Could They Sell This Today?

[Gateclyve Photographic]

When comparing modern muscle cars to their 50 year old ancestors, we see that creature comforts are now a basic requirement, where they used to be either optional, or not allowed.

The original Plymouth Road Runner might have been the best example of the bare-bones '60s Detroit supercar. Most certainly it was the most successful. So could something like that ever be more than a footnote product today?

Here's a Bangshift 11 as to why not.

11. There are no suitable, cheap, mass-produced vehicles (other than maybe single-cab short-bed pickups) upon which to base such a model..

10. Large dealer groups (the real customers of manufacturers) don't much order low-profit "strippers" anymore and don't want the complications (inventory, warranty) of such relatively low-profit models..

9. There no longer is a similar "youth market" for new cars, and today's kids couldn't afford new "Road Runner-style" vehicles in sufficient volume to insure profitability. .

8. Power production is now so technologically easy that there's little need for weight consciousness.

7. A mass-market "junior supercar" would run contrary to the global "meta-messages" that most OEM marketing operations are selling.

6. Reduced take rates and fuel economy/emissions regulations increase the price of V8s.

5. The need to charge a disproportionate price premium for V8s to manage profitability and make lesser powertrains more price-attractive increase the price of V8s.

4. There's no need anymore to homologate any options for competition and the bean-counters don't want to budget development, certification, and ,marketing costs for a low-profit niche model that would likely cannibalize sales from higher-profit, higher volume models.

3. There's too much profit in selling no-VIN, off-road "Super Stock" models which have no impact on CAFE compliance and no marketing, certification, or warranty costs..

2. OEMs have avoided another "insurance crisis" by moving high-performance offerings up-market.

1. Old folks, who are the primary market for traditional "muscle," want "luxury" and performance.

[Dan Barlow]

There's the possibility. But it would have to be electric .

[squirrel]

It would be quite illegal to sell them with a registerable VIN....they would never meet modern safety and emissions laws.

and if they were built as they were back then, the lack of quality just wouldn't do for today's discriminating buyer.

A lot has changed in 50 years.

[Gateclyve Photographic]

Sorry for the confusion, but I wasn't suggesting they could sell a 1968-spec car today. A modern "Road Runner-type" car would have to meet current emissions and safety regulations. But an OEM could certainly build a fairly low-content, regulatory-compliant sedan with big power. They won't but they theoretically could.

Note that someone other than the major OEMs could probably build 325 semi-clones per year under a 2015 law:

Under the Low Volume Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Act of 2015, manufacturers who fall within the definition of a replica motor vehicle manufacturer will be exempted from complying with most FMVSS safety and emissions standards. The legislation defines replica motor vehicle as “ a motor vehicle produced by a low-volume manufacturer and that (i) is intended to resemble the body of another motor vehicle that was manufactured not less than 25 years before the manufacture of the replica motor vehicle; and (ii) is manufactured under a license for the product configuration, trade dress, trademark, or patent, for the motor vehicle that is intended to be replicated from the original manufacturer, its successors or assignees, or current owner of such product configuration, trade dress, trademark, or patent rights.”

NHTSA has unreasonably delayed implementing regulations, however. Although the law would except the replicas from some FMVSS standards, they would need to have emissions-compliant engines. And a qualifying manufacturer cannot sell more than 5,000 total vehicles of any kind in a single year.

[Gateclyve Photographic]

There's the possibility. But it would have to be electric .

Not very charged up about the prospects of an electric Road Runner.

[squirrel]

To make something that fits the concept of the Road Runner (or the GTO, etc), they'd have to have a cheap midsize RWD platform, and a relatively cheap but powerful engine from a larger car that they could stuff into it. They just don't make that stuff today. And the design cost for a new platform these days is pretty high. It just ain't gonna happen, for the 11 reasons you listed, plus a lot more.

But we can still buy old cars pretty reasonable, and drop big engines in them, and go fast in a fun, crude way. How fast, and how crude, is up to you and your budget and skills.

[Dan Barlow]

Well , as you stated to Jim , I figured it would have to be a car built by the big 3 and have to pass all regs . On of the worst things about prentice being killed of was the death of the solstice . GM could have just put LS1s in them to be a hero .

[RockJustRock]

The Dodge Scat Pack cars ARE the modern Road Runner. It is just that the basic car is SO pricey, leaving off a little extra plush doesn't do much to the bottom line.

http://www.cnet.com/roadshow/reviews/2019-dodge-challenger-review/

[oletrux4evr]

Hijack......

Road Runners?



End of Hijack.

[RockJustRock]

Actually the Road Runner wasn't THAT big of a thing back then. People went from the fastest car in town to the dream car they could afford and just drive anywhere pretty quickly. '69 Road Runners and Super Bees succumbed to dealer pressure to have just as many options available as GTXs and R/Ts. So it came down to which trim one liked best. While MoPar tamed the Hemi with hydraulic lifters and offered the 440 6 pack, pretty much a Hemi kind of power without the headaches GM and Ford offered their stuff with all kinds of de-tuned versions of the "Hero" engines so you could have all the ID of the fastest version for less. In the overall scheme of things the Z-28 was a poser car. A stick shifted Z driven hard could outrun an automatic L-35 left in Drive the way most people drove back then so the "fast Z" became a legend, but few owners had the cajones to rev them that tight or shift them that hard. Bracket Racing wasn't a "thing" until the 70s so hardly any muscle cars actually saw a real dragstrip. Kids just putted around in their stickered up cars. And read the magazines.

I'm reminded of the battle for fastest car in our high school. One kid with a K code Mustang was Joe Racer. He didn't drag race but did spectator drags at the stock car track. Another had a '67 Malibu with an L-79 327. Both cars were 4 speeds. They raced and the Joe Racer guy won. Then they traded cars and Joe Racer driving the Chevelle blew the freakin' doors off Billy Farmboy in Joe's Mustang. Everyone then said "It's all in how you drive them".

[Eric]

Could you sell an old school type bare bones muscle car or any vehicle for that matter . NO!!!
He's my.................... top 11 reasons in no order
#1)Road noise, Even those of us with old cars/trucks get into a newer vehicle and it is much quitter , And there is nothing to gain skipping the noise killing/proofing. as the safety gear makes the vehicle bloated anyways.

#2)quality , People even those that are in the old car hobby, complain about todays cars costing xyz and the cheap plastic/etc used in them. build it like a 1960's vehicle and people would walk away.


#3)power production , Old cars were not powerful nor fast if you compare them to what we have today. That 350 hp 327 doesn't look all that great when 2.3 liter 4 bangers hammer out 340hp and 330 ft lb. most of the halo muscle cars from back in the day were 14 second or worse cars. Even with todays rubber put on a restored to oem stock one, they still are slugs. They feel fast because the power is given out like a bull in a china shop. it feels brutal . and one of my complaints of newer muscle ,they are too smooth, the bull in a china shop was part of the charm of the older muscle/pony cars. but the general buying public would not buy a new car that was a handful when you dropped the hammer.

#4)shear size.. Yes todays cars are big or at least look huge. but can you even think of how large a new 2 door muscle car that you could get 3 ADULTS in the back seat without a shoe horn. and a trunk as big as a 69 charger had.

#5)manual features. After having cars with power windows and locks, even for me, that loves old cars, it is a royal pain in the butt to reach over the center console and try to roll down the pass side window. Not being able to flick a switch to lock the doors doesn't seem to be a pain until you want to put and alarm on it. oh, and reaching to lock the pass side door isn't fun either. Could live without tilt but having said that some non tilt cars I've had the wheel placement sucked, it might have been great for the guy that is 6'3" but. And that is a problem when you are marketing a vehicle to all sized drivers.

#6) manual brakes and steering .. Not with the nanny state regulations. Not having anti lock brakes would not fly with todays buyers or the highway safety dept. And steering would not fly, not with todays wide rubber. I do wish they trash the electric power steering as it is numb and has zero feel/feedback. but with all the nanny controls to help you keep the car on the road they rather the electric that the smarter than you computer can turn. same with the brakes.

#7) Market share.. basic vehicles have such a small market it cost way to much to catalog the different parts, design/engineer the parts/ test the parts/ and warehouse them. You gain nothing going back to manual windows and locks, They are not cheaper to make, and anyone that's had manual windows from any vehicle that was build with them in the last 20 years, they don't break anymore than manual ones either.

#8) vehicle buyers... Today They want a vehicle they can live with every day all year, one of the first things most in the old car hobby do is add a/c to a ride that it is not working or didn't have it, or wish it had it. The daily of a driver baking in a all black vinyl interior and showing up to work in an office sweaty and stinky passed. save for the hippesters, but that's another thread.

#9 ) cost.. Taking all the features out and making it all e-manual isn't going to make the vehicle any cheaper to build Than the one with the basic power features (p/b,p/s,p/l,p/w) So, what buyer is going to buy that manual everything, when the one with the power brakes/steer/windows/locks is the same money??
Even if the basic power features added 1000.00 to the sticker of the one without, most are not buying vehicles cash, and that extra 13 bucks a month (assuming you paid sticker for the vehicle) isn't going to push many to the manual/bare bones unit.

#10 ) Living with it, long term. Sure back in the day when a loaded car added 25-30% of the cost of the unit, that today would be classed as basic STANDARD features. It made sense to skip over the option boxes . Todays vehicles other than power seats, most of what was costly options back in the day are standard on todays. That taking them out isn't going to save you much if anything in money, or make the vehicle light enough to make a difference in performance on that 310h/p turbo 4 mustang.
Many buyers have a much longer commute daily in miles, and a good amount of them stuck in heavy traffic. You'd not buy a recliner to sit in while at home that you didn't find comfortable, same with vehicles for most of the buying public.

#11 ) resale.. Even if the built a bare bones feels like a bull in a china shop but that isn't any faster. The pool of buyers when you get sick of it is tiny.
Many in the hobby, forget that most owners of older muscle/pony cars are not driving them much, sorry driving it 3000 miles a year isn't driving it much. When most new vehicles when 4 years old have a 100k+ on them. Cars today are too good, and when I say that, you can not legally find their performance limits, and when you try and get caught, it isn't like it used to be that the officer , gives you a lashing and then throws your papers at you and says get out of here. So any tiny performance gain in handling from the tiny drop in weight over the same vehicle with all the basic standard equipment of today. You can't use it, nor fine that limit.

#12 bonus ) Automakers today will not build the performance model of a platform and package it in the basic car.
They never build a hellcat with nothing. and the base v6 car would be a hard sell, and when they did offer a bare bones model of a platform, they charged you more for it. I remember looking at 3rd gen f bodies when new and the LE-1 cars They wanted more than the well optioned but not loaded ones.


In closing, MY opinion is even though I'd love a new vette/Camaro or mustang with no nanny controls/no abs/ and none of the tech that is going to be outdated fast and worthless. Not from any performance gain I'd feel I might get, but the idea in a "keeper" the lack of crap to fail and have to fix. I don't know if I could live with it. Sure if I was well off enough to have a new vehicle that was the week end fun car only. That you had another vehicle you drove daily. maybe. If the performance gain was worth it and I'd have a place to USE that extra gain. Something most don't have. Not in this country. You can't just hop on a highway road and do 140+ for miles and miles, legally. And not many tracks you can either.
Today there is no down side of not getting a bare bones car. So why would you.?
I mean, say you could walk into a dealer and walk out with a demon with nothing but 2seats, a steering wheel, and pedals. or a hell cat, or a v8 mustang/Camaro. You can't hook it on the street, and at the track it go to fast and most likely get kicked out. and told don't come back until you add a laundry list of racing safety gear. Heck Not even any of the LSR locations are going to let you just roll up in a car that can top out at 180-200mph in geans and a tee shirt. It isn't like back in the day were top speed was 120mph or less, as they didn't have overdrive, and those 3.90 gears . Todays basic sedan can top 160, the performace models are 180+ without try'n .
As a petrohead, I can't see a market for a bare bones performance car that you'd have to live with everyday .

The closest thing you can get to on the market would be the masda mk5 (miada) and they only sell 9-12k units a year , and very few of those are the base car. I can't see a bare bones charger/mustang/Camaro doing any better. We've been spoiled, way too long.

[squirrel]

yup, that's pretty much "it".

[Monster]

NO !!!

[Gateclyve Photographic]

Actually the Road Runner wasn't THAT big of a thing back then. .

The 1968 Road Runner sold over 200% of what the Plymouth market planners predicted and was the number three selling intermediate high-performance car -- bested only by Pontiac GTO and Chevrolet SS-396 Chevelle. It prompted a wave of "budget" and "junior" supercars over the next four model years.

Of course, RJR is correct that dealers tended to load them up with profitable options as they became available, diluting the concept.

Whether or not all of that made it a "big . . . thing back then" is a matter of opinion. Certainly there wasn't a muscle marketer in Detroit who wouldn't have wanted to replicate the initial numbers Plymouth earned with it. That the option package hung on in some form until Iacocca killed all the fun during Chrysler's first bailout indicates how strongly some at Plymouth believed in the mystique. By the time it ended, it was a tape-stripe paper tiger that wasn't "that big of a thing." . . a mousetrap that no longer caught any mice . . .

[Gateclyve Photographic]

#12 bonus ) Automakers today will not build the performance model of a platform and package it in the basic car.
They never build a hellcat with nothing. and the base v6 car would be a hard sell, and when they did offer a bare bones model of a platform, they charged you more for it. I remember looking at 3rd gen f bodies when new and the LE-1 cars They wanted more than the well optioned but not loaded ones.

One cannot discount the effect of Corporate Average Fuel Economy regulations here. Every hot V8 drives the average down . . . something as wild as a Hellcat even more so . . . So if they're statistically limited to a certain number of V8s in the mix, the natural tendency is to price them to gain as much profit as possible. OEMs are in the money business.

Does anyone really believe that a V8 anything now costs $10,000+ more to build than a four or six-cylinder version of the same car? Hint: the V8 mark-up is not nearly as high in trucks, where the CAFE standards are still much looser, and the costs are spread out over more units.

As to whether folks will live with "bare bones" outside of fleet sales, I'll defer to the collective judgment.

As an anecdote, I theoretically tried to option together a short-bed, single-cab V8 pickup with all the necessary performance equipment. a year or two ago -- just to see what it would cost In this particular brand, selecting a suitable limited-slip axle with a decent gear ratio triggered all sorts of mandatory "option packages" which ruined the pricing and only added luxury and weight. Most disappointing.

OEMs build what the dealers want and the government will allow. .