Rich H.
Well-Known Member
My name is Rich, and this is my 1969 Plymouth GTX.
There are many of them like it, but this one is mine.
I have had it for awhile.
The only reason I call it "The GTX", is because.....that's what I have always called it.
Not because I'm trying to say mine's more special than anything else.
It haven't ever applied a human name to it, but I will openly admit to having a talk with the car from time to time.
I was probably 2&1/2 or 3 when my sister came up to me excitedly "Richie! Dad got a new car! Come see".
We went outside and saw Dad had bought a brand new, beautiful shiny green '68 Road Runner.
Sister pointed to the bird on the door...
"Look! It's the ROAD RUNNER!". I was awestruck. My sister and I bounced on the springy
front bench seat and beeped the horn...She pointed at the bird on the horn pad.
We beeped the horn enough times that Mom told us to quit.
How he acquired it, and some of the things that happened with it are fun personal stories I'll save for later.
It's an overused cliche', but a person could say "the die was cast" and they wouldn't be too far off.
When I got to driving age, Dad was going to help me get a car and asked what I wanted. For awhile I had no idea.
I found a car I really loved (although at the time I did not relate it to the experience of him owning a similar car), and showed him a picture in the Auto Trader (remember those?). "1969 GTX, 440 4 speed, $2800" (with a picture of said vehicle).
Dad laughed...."440 4 speed?? No G__amn way! You'll kill yourself!"
I gave up and said, well it took me a week to find that one and I don't know what else I want...so whatever you approve of is what I'll get.
Soon after that, I was the proud owner of an air cooled VW, LOL.
It figured. Dad was way into them at that time and had built a couple.
It had a clean body, was 300 bucks and was and about to die mechanically. Smoke was pouring out of it
as we got home. First swapped in a used engine then built another, my first build.
I did nothing but learn from that car....right up until the point I just didn't want it anymore.
(Dad was right....I did some very questionable things in the VW, that a '69 GTX would not have allowed to happen without serious incident)
There were a pile of other vehicles, a couple of them notable mopars, especially my 68 Charger which maybe I can talk about later.
By the late '80s I'd been to the Mopar Nationals and other shows with a friend and had taken the Charger there. Drove it. Was pretty heavily influenced by those experiences, watching drag racing, enjoying it but not understanding as much as I wanted, checking out cars and parts for days on end. Soaked up the entire culture like a sponge and met some really cool people along the way. Started reading the Direct Connection books and was pretty impressed that Larry Shepard tried to tell people how to achieve goals. Even then Shep's sales pitch was obvious as it was clear those same parts were available other places....but still....it was cool and very helpful.
The friend acquired a roller GTX from another friend or acquaintance and had big plans for it.
The car had no hood, no engine/trans/seats/original axle was gone and replaced, and the biggest problem was
it had obviously been rusted pretty badly, then repaired with metal/pop rivets and bondo, and then painted Do-Do Brown, then aged badly almost to failure again.
(It was really root beer brown metallic, and in retrospect maybe not that horrible). Of course, it was Rattle can black underhood.
In areas the painter missed or where paint was flaking off, original a4 silver was easily seen.....bodywork skills are one thing but how do you go from
silver to brown? It had most of the factory 4 speed parts still in it, but some idiot had cut the trans tunnel out with a torch so it was missing that part.
The story I was told was that people thought it was junked and lost the drivetrain/trans tunnel, then after that someone pieced it together for awhile with other parts
and they did the brown paint job, budget backyard hot rod. Well okay, it is what it is.
The fender tag was gone, thanks to the previous owners. As best we could ascertain the original configuration was:
Lynch Rd build, 440 4 speed, A4 silver, black vinyl roof. The roof was still there and not in bad shape other than
an area that appeared vandalized/cut with a knife. We both believed it probably had a black interior originally as the inner/upper doors
were factory appearing black....however the car had silver windlace which looked very
original, so that may have been either a factory error or something that was changed. The K frame and front end was under it, later
a guru told me the K frame date code appeared correct. It had 11" drum brakes, which would mean
default to 3.54 Dana axle given the rest of the equipment it had. It had PS (still had the box in it), but manual brakes.
It was missing the radio but had one shredded OE speaker so probably just AM.
It had the map light and although the dash wiring was a mess it did have remnants of ignition light, so light package. It had window sill trim/cant remember if that was standard.
I've found no evidence of it ever having console brackets welded to the tunnel, so must assume no console.
I'm sure it was built with the same lower body trim like all 69 GTXs were (but that was gone/holes filled in and never replaced).
One thing messed me up....it had the air grabber cable and "carb air" lever mounted to the dash.
Years later I learned it did not have the air grabber hood originally because there was no proper/factory hole in the firewall for a cable.
Not long after that was learned, I pulled and broke the date-coded (but horrible condition) windshield and found remnants of the organisol hood stripes under
the windshield gasket. So, it had standard performance hood with the block-off panels/no air grabber, but it did have the hood stripes.
I've consulted with a Lynch Rd guru who I highly respect, he is confident the car was built with 15" wheels based on the markings
inside the trunk lid. He's advised it had September 7th 1968 Scheduled production date, based on sequence number comparison.
The only thing I have not been able to ascertain with his help + doing archeology on the car is, what color the stripe
below the original trim was. That one detail will remain anyone's guess.
All in all it was a little of a cheaper combo as GTXs go.
Being an early 69 model year build, I have later come to accept the silver windlace it had as a factory error, and feel pretty confident it had
a black interior based on the inner door and inner quarter paint......but would leave that open to anyone in the future to try to interpret.
......Not that I was ever super concerned about any of that "original" stuff, as it was too far from that.
They're only original once and that ship had sailed.
I've always seen the car as more of a platform to modify, personalize and have alot of fun with....Today I want to
show some respect to the original build but still do my own thing.
Getting back to ancient history:
One day my friend said he found a 440 and 727 for the GTX, and asked could I help him go get it?
Turned out he'd found a $100 '73 New Yorker that ran and drove in the rougher neighborhoods in Detroit.
The triple green New Yorker was rusted dangerously bad on the underbody (more later), and the exterior rusted clear to the roof.....but sure enough it did still
barely run and drive. We went and grabbed it. I was pretty excited for my friend because by that time he had not turned too many wrenches, seemed to want to dive in, and I was looking forward to his journey.
A couple years went by and he had not touched it other than collecting a few parts and other cars. One of them was a '70 GTX, factory plum crazy 440 4 speed car, but rusted
almost in half.....Today it definitely would have been restored, but back then it was parted out.
Long story short one day he told me he was losing his storage facility where the cars were kept and wanted to get rid of them, would I be interested in any of it?
Oh boy.
I bought the GTX, the New Yorker, a gold metallic 6 pack hood he'd got from a swap meet, and the front+rear seats from the now-gone '70 GTX.
The price was 4 digits, and was a good deal but was alot to me at the time. Now, it's less than what those "incorrect for the car" front seat cores cost.
Problem was, like my friend, I really had nowhere to work of my own and did not want to store all of it. So I pulled the 440 and 727 out of the New Yorker
outdoors, in the dirt driveway of friend's storage, using nothing but hand tools, in November in Michigan. Fighting snow and plenty of mud at the same time
I'd arrived with a U-Haul tow behind cherry picker hooked up to my total beater '69 Chrysler 300 to get it done.
I had the New Yorker on jackstands and had just pulled the engine and trans, and heard a terrible screech/loud groan.
Not an hour after I'd been underneath it, the front subframe had ripped the structure out of the vehicle entirely as the attachments along with the subframe itself were rusted that bad. The car literally broke in half right in front of me. I am not a C body hater (I've owned several and was driving a 300 at the time), but that one was the perfect drivetrain donor! The junkman picked it up not long after.
The 440 and 727 both went right into the trunk of the 69 300....which, in itself is a concept.....And I drove it home to my parents' house.
The GTX arrived later.
I hated the brown color so much, there are no pictures, at all, of the car as-received way back then.
The first thing I did was sand it down and shoot some primer on it. It was PPG acrylic lacquer in red oxide, not far from what the factory used. "Red Lead".
My Dad had spray gun and compressor but I couldn't work on the car in the garage, ever.....smaller items like the engine were ok
but not a whole car. That really never stopped me... I did what I needed to do outside and that's where the car lived.
There are many of them like it, but this one is mine.
I have had it for awhile.
The only reason I call it "The GTX", is because.....that's what I have always called it.
Not because I'm trying to say mine's more special than anything else.
It haven't ever applied a human name to it, but I will openly admit to having a talk with the car from time to time.
I was probably 2&1/2 or 3 when my sister came up to me excitedly "Richie! Dad got a new car! Come see".
We went outside and saw Dad had bought a brand new, beautiful shiny green '68 Road Runner.
Sister pointed to the bird on the door...
"Look! It's the ROAD RUNNER!". I was awestruck. My sister and I bounced on the springy
front bench seat and beeped the horn...She pointed at the bird on the horn pad.
We beeped the horn enough times that Mom told us to quit.
How he acquired it, and some of the things that happened with it are fun personal stories I'll save for later.
It's an overused cliche', but a person could say "the die was cast" and they wouldn't be too far off.
When I got to driving age, Dad was going to help me get a car and asked what I wanted. For awhile I had no idea.
I found a car I really loved (although at the time I did not relate it to the experience of him owning a similar car), and showed him a picture in the Auto Trader (remember those?). "1969 GTX, 440 4 speed, $2800" (with a picture of said vehicle).
Dad laughed...."440 4 speed?? No G__amn way! You'll kill yourself!"
I gave up and said, well it took me a week to find that one and I don't know what else I want...so whatever you approve of is what I'll get.
Soon after that, I was the proud owner of an air cooled VW, LOL.
It figured. Dad was way into them at that time and had built a couple.
It had a clean body, was 300 bucks and was and about to die mechanically. Smoke was pouring out of it
as we got home. First swapped in a used engine then built another, my first build.
I did nothing but learn from that car....right up until the point I just didn't want it anymore.
(Dad was right....I did some very questionable things in the VW, that a '69 GTX would not have allowed to happen without serious incident)
There were a pile of other vehicles, a couple of them notable mopars, especially my 68 Charger which maybe I can talk about later.
By the late '80s I'd been to the Mopar Nationals and other shows with a friend and had taken the Charger there. Drove it. Was pretty heavily influenced by those experiences, watching drag racing, enjoying it but not understanding as much as I wanted, checking out cars and parts for days on end. Soaked up the entire culture like a sponge and met some really cool people along the way. Started reading the Direct Connection books and was pretty impressed that Larry Shepard tried to tell people how to achieve goals. Even then Shep's sales pitch was obvious as it was clear those same parts were available other places....but still....it was cool and very helpful.
The friend acquired a roller GTX from another friend or acquaintance and had big plans for it.
The car had no hood, no engine/trans/seats/original axle was gone and replaced, and the biggest problem was
it had obviously been rusted pretty badly, then repaired with metal/pop rivets and bondo, and then painted Do-Do Brown, then aged badly almost to failure again.
(It was really root beer brown metallic, and in retrospect maybe not that horrible). Of course, it was Rattle can black underhood.
In areas the painter missed or where paint was flaking off, original a4 silver was easily seen.....bodywork skills are one thing but how do you go from
silver to brown? It had most of the factory 4 speed parts still in it, but some idiot had cut the trans tunnel out with a torch so it was missing that part.
The story I was told was that people thought it was junked and lost the drivetrain/trans tunnel, then after that someone pieced it together for awhile with other parts
and they did the brown paint job, budget backyard hot rod. Well okay, it is what it is.
The fender tag was gone, thanks to the previous owners. As best we could ascertain the original configuration was:
Lynch Rd build, 440 4 speed, A4 silver, black vinyl roof. The roof was still there and not in bad shape other than
an area that appeared vandalized/cut with a knife. We both believed it probably had a black interior originally as the inner/upper doors
were factory appearing black....however the car had silver windlace which looked very
original, so that may have been either a factory error or something that was changed. The K frame and front end was under it, later
a guru told me the K frame date code appeared correct. It had 11" drum brakes, which would mean
default to 3.54 Dana axle given the rest of the equipment it had. It had PS (still had the box in it), but manual brakes.
It was missing the radio but had one shredded OE speaker so probably just AM.
It had the map light and although the dash wiring was a mess it did have remnants of ignition light, so light package. It had window sill trim/cant remember if that was standard.
I've found no evidence of it ever having console brackets welded to the tunnel, so must assume no console.
I'm sure it was built with the same lower body trim like all 69 GTXs were (but that was gone/holes filled in and never replaced).
One thing messed me up....it had the air grabber cable and "carb air" lever mounted to the dash.
Years later I learned it did not have the air grabber hood originally because there was no proper/factory hole in the firewall for a cable.
Not long after that was learned, I pulled and broke the date-coded (but horrible condition) windshield and found remnants of the organisol hood stripes under
the windshield gasket. So, it had standard performance hood with the block-off panels/no air grabber, but it did have the hood stripes.
I've consulted with a Lynch Rd guru who I highly respect, he is confident the car was built with 15" wheels based on the markings
inside the trunk lid. He's advised it had September 7th 1968 Scheduled production date, based on sequence number comparison.
The only thing I have not been able to ascertain with his help + doing archeology on the car is, what color the stripe
below the original trim was. That one detail will remain anyone's guess.
All in all it was a little of a cheaper combo as GTXs go.
Being an early 69 model year build, I have later come to accept the silver windlace it had as a factory error, and feel pretty confident it had
a black interior based on the inner door and inner quarter paint......but would leave that open to anyone in the future to try to interpret.
......Not that I was ever super concerned about any of that "original" stuff, as it was too far from that.
They're only original once and that ship had sailed.
I've always seen the car as more of a platform to modify, personalize and have alot of fun with....Today I want to
show some respect to the original build but still do my own thing.
Getting back to ancient history:
One day my friend said he found a 440 and 727 for the GTX, and asked could I help him go get it?
Turned out he'd found a $100 '73 New Yorker that ran and drove in the rougher neighborhoods in Detroit.
The triple green New Yorker was rusted dangerously bad on the underbody (more later), and the exterior rusted clear to the roof.....but sure enough it did still
barely run and drive. We went and grabbed it. I was pretty excited for my friend because by that time he had not turned too many wrenches, seemed to want to dive in, and I was looking forward to his journey.
A couple years went by and he had not touched it other than collecting a few parts and other cars. One of them was a '70 GTX, factory plum crazy 440 4 speed car, but rusted
almost in half.....Today it definitely would have been restored, but back then it was parted out.
Long story short one day he told me he was losing his storage facility where the cars were kept and wanted to get rid of them, would I be interested in any of it?
Oh boy.
I bought the GTX, the New Yorker, a gold metallic 6 pack hood he'd got from a swap meet, and the front+rear seats from the now-gone '70 GTX.
The price was 4 digits, and was a good deal but was alot to me at the time. Now, it's less than what those "incorrect for the car" front seat cores cost.
Problem was, like my friend, I really had nowhere to work of my own and did not want to store all of it. So I pulled the 440 and 727 out of the New Yorker
outdoors, in the dirt driveway of friend's storage, using nothing but hand tools, in November in Michigan. Fighting snow and plenty of mud at the same time
I'd arrived with a U-Haul tow behind cherry picker hooked up to my total beater '69 Chrysler 300 to get it done.
I had the New Yorker on jackstands and had just pulled the engine and trans, and heard a terrible screech/loud groan.
Not an hour after I'd been underneath it, the front subframe had ripped the structure out of the vehicle entirely as the attachments along with the subframe itself were rusted that bad. The car literally broke in half right in front of me. I am not a C body hater (I've owned several and was driving a 300 at the time), but that one was the perfect drivetrain donor! The junkman picked it up not long after.
The 440 and 727 both went right into the trunk of the 69 300....which, in itself is a concept.....And I drove it home to my parents' house.
The GTX arrived later.
I hated the brown color so much, there are no pictures, at all, of the car as-received way back then.
The first thing I did was sand it down and shoot some primer on it. It was PPG acrylic lacquer in red oxide, not far from what the factory used. "Red Lead".
My Dad had spray gun and compressor but I couldn't work on the car in the garage, ever.....smaller items like the engine were ok
but not a whole car. That really never stopped me... I did what I needed to do outside and that's where the car lived.
Last edited:
