WTB: 1968 Roadrunner

[RedAllison]

Anybody know where any decent ones are? The 68s are hard to find as they were the first year for Roadrunners. My mother had a yellow 68, 383 4spd and has been mad for over 30 years because my dad sold it before it could even have a birthday. Even after they divorced 10 years later she was STILL mad about him selling that car! She decided about 5-6 years ago that she wanted another one and I can't find one to save my life.

Yesterday I drove 6 (1 way) hours too Griffin, GA (got back home this a.m. at 2!) to look at a yellow 68 383 car but it was formerly an automatic and was worth about half what the guy was wantin for it. The car ran great and drove straight and woulda been a decent one to restore but if I am gonna go too the time and expense of restoring one I want a numbers matching or at least a correctly optioned one!

I think I could talk her into an automatic car but the 4 speed would be a better investment long term (not looking for one as an investment perse as she said my oldest son would get it one day! :eek: but might as well cross all the Ts and dot all the Is while I can). $35k-$40k+ wouldn't be out of line for a headsup, fully restored number matching 383 car but I wouldn't want to repaint one that was fresh or correctly restored too another color. Hers MUST be yellow!

Barret-Jackson comes on Speedvision tonight but their website doesn't show anything that would probably work. But their cars are usually represented as correct trailer queens that are overpriced because of all the 50something gray hairchested guys with Mr. T gold starter packages on out there in the audience trying to impress their 20 somethings siliconed bimbettes with!!!

Come on guys I thought EVERYONE still had one of these things in their old barn out back? :D
RA

ps
What would help more than ANYTHING would be an addy too a website that has a VIN# decoder on it? There is a nice silver 68 that a dealer has in St. Louis (on fleabay) but if its supposed to be silver I doubt I would ruin its value with a repaint. Might give em a call tomorrow.

[crazy horse]

I see more of them on Ebay than anyplace else. I wish I still had my 69. :(

[stvneil]

i had a 69 also. the automatic was much faster than the 4 speed. :D

[Raceman]

I had a 68 Hemi GTX that I sold in 1989................ big mistake. I've been lookin' for a 68 Hemi Roadrunner since then. I'd even settle for a 69, and would take most colors (prefer red) as long as it's four speed and a post.


I'll post a picture of my 67 yellow 442 in a day or so. I posted pictures of it naked about a year ago when we'd just stripped it to bare metal. The body shop got most of it painted this week, and hung the doors and deck lid. It's slick as owl **** (poop). Maybe ole' mom'll get off on seein' another yellow muscle car from that time period, even if it ain't a mopar. (it is 4 speed and a post)

[missinglink]

Have you checked on collectorcartraderonline.com?

[BRB]

I had a 68 but sold it cause it had a 67 gtx 440 motor in it. I also had a 69 383, 440heads 4sp. wish i had em both back. my friend still has my 68.


Love them mopars.
Brian. ps post pics if ya got em.

[GP-1]

A 383 Roadrunner is worth 40K nowadays?? :confused:


Geez... I saw a '69 440-6 RR for 55 grand not that long ago.. The early six-pack cars are pretty rare, wouldn't you thing there'd be more than 15k difference??

[RedAllison]

lol GP if you havent kept up with it, the muscle car market is LUDICROUS right now. Not only is a heads up 383 car worth the money, a "California blue" 383 Road Runner brought OVER $50k this weekend at the Barret-Jackson in Palm Beach!!! :eek: :eek: :eek:

440-6pk cars are very deceptive. Originally some of them were rarer than Hemi cars (from a sheer numbers produced perspective). While they certainly aren't a replacement for Hemi car values, there are many truly correct, fully documented 6pk cars that are bringing WELL OVER $100k now. Most heads up 440 6pk Road Runners are bringin in the $75k-$100k now (again for correct, numbers matching fully restored 4 spd cars). There are even a handful of exemplary 6pk RoadRunners that are worth more in the $150k too nearly $200k price range! And I AINT talkin about Superbirds, I mean Road Runners. Superbirds, Daytonas and true Hemi cars are now getting astronomical. 5 years ago you were crazy to pay over $100k for a correct hemi car. Now those same cars are in the $200k-$300k+ range! :confused:

My dads FAVORITE muscle car that he had "back in the day" was a orange 70 AAR Cuda automatic. He LOVED that car but I came along in 71 and my mother MADE him get something with more room and a/c (I think it really was payback for gettin rid of her Road Runner :D ). A few years ago they were bringing in the $30s for a prime example. Now the AAR Cudas and T/A Challengers are bringing $50k-$65k! An EXACT AAR like my dads brought $52k at B/J this weekend.

The market is probably here to stay for awhile. The "baby boomers" drove these cars in high school/college and now they are getting retirement age, their kids are out of the house and out of college and the nest eggs are large enough so many are "reliving their youth". PLUS there are many that are buying them now as they couldn't afford that Hemi or LS6 454 way back in the day.

What the heck, hearses dont have trailer hitches! ;)
RA

ps
I can see paying decent or even big money for a correct, very good car. But what baffles me is the prices that big block "clone cars" are now bringing. You can stick a 440 4brl in just about anykind of desirable MOPAR (RoadRunner, Cuda, Charger etc) and the things are automatically worth $40k+. If you go all out and slap in a Hemi and really spend some time on the resto and correctly decal and "fake up" the car then they will bring closer too the $75k+ price range. The thinking here is, "Hey for $75k I can have a driver that most wont know the difference of compared to spending a quarter million on something that I would be scared to back out of the garage!" A correct hemi wrapped around a telephone pole is STILL worth $30k-$40k, a totaled clone is basically worthless (hopefully the engine is ok, at least you can still get your money out of a hemi engine). But when you do the math the "clone" is STILL the cheapest route. So who knows where it all will end :confused:

[triple dude]

I've often thought the best route is to buy a 65-67 Biscayne or Belair "post" and throw a four (or five) speed in it with a 502 crate motor. Could be about as inexpensive (poor word choice) as it gets. Raceman--lokking forward to the 442 pics. Did you ever get the shoprags blown out of the Vette motor??

[MacGyverJB]

A guy not to far from me in Connecticut has a 1969 Roadrunner for sale. He's looking for $3,500 for it ... its in need of restoration to be a show car, but runs and drives fine. I'm not sure on the engine/drive combination, but I can forward you his phone number if you'd like any details!

[Raceman]

Yeah, Trip, you had to bring up the shop rag fiasco agin' didn't ya?:o I've got all 8 pistons back in and the clearances checked on the bottom end, so it's downhill from here, but I haven't fooled with it in a couple of weeks. I ended up puttin' an NOS crank in it. Some guy on the west coast must have a trailer load of NOS 396/427 steel cranks, 'cause he's always got em on E Bay. I bought 2 from him just because they were cheap, to have a backup.


I did the Biscayne thing already, but haven't finished it. Mine's a 68 and I had a leftover 68 427/425 horse block assembly and heads from another car, so I built it just like the factory would have, and it's cosmetically very correct except for 2" Hooker Super Comps and a Hurst shifter on the Muncie. One other deviation, which was "technically" available, but probably never ordered was bucket seats and vinyl interior, rather than the cloth bench. I do believe my car came with carpet instead of rubber floor mats, so that's how I put it back. My car also had a 10 bolt, but I had a 12 bolt from a 68 Impala SS parts car, so I put it in with 456 gears:eek: just for the helluvit. It'd probably be real cool with a 6 speed with the .5 overdrive ratio, but for now it's just a close ratio Muncie (M21) I've had it back from the paint shop for 2 years or longer, but haven't gotten all the nick nacks finished.

The 442's coming along. I got the radiator core support blasted today and the body shop may hang the front sheet metal first of the week. Right now, just the doors and trunk lid are back on and there's no glass in it yet.

[175checkmate]

Here is a site to look at, lots of cars listed. It is the scream and fly of the mopar world. http://www.moparts.com/
Also if you have the vin # of a car, shoot me an email and I can decode it for you.

[RedAllison]

THANKS for the headsup guys! ;)

I'll keep checkin, someone somewhere has a yellow 383 68 that their wife no longer wants! :rolleyes:

Talkin bout values, anyone see the $3,000,000.00 hemi convertible cuda at B/J AZ back in January??? :eek: :eek: :eek: Son I love the cuda's more than ANYTHING else with wheels. But I wouldn't pay 1 mill for ANY of them, let alone 3...

I don't care HOW cute his 2? year old girlfriend is,
RA

[GP-1]

THANKS for the headsup guys! ;)

I'll keep checkin, someone somewhere has a yellow 383 68 that their wife no longer wants! :rolleyes:

Talkin bout values, anyone see the $3,000,000.00 hemi convertible cuda at B/J AZ back in January??? :eek: :eek: :eek: Son I love the cuda's more than ANYTHING else with wheels. But I wouldn't pay 1 mill for ANY of them, let alone 3...

I don't care HOW cute his 2? year old girlfriend is,
RA


You're not serious..? :eek: 3 mil for a hemi 'Cuda convert??

Anyway, I agree with you about the clones.. If you can get 75k for a hemi clone, it's time to start buying old, rusted out Coronets and Satellites..


God, three million dollars... I suppose... didn't somebody pay about a million for a baseball???? Try cruising for chicks with your 1M baseball.... :D

[RedAllison]

GP I am sure I heard about it this week and didnt believe it then, I cant remember if I heard it from someone, read it on the net or what. (Like I say, my CRS is terminal!) BUT its not on the auction re-cap on B/Js website. I figured if some dumbass paid that kinda cheese for a cuda it would be ALLOVER their site. I wonder if the story makers mighta got their wires and a comma or two crossed? There was a Harley Earl prototype Oldsmobile/Corvette last survivor of 4 that brought over 3million. Plus one of the original, fully restored Dan Gurney AAR T/A racers that brought nearly $400k but like you said I can't imagine ANY reason to pay anywhere near that kinda cheese for a hemi ANYTHING!!! (Unless it had one of the original 3 overhead cam hemi's that was built for MOPARs R&D but obviously never made it too production. I remember a magazine article I had as a teen in the 80s that featured the only known surviving one. I gotta see if I still have that mag, that engine sure would bring a kings ransom right now!)

How about the first Shelby 500 Stang that brought over $500k last weekend? Or one particular (of the PLETHORA) of "Elanor" copies that fetched over $500k at B/J AZ? I'm about sick of seein half bald guys get all foamy at the mouth over Elanor mustangs, sheez the guys act like they did the first time they saw a fully nude woman. Theres just NO end in sight for prices.

Oh well, we Boys and we toys! :o
RA

[Dave S]

I had a 1968 clone car I couldn't give it away. It had a 440 auto. Sold it to buy a 71 challenger. :) I know of a 68 or69 GTX for $ 25,000. It's sposed to be nice.

[Psyco]

Try Mopar Collectors Guide. They are a national classified for Mopars. They have a website www.moparcollectorsguide.com
I wouldn't hold out for a matching numbers car, unless you can afford to pay the big money. There were actually more 68's built than any other year. They were cheap fast and fun. Few were left stock, many were wrecked, and a boatload were turned into race cars. Just keep an eye out for a clean, correctly built car. Beware of "puppy factory's". Steer clear of anyone advertising a "frame off restoration" as these were unibody cars.
You can try contacting Stephen's Performance in Ala. He's the schiznit when it come to Mopars.

[voodoos_rock]

1970 looked the best and they put carpet in it in 70