383man
Well-Known Member
They were both great cars, but in the end the two were in a different market.This whole post is stupid because the GTX was the peer Plymouth. I never saw a roadrunner come anywhere near a 68' RT charger on the street performance wise. The GTX was awesome, and driving both, they were exactly the same. The charger weighed more than the base roadrunner for obvious reasons. look at the weight of the GTX. deck out a roadrunner, and the weight goes right up.
I heard it all the time, " I just couldn't get the money" for the GTX, or my dad won't let me have a 440 Magnum.Or, "my Insurance will kill me". In reality, the Roadrunner got treated the same way when it ran into a little 340 swinger, that was a budget racer, that most of the time ate the Runner up. The runner was sucking hind tit in that comparison. An Idiot could fly in a 340 A body auto, and the b body took some skill. in 1970 the number one stolen muscle car in the U.S. was the 340 Mopar, and the Nova 350ss. The bad part about selling a car cheap, is resale sucked. In 69' you could buy used Roadrunners for 1500.00 bucks or less. I still see vividly a 70'six pack 440 Roadrunner sitting in a driveway for $800.00 Bucks. In Oct of 69' I know of several guys that heading to Vietnam, tried to sell their cars, and somehow the car was found in a ditch on fire instead. Desperation, as Insurance beat repossession. That is the reality of the time. Which is why I was able to buy a 68 roadrunner in 1979 for 200.00 bucks, running and driving. I still have the dash to that car, as I junked it out in 1980. I could never find a Charger or GTX for that price, even then.
You never saw a Roadrunner out perform a Charger ?? I saw it all the time. Not all Chargers were 440's and I have seen 383's beat 440's before. First the Roadrunner is a lighter car then the Charger and they were pretty close when both had the same eng of course but my money would be on the lighter Roadrunner. I mean the Roadrunner did have the Hemi option also and the 440-6pk in mid 69 as they were both faster in a drag race then the Charger. But if your talking just the 383 Runner vs the 440 Charger of course the Charger has the edge but the 383 could run pretty good if you had it in good tune and some of the lighter 383 Roadrunners did beat some 440 Chargers. I remember when my mild 383 Dart just walked away from my buddies 65 Plymouth with a nice 440 in it as I really shocked him and hurt his pride when my lowly 383 Dart spanked his 440 car. Ron
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