Mopar Perfection – A Bare Bones Hemi Powered 1968 Plymouth Road Runner
When the 1968 Plymouth Road Runner was introduced, the midsize car with the funny horn (Beep! Beep!) jumped right into the muscle car wars of the era. The model was launched as a no-frills, go-fast muscle car that was priced competitively with the more heavily optioned GTOs and SS Chevelles of the day. The bare-bones, high-performance cars sold well, finishing third (behind the GTO and the Chevelle SS) in sales.
Nearly 45,000 Road Runners were sold in either two-door sedan or two-door hardtop form that first year. Of that number, 1,109 were equipped with the monster 426c.i. Hemi powerplant and just 576 had the four-speed manual transmission. Breaking down the numbers further, only 169 of the Hemi-equipped hardtops were built, and just 108 of those came with the four-speed.
Enter this black ’68 belonging to David Clinkscales. It’s one of the miniscule 108 Hemi-powered, four-speed-equipped hardtops. To add to its rarity, it has a one-of-a-kind backstory. At some point, the car was ostensibly owned by two pharmacists who sent the car to Mopar restoration specialist Dave Badalson and his American Performance shop in Richmond, Virginia.
Badalson never met the pharmacists. He’d receive a cash payment in the mail from Florida each month for whatever work was completed. One day the friendly agents of the Drug Enforcement Agency arrived at the shop to inform Badalson that his clients weren’t legal pharmacists. That adventure ended with Badalson getting possession of the Road Runner, completing the restoration, and selling the rare muscle to a small museum in rural Oklahoma.
That’s where David found the car and after a year’s courtship with the museum owner, he was able to buy the Road Runner and bring it home of North Carolina. David’s car is a prime example of a Road Runner in its pure no-frills form. It’s got a black vinyl bench seat, steel wheels with dog dish caps, drum brakes all around, and no A/C. You get the picture. Just a monster dual-quad 426c.i. Hemi that conservatively produces 425 horsepower and 490 lb-ft of torque. The Hemi was a $714 option which, when you consider that most Road Runners had a dealer price around $4,000, made the step up in power over a 383c.i. big block V8 a pricey commitment.
Adding to the provenance of David’s car is the fact that all the major components – engine, transmission, rearend, etc. – are all original. So is the sheet metal. While David has only owned the historic Mopar for a couple years, he’s looking forward to showing it off at local car shows and cruise nights and reminding people of Plymouth’s bold foray into the muscle car wars.
Photos by Todd Ryden
