower. One commenter flatly calls the 1970 B-body GTX the best-looking muscle car Plymouth ever produced, and another backs that up by naming it “the Banker’s Muscle Car” — expensive enough to signal status, fast enough to back it up.

440 Super Commando Standard, 440 Six-Barrel and Hemi Optional

Standard power for the 1970 GTX came from a 440 cubic inch Super Commando V8 — Plymouth’s own badge for the engine Dodge marketed as the Magnum — with the 440 Six-Barrel and the 426 Hemi available as options for buyers who wanted more. One commenter specifically calls out the 440 Six Pack’s horsepower as “plenty,” a modest understatement for an engine that turned an already quick car into one of the most feared stoplight opponents on the road in 1970.

5.9 Seconds to 60 in a Box-Stock Family Car

The most detailed comment on the whole video comes from someone who owned a box-stock olive green 1970 GTX with the 440 four-barrel, automatic transmission, and 3.23 rear gears. He recorded 0-60 in 5.9 seconds and a quarter mile of 12.9 seconds at 103 mph — numbers pulled from a car with factory chrome mag wheels and factory air conditioning, not a stripped race build. For 1970, those figures put the GTX solidly among the quickest cars sold to the general public.

Drum Brakes: The GTX’s Achilles Heel at Highway Speed

That same commenter is candid about the car’s biggest weakness: drum brakes. He describes getting on them hard from 120 mph and having essentially no stopping power left by the time he’d slowed to 15 mph, until the drums cooled back down. It’s a detail that period road tests rarely dwelt on but that owners who actually pushed these cars hard learned to respect — and work around — quickly.

A Sway Bar and a Mopar Diff — The Two Mods Owners Swore By

To compensate for the factory setup’s handling limits, that same GTX owner added an aftermarket sway bar and a Mopar limited-slip differential, changes he says “considerably” improved the car’s manners. Both were common, relatively simple upgrades among period owners who wanted to keep the factory drivetrain largely intact while sharpening how the car actually behaved under hard cornering and acceleration.

The Burnt Orange GTX That Still Haunts One Fan

The comment that lingers longest describes spotting a burnt orange 1970 GTX in this exact commercial, matching the color of a Road Runner the same viewer owned decades ago before it was destroyed in a 1980 drag race. He writes that the car in the ad is “almost too heartbreaking to look at” because it looks exactly how his own car did the day he bought it, new, thirty-five years before writing the comment.

Why the GTX Never Got the Spotlight the Road Runner Did

Despite the praise stacked up in this comment section, the GTX has always lived somewhat in the Road Runner’s shadow commercially — overshadowed by its cheaper, louder sibling’s cartoon mascot and lower price point. Watching this commercial and reading the reactions underneath it, it’s hard not to wonder whether Plymouth’s own marketing, however stylish, simply never gave the GTX the dedicated spotlight that period buyers clearly felt it deserved.

The 1970 GTX’s Place in Plymouth’s Lineup

1970 marked the final model year before Plymouth’s B-body muscle cars underwent a significant restyle, making the GTX from this commercial the last of its specific body style before the changeover. That timing gives the car a bookend quality among collectors — the culmination of a design language Plymouth had been refining since the mid-1960s, right before the whole lineup shifted direction for 1971.

What a Restored GTX Costs Today

A numbers-matching 1970 GTX with the 440 Six-Barrel or 426 Hemi can command well into six figures at major auctions, driven largely by how few genuinely documented examples survive compared to the more common Road Runner. Even a solid four-barrel automatic car like the one described in the comments — box stock, well cared for — routinely trades for a fraction of that Hemi money while still delivering the driving experience that made the car desirable in the first place.

Air Grabber vs. Standard Hood — A GTX Buyer’s Choice

Beyond the base hood scoop shown in this commercial, 1970 GTX buyers could option the Air Grabber hood — a driver-activated scoop that popped open under acceleration for a dramatic visual and functional effect. It’s a detail that shows up in period brochures more than in this particular ad, and one that adds another layer of variation for buyers and restorers trying to pin down exactly how a specific GTX left the factory.

The Song Playing Under the Ad

One commenter singles out the music itself, calling it one of their all-time favorites and tying it directly to memories of the GTX as “the Banker’s Muscle Car.” Period commercials rarely get remembered for their soundtrack choices decades later, but this one clearly stuck, becoming as much a part of the car’s legacy in the comments as the 440 under the hood.

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