Rare 426 Hemi Road Runner vs Olds 442 W-30 – 1/4 Mile Drag Race Video- Road Test TV

A genuine 426 Hemi Road Runner, one of only 152 built in 1970, lines up against a 1972 Oldsmobile 442 W-30, one of just 772 built that year, in a quarter-mile grudge match that splits the difference between torque and top end. The W-30’s blueprinted 455 gets off the line first, but the Hemi’s legendary top-end pull closes the gap by the traps. Viewers have been arguing in the comments ever since about which car actually deserved the win. Watch the run and decide for yourself which factory got it right.

Torque and horsepower do not always agree about who should win. Sometimes the numbers on paper point one way, and the timing lights at the end of the strip point somewhere else entirely. That is the tension baked into this matchup between two of Chrysler and GM’s rarest muscle-car survivors, one of them so scarce its own family calls it the family jewel. Viewers who watched this race walked away arguing about which car actually deserved the win, torque monster or top-end screamer, and fifty years after both left the factory floor, that argument still is not settled.

Two Cars, Two Different Kinds of Rare

The two cars pulling up to the line are rare in the literal, factory-build-sheet sense: the 1970 Plymouth Road Runner in this race is a genuine 426 Hemi car, and production of Hemi Road Runners that model year sits at just 152 units. Its opponent, a 1972 Oldsmobile 442 W-30, is not much more common – Olds built only 772 W-30s that year, each one hand-picked to leave the factory with the W-30’s specific blueprinted 455 and heavy-duty suspension package. Finding either car intact and running decades later would be notable on its own. Finding both of them lined up on the same strip, driven hard instead of trailered to a show field, is the kind of matchup that does not happen often even at dedicated vintage drag events.

⚑ Featured Gear

Start Car Conversations →

← Prev Next →

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

The Hemi’s Reputation Walks In First

Chrysler’s 426 Hemi carries a mythology that precedes almost every race it enters, and for good reason – the dual-quad, hemispherical-combustion-chamber big block was built as a race engine first and a street engine second, wearing a factory rating of 425 horsepower that most owners and historians agree undersold its real output. That reputation is exactly why so many viewers expected the Road Runner to simply walk away from the Olds. Comment after comment on the video reflects that assumption going in, with Mopar loyalists ready to call the outcome before the burnouts were even finished.

The W-30’s Case for Respect

What the Hemi’s reputation does not account for is what Oldsmobile actually built into the W-30 package. The 455 under that 442’s hood was not a garden-variety big block; it came with a specific high-flow intake, a factory-installed fiberglass hood scoop feeding cooler outside air directly to the carburetor, and a torque curve that a lot of contemporary road tests described as flatter and stronger off idle than nearly anything else on the market in the early 1970s. Torque, not horsepower, wins a race off the line, and that is precisely where the W-30 built its advantage over the Hemi on this particular pass.

Where the Numbers Actually Diverged

The result splits the difference in a way that rewards paying close attention rather than just watching the finish line. The Olds’ torque advantage let it leave the line harder and post the quicker reaction off the start, exactly the kind of result its factory engineering would predict. But by the traps, the Hemi’s high-rpm breathing and legendary top-end pull had closed most of the gap and posted the higher trap speed of the two cars, evidence that its reputation for finishing strong was not just Mopar mythology. Neither number tells the whole story alone.

What Viewers Took Away From It

The reaction in the comments has been one of genuine surprise, more than the usual partisan cheering for one brand over another. Several viewers said outright that they had not realized the W-30 was capable of hanging with a genuine Hemi car, with one commenter calling the outcome proof that you should never judge a book by its cover when it comes to early-1970s Oldsmobile muscle. Others used the race as an excuse to share their own memories of owning 442s decades ago, cruising with the windows down and the exhaust doing most of the talking.

The Rarity Math Behind Both Builds

It is worth sitting with just how small these production numbers actually are. A 152-unit run for the Hemi Road Runner means that even in 1970, when the car was new, most Plymouth dealers would never see one on their lot. The 772-unit W-30 run was not much larger, and Oldsmobile buyers who wanted the full W-30 spec had to specifically order past the standard 442, skipping the more common single four-barrel setups that made up the bulk of 442 production that model year. Both cars represent buyers who went out of their way, and paid a premium, to get the fastest version their brand offered.

A Rivalry Bigger Than One Quarter Mile

This particular pairing also sits inside a much larger, decades-long argument between Mopar and GM loyalists about which era, which engine family, and which factory really built the best muscle car of the early 1970s. Neither side has ever fully conceded the point, and matchups like this one, filmed and posted for anyone to review frame by frame, function almost like evidence in an ongoing trial that never quite reaches a verdict. That is part of why videos like this one keep pulling in views years after they were first published – the argument itself has not aged out of relevance.

Keeping Cars Like This on the Track

None of this matters if the cars themselves stay parked. Both of these vehicles are worth real money today, well into six figures for clean, numbers-matching examples of either model, and it would be easy for an owner to simply trailer a car like this to shows and never risk it on pavement again. The fact that this channel keeps finding owners willing to actually run their rare survivors down a quarter mile, rather than let them sit under a car cover, is exactly what keeps its back catalog worth revisiting.

Why This Matchup Still Resonates

Half a century after both of these cars rolled off their respective assembly lines, the appeal is not really about crowning a winner. It is about watching two completely different engineering philosophies, one built around brute low-end torque and the other around top-end breathing and rpm, get tested against each other in the most honest way a muscle car can be tested. The numbers on the timing board settle the specific race. They do not settle the argument, and that is exactly why it is worth watching for yourself.

See the full video above and join the conversation in the comments.

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Related posts:

1971 Dodge Challenger 383 – vintage road test BARN FIND !! RARE 70 426 Hemi Road Runner – 1 of 44 – 1st 70 Road Runner – Road Test TV WE’VE FOUND THE FIRST DEAD DODGE DEMON? ENGINE KNOCKING! Dodge Charger Daytona vs. Stock Charger vs. Hellcat: Wind Tunnel HEMI Engine – Explained Is It Okay To Skip Gears In A Manual Transmission? 1967 Ford Mustang Fastback Eleanor Build 1970 Oldsmobile 442 W-30 – Never Bested! 426 Hemi Cuda vs 426 Hemi Coronet R/T – 1/4 mile drag race video – Road Test TV Rare L88 427 Corvette vs Olds 442 W30 – 1/4 Mile Drag Race – Old School – Road Test TV