Which year is this Roadrunner?

Plymouth built the Road Runner across three closely related seasons before its first major redesign, and the differences between 1968, 1969, and 1970 come down to details easy to miss at a glance – taillight placement, grille bars, even brake hardware. Nailing down the right year matters, too: a 1969 440 Six-Barrel car is one of Plymouth’s rarest factory muscle car packages, with only 1,412 ever built. Can you spot which year this one is?

A classic green muscle car parked on a plain background.

A green Road Runner sits alone against a plain background, daring anyone who knows their Mopar trivia to nail down the exact model year just by looking. Plymouth built this car across three closely related seasons — 1968, 1969, and 1970 — and the changes between them are subtle enough that even seasoned muscle car fans sometimes need a second look. Get the year wrong and you might mix up two engines that couldn’t be more different in personality, or misjudge just how rare the car in front of you actually is. The clues are all there in the sheet metal, if you know where to look. So which year is this actually from — and what gives it away?

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The Details That Separate 1968 From 1969

The original 1968 Road Runner introduced the model on a Belvedere-based platform, offering a standard 383 and an optional 426 Hemi, but carried a simpler face than the cars that followed. For 1969, Plymouth kept the same basic body but refined the taillights — now sitting flush with the rear fender corner and deck lid rather than standing slightly proud — while the grille picked up a dual horizontal bar insert shared with the standard Belvedere and Satellite lines. That was also the year Plymouth added a genuine convertible body style and, midyear, the 440 Six-Barrel option that turned an already quick car into something closer to a factory drag special.

Why 1970 Looks Like a Completely Different Car

Plymouth gave the Road Runner its most significant visual overhaul for 1970, with a new grille, revised front fenders, quarter panels, and hood, plus a switch to single-piston Kelsey-Hayes disc brakes in place of the smaller four-piston Bendix units used in 1968 and 1969. If the taillights sit flush and the grille wears twin horizontal bars, you’re likely looking at a 1969; if the whole front and rear end feels reshaped compared to the original 1968 body, 1970 is the better bet.

Whichever year this particular Road Runner turns out to be, identifying it correctly matters more than trivia bragging rights — a 1969 440 Six-Barrel car, in particular, is a genuinely rare find, with Plymouth building only 1,412 examples of that specific package across both coupe and hardtop body styles.

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