This week for Fan Car Friday  we bring you Rich and his iconic 1970 Plymouth RoadRunner.  Fan Car Friday is a segment where we want to share with the world the automobiles that our fans have. We have absolutely no affiliation/relationship with the cars, the build or the owners. This post was made with written consent from the owner.

“Hello, my name is Rich and I’m from upstate NY. This is my 1970 Road Runner. I purchased this car in 1987 in Carolina from the original owner. The car is a numbers matching 383 H.P. The transmission is a 727 automatic with an 8 3\4 posi and 3:23 gears. The color is original to the car but has been painted once about 20 years ago. When I purchased the car it had 100k on the odometer. Over the years I have went through the motor transmission and rear end. The car is a summer driver and I have had a lot of good times with it. I visited FantomWorks while were were on vacation this year and took the tour with Dan we had a great time. Too bad your not doing the reality end anymore FantomWorks was by far the best on tv.“

Thanks for the compliments Rich and glad to hear you enjoyed the tour.  That is probably my favorite color of green and Audrey is a big fan of your vehicle. She’s totally a MOPAR person.  Thanks for sharing.

The Plymouth Road Runner is a mid-size car with a focus on performance built by Plymouth in the United States between 1968 and 1980. By 1968, some of the original muscle cars were moving away from their roots as relatively cheap, fast cars as they gained features and increased in price. Plymouth developed the Road Runner to market a lower priced, basic trim model to its upscale GTX.

The 1970 model year brought new front and rear end looks to the basic 1968 body, and it would prove to be another success. Updates included a new grille, a cloth & vinyl bench seat, hood, front fenders, quarter panels, single-piston Kelsey-Hayes disc brakes (improved from the rather small-rotor Bendix 4 piston calipers of ’68 – ’69 ), and even non-functional scoops in the rear quarters. The design and functionality of the Air Grabber option was changed. A switch below the dash actuated a vacuum servo to slowly raise the forward-facing scoop, exposing shark-like teeth on either side. “High Impact” colors, with names like In-Violet, Moulin Rouge, and Vitamin C, were options available for that year. The engine lineup was left unchanged although a heavy-duty three-speed manual became the standard transmission, relegating the four-speed to the option list along with the TorqueFlite automatic. This was to be the second and last year of the Road Runner convertible, with only 834 made. The new high-back bucket seats shared with other Chrysler products which featured built-in headrests.

The 440 Six Barrel remained an option for 1970. The 1969 “M” Code Edelbrock aluminum intake was replaced by a factory-produced cast iron piece; however there were some early cars built prior to January 1, 1970 that were equipped with the left over aluminum Edelbrock intake from the year prior.

Sales of the 1970 Road Runner dropped by more than 50 percent over the previous year to around 41,000 units (about 1,000 ahead of Pontiac’s GTO but still about 13,000 units behind Chevy’s Chevelle SS-396/454). This would also be the last year of the Road Runner convertible with 834 total production. Only 3 Hemi (R) code Road Runner convertibles were built (plus 1 to Canada). The declining sales of Road Runner and other muscle cars were the result of a move by insurance companies to add surcharges for muscle car policies – making insurance premiums for high-performance vehicles a very expensive proposition. Also, Plymouth introduced another bargain-basement muscle car for 1970, the compact Duster 340 which was powered by a 275 hp (205 kW) 340 4-BBL V8 which in the lighter-weight compact A-body could perform as well if not better than a 383 Road Runner. Furthermore, the Duster 340 was priced even lower than the Road Runner and its smaller engine qualified it for much lower insurance rates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Road_Runner

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