First published in the January 2003 issue of Street Machine

This folks, is a 1968 Plymouth Road Runner, one of the horniest muscle cars ever built in the United States. Designed to be affordable for the younger driver, the base car was a stripped-out street racer with a worked 383 big-block, uprated suspension, brakes and tyres. The car had few visual frills, but made its impact with bright paint, blacked-out bonnet and cool Road Runner decals. Tying the car’s name and marketing in with the Warner Brothers character helped Plymouth sell 44,599 examples in just one year. Even the horn was specially designed to mimic the cartoon bird’s “Meep! Meep!”

Part of what makes this particular example so special is that it came from the factory with a 426-cube Hemi V8 under the bonnet. In this guise, the Road Runner was a genuine supercar, sold with the warning that the car “is intended for supervised acceleration trials and is not intended for highway or general road use.” Perfect!

Hemi equals expensive, and this is especially true of cars like the Road Runner. Only 1019 ’68 Road Runners were sold new with the Hemi option, meaning that original, matching-number examples are extremely valuable, commanding up to twice as much as their lesser brethren of equal condition.

You’d have to be ga ga to modify such a rare car, right? Not if you are a genial Kiwi named Barry Keach who exquisitely restored and carefully modified his Road Runner to create a car that looks, goes, stops and handles better than the original, yet the whole deal can be easily returned to standard condition, should the need ever arise.

The car was located in LA in 1994, by Barry and his good friend Grant May. The car had done some 36,700 miles, with more than a few passes down the quarter mile among them, and they knew it was a good thing. It was shipped to New Zealand where Grant undertook the responsibility of realising Barry’s dream.

“Grant wanted to set a high standard and raise things to the next level,” Barry says proudly, and the Road Runner was stripped to a shell and acid dipped, then smoothed over and painted on a rotisserie. “Every single part of the car has been pulled apart and detailed, right down to the dash and the heater box.”

The boys wanted to get every last detail as correct as possible to OE specs, a job which entailed numerous trips to the US for research and part-finding purposes. This included finding an original warranty decal for the glovebox and locating a production marking stamp for the fan blades. What couldn’t be bought was made. The car uses all new glass…with the original date codes marked on it!

That is the kind of mind-bending attention to detail that makes restorers go weak at the knees, but Barry had far more exciting plans in mind than just creating a museum piece.

“The idea was to build a modern day muscle car,” he says. “It had to have the look of the 70s but drive like the 90s.” The main visual clue to this philosophy are the German-made, 18-inch MK Motorsport rims. With their chrome finish and Penstar centre caps, they suit the car’s era, while giving the already raunchy Road Runner even more attitude.

While the car was lauded for its handling upon release, it was never going to frighten a Porsche, and Barry knew it could be improved. Urethane bushes stiffen things nicely, with heavy duty torsion bars and fully-adjustable Koni shocks transforming the car’s abilities on the twisty stuff. Just as important are decent brakes and they don’t come much better than Wilwood ventilated discs and four-spot calipers!

The Road Runner was rated from the factory at 425hp, but Barry wanted more. He was not so silly as to wreck a perfectly good piece of American auto history, though – the precious OE motor was put safely in storage and a Mopar Performance block sourced to modify. The external goodies remain largely factory – including the carbs and exhaust – with the extra grunt deriving entirely from internal mods.

The motor was stroked to 490 cubes with a Crower crank, complemented by 10.25:1 JE pistons, lumpy Crower roller cam, Crower roller rockers, Nascar-spec conrods, Crower pushrods and Manley heavy-duty valve springs. The one touch of modern high tech is an MSD ignition module for reliable spark. Running on 110 octane fuel, the Hemi is good for a dyno-proven 570hp. All that grunt runs through the Road Runner’s factory driveline, consisting of a New Process 833 four-speed gearbox with Hurst shifter and the 9¾ Dyna 60 posi-trac diff.

While the Road Runner was designed as a bare-bones stripper, Barry chose to make use of a few tasteful interior upgrades from the car’s more luxurious stablemate, the GTX. The most notable of these are the leather bucket seats and the GTX’s AM/FM radio facia – which hides a cunningly concealed modern CD system from prying eyes.

All of which equals one hell of a car, which has collected a mass of silverware at shows around New Zealand. However, despite the car’s eye-watering detail and rarity, Barry loves driving the Road Runner.

“I’ve enjoyed showing the car, but I think I’ve had enough now,” he says. “We take the car out, even if it is just out to lunch on Sunday, but I don’t hammer it, I’ve got a blown Dodge Challenger for that!”

MUSCLE MAN

Barry isn’t motivated by awards, it’s about the attention his Road Runner garners from people who understand the concept. He also enjoys the ‘wow’ factor with its startling paint, cute factory detailing and sheer horsepower attracting stares and comments from people of all ages and descriptions – it’s just that kinda car. His first Mopar was a Plymouth GTX which he raced in the 70s. “It ran 12s as well as being driven on the street,” he says. “At night we drove it home with open headers and drag slicks running on race gas!” Barry also has a blown Hemi Challenger that was regularly drag raced but now sits in his busy carpet warehouse. “When the staff need a bit of an incentive I go out and light the tyres up inside the warehouse!”

BARRY KEACH
1968 PLYMOUTH ROAD RUNNER HEMI