For us Mopar enthusiasts, a soft spot for classic Mopar muscle cars like the Challenger, ‘Cuda, and Dart may not come as a surprise among our fellow enthusiasts. But when a big name like actor Steve Zahn tells us that he too, is a fan of early Mopar muscle, we feel inclined to learn the backstory as to why!

A Hollywood A-list actor who has starred in many famous movies involving plenty of badass muscle cars, Zahn himself has always been drawn to early muscle cars from Dodge and Plymouth alike. In fact, Zahn owns a pretty rare muscle car if you ask us – a 1970 Plymouth Road Runner equipped with a 383 cubic-inch V8 (which we’ve been told has been rebuilt twice and runs a pretty streetable pump-gas setup now).

“It was Lynn who saw my car and realized that it needed some upgrades,” Zahn told Power Performance News in an interview. “First up was the change out of the brakes for an aftermarket Wilwood system. That was the start, and one thing led to another. We ended up starting over and pulling the engine to make it more powerful and more reliable. We added a new custom radiator and a stronger ignition. Inside, we changed out the radio but left key components like the cool bench seat.”

Zahn is of course referring to Lynn Ray, the owner (and engine builder) of Lynn’s Speed & Custom out of Midway, Kentucky. Plenty of additional aftermarket upgrades found themselves on Zahn’s car as well, such as a Holley fuel pump, MSP ignition, and a Holley intake manifold, along with a full Baer brakes system at all four corners for reliability.

So why did Zahn build his Roadrunner the way he did you might ask? Well, for the love of muscle cars of course. “I could find something else that was cool, but just about anything fun these days is $100,000. This Roadrunner is cool, affordable and easy to work on. That’s a winning combination for me,” Zahn said.

But like many of us, everything wasn’t made-in-the-shade from the get-go, and there were plenty of trials and tribulations that followed the build along the way. If you want to read the full story, give the original article a look on Power Performance News here and come back and tell us what you think!