Plymouth GTX 1970 440+6 4 Speed in Tor Red

Tom Bright had owned this Tor Red 1970 Plymouth GTX for exactly three weeks when he brought it to the 26th Annual Belvidere MOPAR Happening in Illinois, and strangers were already giving him thumbs up before he had finished parking. It carries the 440 Six Barrel and a four-speed, a combination far scarcer than most of the people walking past it realized. The GTX was Plymouth’s gentleman’s muscle car, positioned above the Road Runner. Read on for what makes this specific configuration so hard to find.

Every serious car person keeps a list, whether or not they admit it exists. Somewhere on that list is one specific combination of model year, engine, transmission and color that has been sitting there for years, refusing to turn up at any price the list-keeper can justify. Tom Bright found his, and when he rolled it into the Belvidere MOPAR Happening in July of 2016 he had owned it for three weeks. Strangers were giving him thumbs up before he had the thing parked. What most of them almost certainly did not register, walking past a red Plymouth in a field full of red Plymouths, is how narrow the road was that produced this exact car.

A Bucket List Car and Three Weeks of Thumbs Up

The GTX occupied a specific and slightly awkward position in Plymouth’s lineup. Introduced in 1967, it was pitched as the upscale performance Belvedere, with standard bucket seats, better trim and a big engine as the baseline rather than an option. Then Plymouth introduced the Road Runner in 1968 as the stripped-down cheap alternative, and the Road Runner promptly outsold its more expensive sibling by an enormous margin. The GTX spent the rest of its life as the more civilized choice for buyers who wanted the performance without the rubber floor mats, which is exactly why fewer of them exist today.

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The Six Barrel Sat Between a 440 and a Hemi

For 1970, the GTX buyer had three engines available. The standard fitment was the 440 Super Commando with a single four-barrel, rated at 375 horsepower. At the top sat the 426 Street Hemi at 425 horsepower, carrying a price that kept it exceedingly rare. In between was the 440 Six Barrel, rated at 390 horsepower and a monstrous 490 lb-ft of torque, and for a great many buyers it was the smartest choice on the sheet. It cost a fraction of what the Hemi did, it was dramatically easier to live with, and on the street it was very nearly as quick.

Three Two-Barrels and 1,350 CFM of Airflow

The Six Barrel setup used three Holley two-barrel carburetors mounted on an aluminum intake manifold. The center carburetor handled normal driving on its own. Under hard throttle, vacuum diaphragms opened the outboard carburetors, and total airflow jumped to roughly thirteen hundred and fifty cubic feet per minute. The transition, when everything is properly adjusted, produces one of the most memorable sensations in American performance cars: a distinct change in both engine note and thrust as the outer carburetors come in. When it is not properly adjusted, it produces a bog and a lot of swearing.

Tor Red Was Not a Subtle Choice

Tor Red, coded EV2, is one of the most recognizable colors Chrysler ever mixed, and it was not chosen by people looking to blend into traffic. The high-impact palette of this era was a marketing decision aimed squarely at younger buyers, and it worked so well that these colors have become shorthand for the entire period. A Tor Red car with a black interior and a four-speed makes a very specific statement about what the original buyer wanted, and it is a large part of why cars in these colors consistently attract more attention than identical examples in white or green.

GTX Versus Road Runner: Same Bones, Different Argument

The difference between a GTX and a Road Runner is worth understanding properly because it drives value in both directions. Mechanically they shared the B-body platform and could share engines. The GTX came standard with the 440, better interior appointments and more exterior brightwork. The Road Runner started with a 383 and a deliberately austere cabin. Road Runners sold in far greater numbers, so GTXs are scarcer, but Road Runners carry the cultural cachet. The result is a market where a well-documented GTX often represents better value per dollar than an equivalent Road Runner.

1970 Was the Last Year of This Body

1970 was the final year for this generation of Plymouth’s B-body before the substantial 1971 redesign, and the styling had reached its peak. The revised grille treatment, the non-functional side scoops and the cleaner rear panel gave the car a more resolved look than the 1968 and 1969 versions. Anyone shopping this era tends to gravitate toward 1970 for exactly that reason, and the fact that the emissions and insurance squeeze arrived in force the following year makes it the last unambiguously good year of the run.

How Few 440+6 Four-Speeds Actually Left the Factory

Production of 1970 GTXs was modest to begin with, somewhere north of seven thousand cars in total across all engines and transmissions. The 440 Six Barrel accounted for only a few hundred of those. Narrow that group to cars fitted with the four-speed manual rather than the TorqueFlite and the number drops into territory where individual cars become traceable. Add a specific color and the population is small enough to count. This is why a car that looks like just another red Plymouth at a swap meet can be one of the rarest things in the field.

The Air Grabber and Other Things Worth Checking

Anyone evaluating one of these should check for the Air Grabber hood, an option that opened a vacuum-operated scoop in the hood surface to feed cold air directly to the carburetors. It is a desirable and expensive option that is also possible to add later, so documentation matters. Beyond that, the essential verification items are the fender tag, the broadcast sheet if it survived under the seat springs or carpet, the engine casting and stamping, and the rear axle code. Six Barrel cars received specific hardware that a knowledgeable inspection will confirm or contradict quickly.

Why the Insurance Industry Killed This Car

What ended cars like this was not fuel prices or emissions rules, at least not first. It was insurance. Underwriters worked out that young men buying high-compression big blocks were producing claims at a rate the industry could not sustain, and surcharges on performance models made them unaffordable to exactly the demographic that wanted them. Sales fell off a cliff, and Chrysler responded by detuning and eventually discontinuing the engines. The GTX name itself lived on as a Road Runner option package from 1972 through 1974, applied to any Road Runner ordered with the 440, before it finally disappeared for good.

Swap Meets Are Still Where the Good Ones Turn Up

The encouraging part of this story is where the car turned up. Not at a headline auction with a spotlight and an auctioneer, but in a field in Belvidere, Illinois, at a regional Mopar meet, changing hands between people who knew what it was. That is still where a great many of the good cars move. Somebody’s bucket list gets shorter and somebody else’s garage opens up. Three weeks in and Tom Bright was already collecting thumbs up from strangers, which is about as good a return on a bucket list as anyone gets. What is the one car still sitting on your list? Tell us in the comments below.

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