Black 1968 Plymouth Road Runner Is Dressed To Impress, Packs Rare HEMI Setup

The Satellite was initially conceived as a more premium iteration of the Belvedere. And because it was restricted to two-door body styles and V8 engines, it was also viewed as a higher-performance option. But that changed in late 1966 with the arrival of the GTX, which came with fancier interior trim and big-block V8 mills only.

As the Satellite morphed into a complete lineup with four-door sedan and station wagon versions in 1967, Plymouth introduced the Road Runner. The latter was essentially a stripped-down version of the GTX. It had no fancy features to brag about, but it came with Chrysler's top-tier powerplants, including the 440-cubic-inch (7.2-liter) RB and the 426-cubic-inch (7.0-liter) HEMI.

The recipe was a hit, and Plymouth sold 44,303 units during a shortened 1968 model year. In 1969, deliveries soared to a whopping 81,105 examples. But even though the Road Runner is much more common than the GTX by production numbers, the HEMI version is just as rare.

1968 was the best year for the HEMI Road Runner, with 1,009 units sold (2.3% of the total production). Unfortunately, not all of them soldiered on to see 2024, so the first-year HEMI is actually much scarcer than production numbers suggest. The spotless black example you see here is one of those cars.

Caught on camera at the 2023 Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals (MCACN) show in Illinois, this Mopar is one of those all-original gems you don't see very often. The car came out of a museum in 2022, and, according to the current owner, it hasn't been displayed at a public show up until its appearance at MCACN. And boy, what an amazing piece of metal it is!

The black paint is flawless, all the trim is in the right place, and the interior likely still has the new car smell based on how it looks. The engine bay is also squeaky clean and houses a numbers-matching HEMI V8. Whoever restored this Mopar back in the day did a tremendous job.

Oh, and if its one-of-1,009 status isn't rare enough for you, this specific version is actually much scarcer. That's because it's a hardtop, of which only 169 were equipped with the HEMI. If we also factor in the four-speed manual, this Road Runner is one of only 108 rigs built like this. And it's probably close to being a one-of-one classic with the black paint covering the body, but I don't have any official numbers to back it up.

All told, it's a true museum-grade classic that spent a few years on static display. The current owner isn't planning on driving it much, but he will be taking it to car shows in the future. If you're lucky, you might just see it revving its HEMI V8 at various events in 2024. Until that happens, check it out in the video below.