My favorite muscle car: The 1967 Plymouth GTX

Out of a garage that once held a ’63 Impala, a ’65 GTO convertible, and a ’68 Camaro SS, one lifelong muscle car owner picked a 1967 Plymouth GTX as his all-time favorite – a car built around a standard 375-horsepower 440 Super Commando that only 737 buyers skipped in favor of the pricier Hemi option. Read on to find out why Plymouth’s ‘gentleman’s muscle car’ beat out three genuinely legendary rivals for the top spot.

Ask a lifelong muscle car owner to pick a single favorite out of a garage that once held a ’63 Impala, a ’65 GTO, and a ’68 Camaro SS, and you’d expect the answer to be complicated at best. It isn’t. For this particular gearhead, the standout was a 1967 Plymouth GTX, a car Plymouth built specifically to be the thinking man’s supercar – standard with a genuinely massive 440 Super Commando V8 rated at 375 horsepower, no upgrades or special orders required to get there. Only 737 buyers that year (720 hardtops and a mere 17 convertibles) paid the roughly $550 premium to swap in the legendary 426 Hemi instead, making the standard 440 car the one most owners actually drove and lived with day to day. What is it about a car built to be Plymouth’s ‘gentleman’s muscle car’ that beat out a GTO and a Camaro SS for the top spot in someone’s memory?

⚑ Featured Gear

Start Car Conversations →

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

The 440 Super Commando: All the Muscle, None of the Fuss

Plymouth positioned the GTX above the raw, drag-strip-focused Road Runner as an upscale option, equipping it with bucket seats, embossed vinyl trim, a console-mounted tachometer, and a standard TorqueFlite automatic transmission, though a four-speed manual was available as an option for buyers who wanted to shift for themselves. The standard 375-horsepower 440 didn’t need Tri-Power carburetion gimmicks or a temperamental multi-carb setup to deliver genuine big-block thrills; it was simply a strong, reliable single four-barrel big-block doing its job every single day without drama or special tuning knowledge required.

Why a 440 Beat a Hemi in the Real World

The 426 Hemi got all the magazine covers and the street reputation, but only 737 buyers actually wrote the roughly $550 check for it in 1967, and there’s a reason for that beyond simple sticker price. A street Hemi wanted constant tuning attention, ran considerably hotter in traffic, and demanded a level of mechanical fussiness that most daily owners simply didn’t want to deal with behind the wheel every single day. The 440 delivered nearly identical seat-of-the-pants thrills with none of that ongoing drama, which is exactly why this particular owner’s all-time favorite wasn’t the rarest or most expensive car in his personal fleet.

1967: The Debut Year of a New Nameplate

The GTX debuted specifically for the 1967 model year as Plymouth’s direct answer to GM’s SS package cars and Pontiac’s runaway GTO success, aimed squarely at buyers who wanted genuine comfort alongside big-block power rather than a stripped-down, budget-focused approach. That philosophy stood in deliberate contrast to the Road Runner, which arrived a year later in 1968 specifically as a bare-bones, low-cost alternative built around the same basic B-body platform but aimed at buyers chasing performance-per-dollar rather than upscale trim and creature comforts.

The Hood Callouts That Told the Whole Story

GTX hoods that year carried simulated NACA-style, non-functional scoops with engine displacement callouts stamped right into the design – ‘440’ badges on Super Commando cars, ‘426’ badges on the rare Hemi-equipped examples – giving anyone walking through a dealer lot or a parking lot an instant, unmistakable read on exactly what sat under the hood without needing to pop it open and check. That kind of visual honesty was common across the muscle car era, but the GTX’s execution of it remains one of the cleaner, more restrained versions among its late-1960s competitors from other Detroit brands.

Production Numbers That Show What Buyers Actually Wanted

Plymouth built roughly 12,000 GTX hardtops and about 680 convertibles for the 1967 model year (published tallies differ by a few hundred cars), and the standard 440 car was, by a wide margin, the version most owners actually put real miles on rather than trailering to shows. Those numbers tell a clear story about what genuine buyers valued when it came time to actually sign the order form and hand over real money – usable, everyday big-block performance over the ultimate bragging-rights engine that demanded far more attention and far more mechanical sympathy to keep running properly.

Comparing a Life With a GTO, an Impala, and a Camaro SS

This particular owner’s garage over the years included a 1963 Impala 283 backed by a T-10 four-speed, a 1965 GTO convertible with Tri-Power carburetion, a 1967 Plymouth GTX, and finally a 1968 Camaro SS/RS with the 396/375 combination – a genuine cross-section of the entire muscle car era’s biggest names, spanning three different Detroit manufacturers and two different transmission philosophies. Picking a single favorite out of that kind of lineup means the GTX had to beat out cars with just as much street credibility and just as much raw horsepower on paper.

Why the GTX Never Got the Recognition the Road Runner Did

Despite arriving first and offering genuinely more standard equipment, the GTX has spent decades living somewhat in the shadow of its own younger sibling, the Road Runner, which captured far more cultural attention thanks to its cartoon branding, horn that honked like the actual Looney Tunes character, and aggressively low base price aimed at younger buyers. The GTX’s more upscale, understated approach never generated the same pop-culture buzz, even though the underlying engineering and performance credentials were every bit as serious as anything wearing a Road Runner badge from the very same era.

What Collectors Look for in a GTX Today

Buyers shopping the GTX market today generally chase documented, numbers-matching 440 cars first, since genuine Hemi examples are so rare and expensive that they occupy an entirely different price tier reserved for serious, deep-pocketed collectors rather than typical enthusiast buyers. A correctly optioned 440 hardtop with the factory bucket seats, console tachometer, and original hood callouts intact represents the sweet spot most GTX shoppers actually target – genuinely rare, genuinely powerful, and considerably more attainable than chasing one of the 737 Hemi cars built that year.

A Favorite That Earned Its Spot Honestly

Out of a garage full of legitimately great muscle cars spanning three manufacturers and half a decade, the GTX earned its place at the top not through the biggest horsepower number or the rarest engine option, but through the simple, everyday experience of actually owning and driving one without drama. Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Republished by Blog Post Promoter