Roadkill Extra shows up every weekday
on Motor Trend On Demand and you can see
them all with a 30-day free trial at
Motor Trend On Demand dot Com but here's an
example of one of the shows that you
missed last week
this time on Roadkill Extra I'm gonna
tell you a lot more about my current
favorite car my 71 plymouth roadrunner
you saw me by this thing in an episode
of Roadkill and you've seen us work on
it on Roadkill Garage but generally in
those edits you don't get to see inside
the deep nitty-gritty and so I'm going
to give you that right now so this is a
1971 plymouth roadrunner the roadrunner
started 1968 and they were a very boxy
car through 71 when this body still came
out which is called the fuselage body
style and they only did this in 71 and
72 and 73 they changed a little bit
again and and in my opinion got uglier
although that's a funny statement
because a lot of people consider this
car really really ugly
oh why but of course I dig it because I
had one when I was 19 years old it was a
440 six-pack four-speed car and triple
black and I was looking for one of these
for a long long time and what makes this
particular example the perfect one for
me is that it's in good original shape
but it's not flawless I did not want a
restored car because I wanted to be able
to drive this thing all the time and I
didn't want to freak out about you know
driving it in dirt or things like that
you know this has got a bunch of chips
and things on Roadkill Garage we made it
good and shiny but it's not perfect by a
long shot
so it is factory Hemi orange car paint
coats ev2 it has been repainted once let
me back up to the story of how i came to
have this car apparently a guy bought it
new up in Northern California and it's
at forever and apparently he passed away
in like 95 ish and his son got the car
and just parked it for a long long time
and then another guy bought it who had
it for a year and he was a Roadkill fan
and when I went on facebook saying I'm
really dying to find a 71 road runner
Brian Crumpacker's the guys name he
came up with this car he was the guy who
owned it for about a year but and so and
I've only had it for a couple months so
between when he bought it the last time
it had run i think the last sticker on
the thing is like 92 or
something like that so it only has
95,000 original miles on it but the
original owner apparently rubbed up
against a pole or something and it has
been painted once when Steve and I went
through and rubbed out all of the paint
on Roadkill Garage we determined this is
very likely and emraan or a dupont
Centauri re-paint on the thing because it
was able to come up so good I mean that
was back when the acrylic enamels were
just really really good paints and so
it's not original paint but it is pretty
good and interestingly when they
repainted it obviously there was some
stickers that we're still available from
the dealership like the inserts here on
the hood but probably not the factory
strobe stripe because this car is coded
optionally from the factory with the
strobe stripe but it didn't have it on
it anymore it just had a little
roadrunner bird stuck on it so I put the
strike back on because that's one of my
favorite parts if you go back here you
can see that this decal here has been
replaced with the paint job the plymouth
roadrunner decal because it's actually
supposed to be right there but
unfortunately they put it back in the
wrong place
also we know this is the California car
partially because I've got all the
original paperwork from it but also
because it doesn't have the very cool
machine gun-type like water cool-looking
exhaust tips that they put on 49-state
cars
apparently the California ones had some
kind of I don't know either smoger noise
rule that prevented them from having
that cool exhaust tip so this doesn't it
does have the roadrunner decor package
which was an option which includes this
blackout around the taillights and that
blackout should go down here as well in
fact you can see that when they painted
the car they painted over that black
decal there's like a mark there in a
market there where where they painted
over it but aside from that the body is
really solid it does have just a little
bit of rust bubbling here and here but
everywhere everywhere else completely
solid ok back to up here this is a 383
car not as cool as the six-pack that I
had just out of high school but a lot
more affordable these days that car that
I had that was a six-pack car
i bought it when I was 19 for 3100 bucks
and sold it for 3,800 bucks and thought
I'd made a killing and that car
subsequently got restored and sold for a
hundred and twenty-five grand prices on
them have come down to where that
six-pack cars probably worth about 75 or
80 now I paid eleven thousand dollars
for this which for me is a ton of money
but kind of a decent deal for what the
car is and it came with an air grabber
hood that i'll show you later on
so this is the original 383 pretty
much untouched it does have a holley
carburetor on it that's not factory but
everything else under here is just like
it's been maintained but nothing
modified it does have this very cool old
mark 10 capacitive discharge ignition
box on it but it was never hooked up the
wires are just dangling there it does
have the original roadrunner horn that
goes me see if I can make it go meet you
be so that's pretty cool
all original the one downside to me is
that it does not have the 26 inch radiator
it's got the 22-inch radiator and the
thing does run a little bit hot fact
that's one of the things that would like
to address on the car but you can see
pretty unmolested it hasn't been painted
under here this is all the original
paint original decals for those of you
who are not into Mopar muscle cars you
might not be aware that you can go to
this tag right here in one of these cars
and you can look at all of the options
that it had from the factory tells you
everything paint code when it was built
where it was built all of the options
and one of the options that it did have
was factory hood pins
those aren't aftermarket their original
the door jam on this car tells me that
it's a fairly early build it was built
in September of 1970 even though it's a
71 model and my theory is that that's
probably why it has a silver grill the
Roadrunners would inspect with a black
grill but this thing has silver upper
and lower and the original rally wheels
that we took off this car had silver
center caps were in 71 they should be
dark argent almost a black a very very
dark gray color another option that it
had was the chrome racing mirror
I actually prefer the base mirrors on
these cars but it is what it is
listen to that the feet buzzer works or
not defeat but the key buzzer the
roadrunner decor group came with two
tone door panels these are an upgraded
door panel over there you can see that
they're gray and black but it's a bench
seat car
this also is a gray insert which is
really hard to tell now because it's so
worn out with a black on the rest of the
bench i like the bench seat I wish this
car is a four-speed it's not it's an
automatic also if you come around here
and have a look at the instrument
cluster on this thing factory rally dash
but it does not have the optional
tachometer this gauge right here could
have been a tack or it could have been a
clock
unfortunately this is the base model
dash for this car
however it is option with a tough wheel
this is a upgraded steering wheel that
you could get from the factory head it
would have had a black foam grip before
somebody put this on always get loose
like this they finally reproduce that
steering wheel I might put a new one on
there it is an automatic on the column i
really wanted to for speed when I went
shopping for one of these but
unfortunately that wasn't in the cards
the rest of the car is just right
I don't think i'm gonna put a four-speed
in it though this is also kind of a
bummer it did come with the factory
canopy roof and I really wish it did not
have vinyl but it does it's way better
than the full vinyl top which really
destroys the lines of these cars in my
opinion
here's something interesting i've heard
guys say I won't swear to this for a
fact but you read this in mopar lure see
this X right here that is an indicator
on the assembly line that when they
painted the top of the car
the roof was not perfectly smooth like
had a dent or a flaw or something in it and
they often put a vinyl top on them when
that happened
now I don't think that's the case of
this particular car because this was
custom-ordered that tag I showed you
under the fender tells us that that it
actually was custom-ordered and it has
that option code so that sort of in
conflict with that old story about how
that was
on but i probably will put the vinyl top
back on it just because I can't afford
to paint the car it's presentable as is
and I don't want to deal with that roof
by painting it this stripe is reflective
which I don't know if you can tell in
this light but it is super cool if you
see it in some of the episodes you can
see that it it goes silver and black and
different light which is really cool i
did change the wheels and tires on this
i don't normally like wheelwell lip
molding on these cars but again the
roadrunner decor group came with that
and i will live with it the wheels and
tires this is a us indie dish mag which
is very very similar to what they sold
in the sixties this is a brand new wheel
american racing also makes an answer and
dish mag that doesn't look as cool in my
opinion as the u.s. indy this is a 15
by nine if i remember correctly it's got
five inch back spacing and on the front
I've got a 15 x 8 which is much better
looking in my opinion the 15 by 7 and 15
by eight in the back the 275 6015 Cooper
cobra GT on the front I've gotta to 235 60
Cooper cobra GT and if i were to do it
again i think i could fit a 245 on it
which would give a nice and meaty look
to this thing so far we've gone through
the basics of the suspension on the car
we put a 276 gear in the back of it
because i want to cruise this thing on
the highway i want to be able to drive
up here to Steve Dulcich place which is
like a hundred and eighty miles from my
house
I just want to be able to go 80 miles an
hour all day long so i gave up a lot of
performance to have a real highway
rearend gear in the thing and in fact on
the episode that we're up here on
Roadkill Garage shooting today we're
trying to perk the thing up a little bit
is so slow that thing that dog i'm
hoping the secondaries don't open or the
timing is off or something like that but
those are all the things that will be
finding out on a full episode of
Roadkill Garage here on Motor Trend On
Demand and that's a wrap on this episode
of Roadkill Extra here's what you missed
last week on Roadkill Extra exclusively
on Motor Trend On Demand wanna look
around these headlights are eight
hundred dollars for a pair
this is a 1971 plymouth roadrunner so
this is the original 33 pretty much
untouched
Wow avocado green that it's disgusting
what were you thinking if you need more
Roadkill Extra go sign up for the 30-day
free trial right now