Searching for the the ultimate Mopar

Like most Mopar people I know, the desire to own a legitimate Hemi Mopar was a strong one. Though always trying to figure a way to swing it, the cost of a complete car was too high, much more than my "hobby" funds could tolerate. It looked like the only Hemi car I would be able to buy would be a rough project body at best. This didn't really bother me as I love the work related with restoration. However, the cost of an engine combined with the cost of even a rough Hemi body was still quite a bit higher than your typical project car so I had to find the money somewhere.
I had been collecting Hot Wheel diecast cars for about 12 years and had ammassed quite a collection. However, my collecting had slowed to a stop due to the prices of these miniatures. I was not spending any money on Hot Wheels... all extra cash was going into the real cars out in the garage! The decision was made to sell off my Hot Wheel collection and try to put together a Hemi engine. Within 6 months I had liquidated the entire collection and in turn purchaced 95% of a 426. I only lacked carbs and a few small things that were readily available. Now all I needed was a car to put it in.
Knowing I had to keep the cost down, I knew I would be shopping for a less expensive B body. I had my heart set on a '69 Road Runner but was open to all. Scouring Hemmings every month netted me a few possibles. If a car peaked my interest I would send the seller one of those disposable cameras for some pictures. It was frustrating. If the car looked good, it would be missing its tags, if it had documentation, it was a total basket case, too expensive, or both. I kept looking.  I had always seen the R&R ads in the Mopar magazines advertising Hemi project cars for sale but had assumed they would be too costly. I determined it couldn't hurt to call... so I did.
The fellow on the phone was very nice and proceeded to list off the project cars they had for sale. Same problem, good car... no tags, if it had tags... bad car. Then he tells me about a '70 Road Runner, has its tags but is in need of lots of work. It has radiused wheel wells, bad trunk, missing everything. '70s were never really my favorite. I initialy tell him I'm not interested. That night I pulled out some reference material for some research on '70 model Road Runners. Hmmmm... first year for rallye gauges and pistol grip, and of coarse that new air grabber hood! Then I see just how few Hemi Road Runners were built in '70. I decide to take the next step and send them a camera.
The pictures I get back show a rough rolling body with no interior. I have done most of the work that will be required on this car before but had never started with such an incomplete car. I call R&R to ask about price... $7000. OUCH! I tell him I'll get back to him after I roll it over a little. Concidering the rarity of the car I deside to go for it and offer R&R $5200. He tells me he'll talk it over with the owner and to give them a few days. Fine. After about a week I call them back to see what they had decided and to my surprise they take my offer. I mail the money, they mail the paperwork and fender tag and within a couple of months I'd have it home.

The car... Not for the faint of heart

Ron Slobe, the owner of R&R, traveled all over collecting rare Mopar parts and cars for his collection/yard. This Road Runner was bought from guy in Texas that had bought and sold many cars over the years.
The cars home had apparently been Texas all along. The trail gets real cold real quick when trying to trace the car before the guy who sold it to R&R.
From paper work received from the Texas DMV I can go back to '78 or so. That name, unfortunately, is that of a women. The odds of tracing her are very remote. The Texas DMV has no records before that... period.
The curiosity is killing me about this cars past and I'll tell you why. In the upper corners of the windshield are stickers similar to inspection stickers. These stickers are dated 1972 and are some sort of border access stickers issued in Reynosa, a common border crossing town in south Texas. Also, under the black paint on the rear bumper are two bumper stickers from an agricultural fair in Nuevo Leon,Mexico, 1973. While cleaning out all the crud I found 4 coins, all Mexican.
This cars original color is B5 with a B5/B7 interior but some one went to a lot of trouble to paint everything black. There is black paint in places that are very difficult to reach, but its there, and I mean everywhere, on the headliner, dash, all interior trim, everywhere. I posted a plea for help with all the on-line Mopar clubs in Texas that I could find. One response was from a fellow who used to live in south Texas and worked for a body shop for years there. He said that they received "theft recoveries" regularly completely painted exactly the way I described. I guess a car would be stolen in or taken to Mexico and disguised by a total, quickly paint job.
I will continue to do what I can to track down little pieces of information with the hope to at least pin down where the car was sold originally.

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This car's details- It's all in the details

1970 HEMI Road Runner body/trans production breakdown

RM21R0- HEMI Road Runner Post:  44 automatics, 30 4 spds, 7 Canadian ordered/delivered
RM23R0- HEMI Road Runner Hardtops:  16 automatics, 59 4 spds, 7 Canadian ordered/delivered
RM27R0- HEMI Road Runner Convertibles:  2 automatics, 1 4spd, 1 Canadian ordered/delivered
RM23R0A- HEMI Road Runner Superbirds:  77 automatics, 58 4 speeds
The above information is from Glalen Goviers "white books" and www.aerowarriors.com

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Included with this car was it's original fender tag.  Unfortunately there was no interior and therefore little chance of a build sheet.  I will be restoring the car based on the fender tag along with info I may gather from similarly optioned cars.
The fender tag breaks down as follows-

• M21- bright roof drip rail moulding
• N96- Fresh air package (Air Grabber)
• R11- 2 watt AM radio
• V88- Transverse stripe DELETE
• 26- 26" radiator
• A34- Super Track Pack (option package): includes 4.10 DANA rear axle and power front disc brakes.
• B51- Power disc brakes
• G33- Remote drivers mirror
• J25- 3 speed wipers
• J45- Hood tie-down pins
• EB5 (x2)- Blue Fire Metallic roof and body color
• H2B5- Premium vynal bench seats- Medium blue
• EB7- B7 (darker blue) upper door frame color.  This darker blue is throughout the interior, including dash, all plastic interior pieces, headliner and package tray.
• 918- Scheduled build date of September 18, 1969
• 036230- build number
• E74- 426 425HP 2 4bbls
• D21- Heavy duty 4 speed transmission

*This car is also equiped with tinited glass all around.
VIN number breakdown-

• R- Plymouth Belvedere/Satellite
• M- Medium, Road Runner
• 23- 2 door hardtop
• R- 426 425HP 2 4bbls
• 0- 1970 model year
• G- St. Louis, MO assembly plant
• 125XXX- Sequential number

Of interest is the total lack of striping.  The standard rear deck lid stripe on a '70 model Road Runner was deleted and the very common dust trail stripe and hood performance paint options were not selected.  The hood paint was a big question in my mind but after some researching, at all the cars I have found  that had this option, the code was included on the fender tag.  Also, there was no sign of this car ever having this paint at the cowl as this car had it's original paint just under the spray can black paint job.
The following statistics are from the 70 RR/GTX Registry:

• 33% of 70 RRs registered (595 with known info) had the standard rear stripe deleted
• 65% of RRs and GTXs registered (1186 with known info) did NOT have the optional Performance Hood Paint

Although the car most likely came originally with 14" magnums (this info would be on the build sheet that I don't have) my plans are to use 15" x 7" plain steel wheels painted body color... and "dog dish" covers... I just think that look RULES!