11/10/2023 0 Comments Prizmo car plymouth(Click here to learn more about Marv Sherva's 440ci 1967 Plymouth GTX.)īy the time the youth-oriented Plymouth Road Runner debuted in 1968, the mid-sized Belvedere on which it would be based had undergone a visual transformation by head Plymouth stylist, Dick Macadam. Of these early Plymouth B-Bodies, it is the 1967 Belvedere in GTX livery (above) with its standard 440ci Super Commando or optional 426ci Street Hemi that stands heads above the rest in Plymouth's first high-performance salvo. When combined with Chrysler's mechanically superior 383ci Wedge big-block, 413- and 426ci versions of the Max Wedge, and eventually the 426ci Street Hemi, the staid-looking Plymouth B-Body intermediates took on a Clark Kent/Superman duality that cloaked potent performance beneath a mild-mannered skin. Rather than being purposefully designed as hot rods, these were part of Chrysler's new, downsized B-Body intermediate line-up of 1962 (the Fury nameplate changed to the full-sized C-Body starting in 1965), which featured a slim yet robust unibody construction. By 1970, Plymouth's line of affordable muscle cars had blossomed into the Rapid Transit System, a group of performers that consisted initially of the Road Runner and GTX (both on the midsized B-Body platform), the 'Cuda (E-Body ponycar platform), Sport Fury GT (full-sized C-Body platform), and Duster 340 (compact A-Body platform).Īrguably, the first Plymouths to inject high performance into 1960s America were bread-and-butter mid-sized family haulers like the Savoy, Bevedere, and Fury. The ranks of professional racers also got behind Plymouth in numbers, with guys like Richard Petty, Ronnie Sox, Don Prudhomme, and Dan Gurney getting on board. As a value brand, Plymouth was well-suited to serve the coming youth market the combination of Plymouth's line of lightweight vehicles, lower cost, and Chrysler powertrain know-how ( B-/RB-series wedge, 413-/426ci Max Wedge, Hemi) would propel it to the top of the list for eager young hot rodders. The Plymouth brand's ascension into Mopar muscle car lore really begins in 1962, when Plymouth's entry-level role and Chrysler's strategic misstep of killing full-sized cars intersected with the coming baby boom.
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