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Plymouth built the Road Runner as a bare-bones budget muscle car for 1969, then midway through the model year quietly dropped in a 440 Six Barrel engine and a fiberglass hood under the A12 option code. This Vitamin C Orange example, sourced from the Brothers Collection, represents one of the most aggressive running changes of the entire muscle car era. Few A12 cars survive with this level of documentation. See what made the mid-year package so different.
A 1967 Barracuda wearing ‘AAR’ badging is borrowing a name that wouldn’t exist as a real Plymouth package for three more years. That contradiction is exactly what makes this custom build interesting – a first-year redesigned Barracuda dressed up as a legend that hadn’t been built yet. Here’s what the real 1967 Barracuda offered from the factory, and where the AAR name actually came from.
Arizona’s Concours in the Hills pulled in more than 1,000 cars this year, and the American muscle parked among the exotics proved it still owns the crowd. Here’s what went down at Fountain Hills’ biggest annual car show — and why the Fords, Dodges, and Chevys held their own against six-figure supercars.
Plymouth built the Road Runner to be cheap, honest, and fast, a muscle car for buyers who could not afford one. But the 1968 example Jeff Fleming shares with Lou Costabile hides the most feared engine Chrysler ever built beneath its budget bodywork: the legendary 426 Hemi. Finished in striking blue and idling with that unmistakable menace, it turns the cartoon-bird image into something far more serious. Watch and hear why a genuine Hemi Road Runner is such a rare prize.
Most muscle cars of 1967 made you pay extra for the engine that mattered, the Plymouth GTX just built it in standard, wrapping a 440 Super Commando inside comfort-focused styling borrowed from the upscale Satellite. Buyers chasing even more performance could step up to the fabled 426 Hemi, but most stuck with the 440 for good reason. Here is why Plymouth’s gentleman’s muscle car approach to the GTX still holds up as one of the smarter muscle car formulas of its era.
Plymouth built just fourteen 1971 Barracuda convertibles, and only seven of those got the 426 Hemi – a rarity so extreme it turned the Hemi ‘Cuda convertible into the most valuable muscle car ever sold at auction. One example brought $3.5 million in 2014, a record that still stands for Detroit’s muscle car era, while another chased a $4.8 million bid without finding a buyer.
Plymouth licensed a cartoon character’s name and horn sound for a production car, then built an entire ad campaign around selling speed without the luxury price tag. This period commercial for the 1970 Road Runner captures the muscle car boom at its confident peak, years before insurance hikes and emissions rules changed everything. It’s a glimpse of exactly how Plymouth wanted buyers to see the car the moment it hit showrooms.
A 1969 Mustang Mach 1 sank into the dirt of a Colorado junkyard for 37 years, filling with raccoon droppings and looking like the kind of car that should stay exactly where it is. David Freiburger and Mike Finnegan of Roadkill disagree, and set out to get the ‘Disgustang’ running and driving anyway. The junkyard itself has its own history, tied to a family known for wild builds of its own. Watch to see just how far gone a car can be before Roadkill calls it unsalvageable.
Fewer than a handful of genuine 1971 Hemicuda convertibles left the Plymouth factory, making this 425-horsepower example from The Brothers Collection one of the rarest muscle cars in existence. V8TV’s Muscle Car of the Week series takes it for a spin in episode 245, pairing the last year of the 426 Hemi with a body style almost nobody ordered it in. Watch to see just how special this combination really is.
The 1970s Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda is the muscle car that makes even Ferraris green with envy. With its daring colors, hood pins, and pistol grip shifters, this car screams suave and macho in one growl. Though only 652 were made, each Hemi ‘Cuda is a treasure, especially the 14 convertibles. It boasts a 0-60 mph in 5.8 seconds with a tire-shredding glory. The Hemi ‘Cuda’s legendary status is solidified with appearances in Need for Speed and Fast and Furious 6. Who knew muscle could be so glamorous?
Jim Patterson has owned his 1967 Plymouth Belvedere GTX, Bright Silver paint, 426 Hemi, four-speed manual, since 1980, which means he’s lived with this car longer than most of its story has been told. Lou Costabile caught up with Jim and his Hemi car at the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals in Rosemont, Illinois. Four and a half decades of ownership comes with details no spec sheet can capture. Watch to hear Jim tell it himself.
The 1969-1973 Plymouth Fury never chased quarter-mile glory, but its bold “fuselage” styling made it one of the more quietly daring full-size cars of its era. Plymouth kept the same sculptural shape for five model years, refreshing details annually instead of redesigning from scratch. It’s a design chapter often overlooked in Mopar’s muscle car story, and one that’s aged better than plenty of flashier contemporaries. Watch to see why this generation still turns heads.