The car show I attended in 2014, only two cars from the ’70s were on display and I already showed you one of them, so here’s the other: a 1975 Plymouth Road Runner. Painted in neon green, with long, bulging flanks, it was the first car I looked at upon my arrival. As somewhat of a turkey, it definitely had the most charm, and at the time, it served as its owner’s daily, making it definite CC material.
Let’s take a closer look at this Big Bird from Plymouth, in its one and only year offered as a third-generation Fury sibling.
Based, as it was, on the formal-looking “small Fury,” the 1975 Road Runner was somewhat lost on consumers and was a one-year-only deal. The Road Runner package was moved over to the F-body Volare the following year before finally being killed off after 1980. As odd as the overall package may have seemed to contemporary buyers, though, I feel that the angry taillights really work well for a muscle car, in addition to suiting the “Fury” nameplate quite well.
The rest of the body doesn’t convey the aggressive theme as fully, but the tires, wheels, and graphics do a good job of stating the Road Runner’s intentions. If I saw one of these things on two-lane blacktop, I’d be inclined to move over. Especially out here in Indiana, where there are no emissions inspections.
The owner told me there are no cats on the car. And while I can’t tell much too much from looking at the carburetor–other than that the air cleaner doesn’t look stock–I know those headers look the business. That engine–at a large 360 CID–still looks rather lost in the engine bay. It’s still crazy to me that 5.9 liters was considered small back in the day; the top engine in 1975 was the 400 (unless you were a cop). Note the full array of accessories still present, including A/C.
I was told that tooling around town nets about fifteen miles per gallon. I’m sure all those uncatalyzed, incompletely burned hydrocarbons make cruising around a wonderfully aromatic experience, although I didn’t get a chance to hear this particular car run. In the voting, I came close to giving this the nod as my favorite, but it was edged out by a very clean, unmodified ’65 Chevelle Malibu. Sorry Road Runner.
Not that I feel especially terrible. I always wanted that damn roadrunner to get eaten in those famous cartoons and in final B-body form, apparently Chrysler was afraid this was increasingly likely.
Just to refresh everyone’s memory, this is what the car and its graphics package looked like stock. The “Road Runner” decals on the back do look very cool, and make me want to take a time machine back to the mid ’70s and race through the New Mexico desert. The owner of the green car told me he didn’t care for the theme, which seems misguided (though I do like the look of his car as well). Maybe for those who lived through the era, the factory package doesn’t seem as trippy.
I can more confidently say that the changes made to the interior–with a ton of non-stock black vinyl–are unflattering. These weren’t especially nice to sit inside of, versus their GM Colonnade competitors, but the striped cloth the owner says the car came with stock seems much less depressing. Oh well, he didn’t build the car for me.
My favorite details are the aggressive rake and the “Plymouth” emblazoned on the side of the car. “Pretty” wasn’t a consideration; it makes a very macho statement, which makes the references to that cheeky cartoon bird all the more amusing.
It’s said that, properly equipped, these late Road Runners were actually a rare bright spot in the darkness of ’70s performance cars. If that’s true, then all the factors leading to the end of the muscle car era must have been oppressive in their presence by 1975. That’s a real shame, but it also makes this B-body somewhat of a rebel and fun sight for those in the know. The owner, for his part, wasn’t especially concerned with how others saw his car. He was proud of owning a rather rare, well-kept secret among American performance cars, and why not? Let the others go after the crowd pleasers. At CC, we’re all about obscure novelties like this Plymouth and I have immense respect for this car.
Note: a rerun of an older post.
In `75 I was a HS sophomore and already deep into the car hobby. My dad finally decided to trade his ‘baby poop’ butterscotch colored `73 Gran Fury 4dr. HT, so I tagged along to help pick out his next car. In the back lot, there it was, but how do I convince Dad to buy it? A Marina Blue metallic `75 Road Runner coupe with white interior and even the sunroof! So I coaxed dad into letting me show him what I found, and he liked it!! I couldn’t believe it! It was a 360 V8, fairly loaded with PS, PB, PW, P/driver’s seat, AC, cruise, tilt, AM-FM stereo, and the seldom-seen sunroof. Some time after he bought it, Dad confessed the car made him feel a bit younger, and he got a kick out of friend’s reactions to it. I loved that car–an actual “Roadrunner” no less!
“Baby poop butterscotch”. Even after all these years without ever once thinking of that color, I can picture it perfectly. Funny how somewhat peculiar colors just stick in your mind as being associated with certain cars.
Yep, that description took me back too. Right back to young parenthood, and changing time! Marina Blue has much better associations.
There did seem to be a preponderance of Gran Furys and Newports in that color.
Baby poop butterscotch would be a welcome change today verses the same boring black, white, or five shades of gray on 99 percent of the cars on the road today.
And to think then MPC released a kit of a 1976 Road Runner based on the Fury instead of the Volare.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/splattergraphics/11990716503
Maybe that would give ideas to someone who wants to create a “phantom” Fury-based 1976 Road Runner. 😉
I love this car. While I would prefer it to be factory stock in appearance, I can’t complain with what the owner did. I have a real soft spot for the ‘past-their-prime’ muscle cars – colonnade 442s, gran sports, GTOs, and Chevelle SS, ‘74 GTO, duster 360s, cordoba-Daytona Chargers, and these road runners and Charger SEs with the continental hump. This would undoubtedly be my vote at the show.
Me too, I too would prefer stock appearance(or at least the chrome left chrome), but the desperate hangers on of the muscle car era I’ve always had a soft spot for. These Roadrunners weren’t what they were a mere 4 years prior but the underpinnings really weren’t that much different. I often wonder how if not for sky high insurance premiums and detuned engines or fuel crisis these sorts of cars would have fared. We tend to view the 67-71 era as the stylistic peak of the genre, but if legitimate performance machines had existed into this formalized baroque styling would they be as negatively viewed as they are today?
FWIU there was hope of building a Neon Road Runner in the ’90s, which probably would’ve been the ACR with a cartoon mascot and an ad campaign. It didn’t happen because WB had an exclusive contract with GM, but I’m not sure why Chrysler’s next move wasn’t calling it Super Bee.
Ugh! So sad and so ugly. What a let down from the 68 and 69.
I like these, and despite the bumper regs. the rear one is nice piece of metal stamping, prefer mine in chrome like the red one
From day one, along with the GM Colonade cars, I thought these were just hideous. Still do, but I tolerate them better than I did 50 years ago. This was when GM and Mopar “lost their way” styling wise. Ford had gotten lost a long time before that.
I ordered a ’74 Roadrunner, and somehow the order got messed up and it came in that (IMHO, it’s horrible)”Frosty Green Poly” and as a 400 engined Satellite Sebring, with a white half vinyl top (Why did anyone ever want a vinyl top?), and a horrible checkered interior. Shifter on the column, too. I passed on it, even though I could have had it at cost. The dealer immediately put the order in again, but wasn’t sure it would come as a ’74 or ’75, in “Silver Frost Metallic”, or whatever they called it for ’75, with red stripes, black interior, as all interiors should be, 360 Engine, auto. Just before Thanksgiving, I was driving down the road the dealership was on, and on a car transport was a ’74, and a ’75, in the correct colors. I followed the truck to the dealership and the next day, I picked up my ’74. The ’75 stayed on the lot for months. My car was, if not the last ’74 Roadrunner or Satellite built, it was very close to it. If I was buying it today, it wouldn’t have been silver, but I like the look of it. My car survives in the Las Vegas area, restored to much better than new with a 440 stroker making about 700 HP. It’s been nicely repainted in the original color, and looks brand new inside and out. It has 3.92 gears in it, with a Gear Vendor’s overdrive added. And a nice stereo. The present owner’s brother bought it the day after I traded it in, and he bought it, running OK, in 1984. The original 360 engine, totally rebuilt is in a bag in his garage, if someone wanted to put it back into it.