Now, here’s something that I was not expecting to see in the staging lanes at National Trail Raceway: an internet legend that I’ve seen a couple of times over the years! Whenever the subject of “El Camino conversions” pops up, sooner or later a picture involving a yellow 1969 Plymouth Roadrunner comes up. Well, it’s in black primer, but this is that car and it was hitting the quarter-mile. There wasn’t a mob of angry purists surrounding the Plymouth with pitchforks and torches, so I went up to the driver to get the story.
In the 1980s, an enterprising individual needed something to haul car parts around. The Roadrunner, then just another old car, was sitting with nothing to do, so the original 440 four-speed car was sliced, diced and given the ute treatment. This isn’t a Satellite wagon with the roof cut off, either…this is a real-deal RM21 Roadrunner that was cut up. Normally, that would be enough to send Mopar fans into some sort of rage-induced tantrum, but that wasn’t the case here.
In person, the car looks pretty good. The conversion looks to have taken some of the roofline of a mid-1970s Chevrolet El Camino, but the integration looks great (*SEE BELOW), and while the bed is as shallow as you’d expect with a converted coupe, it is still plenty useful. The owner was shaking down a new 440 built by Lou Performance and had just shot the car in black primer in the hopes that it would sell better than the yellow it has been (originally, the car was B5 Blue). The interior is a bit rough, but passable. The pistol-grip four-speed shifter does cure a lot of ills when seen.
At $18,500, we have to say that the price might seem steep to most people, but then again, it’s not like you will see another ute-converted Road Runner anytime soon that runs, drives, has a fresh big-block and is restoration-worthy. Then again, we only hope any “restoration” this Roadrunner gets is mild at best. Clean up the interior, re-shoot the car B5 Blue, put it on a set of period-correct Cragars, and get back to hauling so much more than just ass around town.
*FOLLOW UP: There isn’t one single solitary ounce of Chevrolet anywhere in this Roadrunner, not even in the back window area. That’s all Mopar…the metal is from the line where the quarter-window should have been, filled in.
Hope Ron Ward see this.He should do this to his
The profile of the car just doesn’t look right. The roof proportion is out of whack. I say it would be a hard sell for that price.
The only 69 roadrunners with factory 440’s were 6 pack lift off hood cars. Bet this was a more common 383.
It was a factory 383 4 speed car there was a typo , it has a 440 now , I do have the # matching 383