Classic cars change hands for a whole variety of reasons: they’re toys; they’re investments; they’re heirlooms; or sometimes they’ve just been hanging out behind some guy’s shed, waiting until someone comes along to change their fate. In the case of Dave Johnson, this ’68 Plymouth Road Runner was part of his father Ian’s collection, who passed away just over 10 years ago.

First published in the August 2026 issue of Street Machine

“He was only 56,” Dave says sadly. “He was too young when he passed, but yeah, he had a few cars. That was sort of his hobby – collecting cars – and that Road Runner was the stand-out for me. So, I said that I wanted that car, and my brothers were fine with that.”

Coated in Sunfire Yellow, rolling on some Center Lines and packing a 440 big-block that had been dropped in at some point, the Road Runner was a good-looking ride, and Dave cruised it around on club plates for a few years.

“I think we were driving it for four or five years before I decided to restore it,” Dave reckons. “One of the front chassis rails was rusted out. So, I got that replaced, and we drove it around for a bit longer after that, and I thought, ‘Oh, well there’s a few spots of rust; we might as well get them fixed sooner rather than later.’”

Looking to give the Plymouth a bit of a spruce-up, Dave took the car to Brendan at Rise Up Restorations in his hometown of Corowa, on the NSW-Victorian border, but things soon got out of hand. It’s just one of those undeniable facts: water is wet, the sky is blue, and every car build starts as a ‘quick tidy-up’. “We were just gonna take it into Brendan’s, and it was just going to stay on the wheels and get stripped back,” Dave laughs. “Then it ended up on a rotisserie and got blasted.”

With all its sins laid bare, it was clear the Road Runner was not quite as clean and tidy as they’d first thought, so the team at Rise Up cut it open and removed the rusty metal with extreme prejudice. It seems the B-body Mopar was absolutely riddled with car cancer, with rust popping up just about everywhere, prompting the guys to replace much of the rear sills, windscreen surrounds, wheelarches, turret corners and more. We don’t even have to imagine how much work went into it; this is a new millennium after all, and the guys at Rise Up documented it all for Instagram – you should check it out.

After a serious amount of cutting, fabricating, welding, grinding and sanding, the guys finally had a clean bodyshell to work with, and after coating the lower extremities with bedliner, they covered the outer skin in House Of Kolor Tangelo, and as anyone with a set of functioning eyeballs can see, the results are stunning.

For Dave, the colour choice was easy: “I walked in the shop and saw Daniel Szabolics’s Camaro doorslammer with that orange in the sun, and I was just sold. I was like, ‘Oh, I’m painting the Plymouth that colour.’”

With the body now looking amazing, there was never a question of bolting any dirty old parts back onto the car; instead, everything was pulled apart, refurbished, repainted or just replaced. 

Inside, the original dash has been stitched up, and the carpet, door trims and hoodlining have been replaced, but when the trimmer looked at the seats, he told Dave to save his cash. The only major change from factory – apart from a newer Pro Ratchet shifter – was the inclusion of a standalone Haltech uC-10 digital dash.

“I like all the extra stuff that you get with having the uC-10, like with monitoring trans temp and all that sort of stuff,” Dave explains. Talking transmissions, Dave has stuck with the traditional Chrysler 727 Torqueflite, which has been given a reverse-pattern valvebody and some billet internals by South West Automatics in Western Sydney. Out back, the factory Dodge diff has been flicked and replaced by a nine-inch with all the bells and whistles, and it’s sitting atop a pair of Gazzard Brothers mono-leaf springs. Steering and stopping has been given an upgrade as well thanks to some heavy-duty torsion bars, QA1 control arms, Pedders shocks and a full set of Wilwood brakes front and rear.

Unlike Wile E Coyote, who always seemed to make do with the worst parts from the ACME products catalogue, this Road Runner features only premium gear, and that mangy ol’ scavenger has no chance up against 600hp of Dandy Engines-built big-block.

Dave had tried messing a little with the 440 big-block in the past, but it’s not a patch on the engine that’s in there now. “I put one of them Mutha Thumpr cams in it,” he recalls. “It sounded okay, but it didn’t make it go any better!”

Lou, Frank and the boys at Dandy took the big-block and filled it with a bunch of parts Dave had sourced from Speed Pro in Melbourne. The factory 440 block was bored and stroked out to 508 cubes using a Molnar crank and rods, then decked out with a pair of Edelbrock heads and a Torker 2 intake with a 950cfm Quick Fuel carby to top it off. While the Comp Cams solid bumpstick sounds a bit chunky for the street at 256 and 266 at 50thou, the extra cubes help balance things out. All up, it’s good for a dyno-proven 600hp and 640lb-ft, and with a 4500rpm SDE converter, it’ll bake the tyres good and proper when Dave’s foot is feeling twitchy.

Unveiled at Chryslers On The Murray 2026, the Road Runner impressed everyone who saw it in the show hall, and the big hardtop scored a place in the Top Five American cars at the event. You’ve got to admit, the combination of the eye-melting paint and the black Weld beadlock wheels is hard to beat.

Now that the build is done, Dave reckons it’s time to enjoy the car to the fullest. “I was trying to get it done for Bright Rod Run, but I was two weeks out and it wasn’t worth the risk,” he says, so no doubt that’s on the calendar for next year, along with a few other shows and cruises.

“I don’t want to do anything crazy – just enjoy it,” Dave says. “Once it gets a few marks, I might take it down the track a couple of times, just to see how it goes. It’d be pretty cool if it dipped into the 10s.”

Looking at what the car was compared to where it is now, what does Dave reckon his dad would have thought of it? “I reckon he would be stoked with it,” he says with conviction. “He’d absolutely love it – I have no doubt.” 

DAVE JOHNSON
1968 PLYMOUTH ROAD RUNNER

THANKS
Rise Up Restorations; Dandy Engines; South West Auto-matics; Kings Motorsport Wiring; Speed Pro; Haltech; GJ Drivelines; Elkos; Custom Mopar Restos