Birth of the roadrunner

[Doubleclutch]

I like to know the history of my rides and here some stuff on the LAMONCHA oh I mean Roadrunner. How many knew how close the car came to being named LA-MONCHA?

From a speech by Jack Smith, the father of the Roadrunner, who forced the production of the car---

The name
The horn
The production problems
The decal in the glovebox
The Plymouth advantage of having 50% of the police car market in 1968--heavy duty brakes, suspension parts and cooling systems all on the shelf.

The car was authorized at 2000 units and ended up selling 45,000!!! Could have sold many more excepting production problems. Trucks left the factory loaded with just RRs and buyers met the trucks at the dealers and bought them right off the trucks. What a history!!!


http://www.allpar.com/corporate/bios/jack-smith-roadrunner.html


Our Christmas just ended (both kids working tomorrow)so we celebrated today. Merry Christmas to all my new friends at FBBO!! Chuck

 

[Budnicks]

yea Road Runner was allot better name for sure... much better marketing potential too...... a late Merry Mopar Christmas, right back at ya...

 

[Bruzilla]

Great article! I especially loved this: "Chrysler eventually copied them, but before they could do so, Chrysler had to create a plan aimed specifically at the mid-sized market. At the time, the Plymouth product planning group was split into two sub-groups. One group did the Furys together with the mid-sized cars, with the latter a sort of second thought. The other group did the compact and the pony cars."

More proof that at the time they were made, the Barracudas, Challengers, and other Mustang clones were not classified as muscle cars... they were all known as pony cars.

 

[lewtot184]

my first new car was a '68 383 4spd road runner. aa1 with black interior, 2dr post. fun car!

 

[Photon440]

Great article! I especially loved this: "Chrysler eventually copied them, but before they could do so, Chrysler had to create a plan aimed specifically at the mid-sized market. At the time, the Plymouth product planning group was split into two sub-groups. One group did the Furys together with the mid-sized cars, with the latter a sort of second thought. The other group did the compact and the pony cars." More proof that at the time they were made, the Barracudas, Challengers, and other Mustang clones were not classified as muscle cars... they were all known as pony cars.

I noticed that too. I wonder why they used the term "pony car". The Barracuda wasn't a Mustang clone...it was on sale to the public before the Mustang was released. A fun article to read, I like seeing old history brought to light. -=Photon440=-