Growing up, Brian Morrow’s childhood was packed full of Plymouths. He shares, “My dad was a big Plymouth guy and drove several Plymouth cars over the years including our family’s main car; a Plymouth station wagon. He told me long before I was old enough to drive, “if you plan on driving one day, you need to get a job and save up the money because we are not buying you one!”

Brian got the message and started saving up money to buy his first car. One Saturday morning, his dad came into his bedroom and woke him up. He said, “Wake up! There is a car we should go look at!” Brian recalls, “I was tired from the night before but I quickly got up. The car we were going to look at was a blue 1970 Plymouth Road Runner with a 4-speed. After looking at the car, we decided to take it for a test drive. My dad drove it while I sat in the back. After a few minutes, I knew I wanted to buy it so when we got back to the seller’s house, we finished up the deal and I bought the car.”

After owning the Road Runner for about a year, Brian ended up losing his driver’s license for six months for street racing. “I raced a co-worker who had a red Camaro Z/28. We were out playing on the highway and didn’t realize a cop was behind us. Long story short, I didn’t have my registration with me so they took my license plates and told me I couldn’t drive the car home. I also got a $210 ticket for drag racing. I ended up sneaking it home without license plates. The next morning, my dad noticed the missing license plates and asked me where they were. When I told him, he exploded,” he remembers.

Brian was so depressed that he couldn’t drive his Road Runner that he ended up selling it. He quickly regretted it and a couple of years later, decided to buy another one; this time a bench seat 4-speed one in yellow. He would drive it for a few years before selling it to a state policeman. A number of years later, Brian was still missing his original Road Runner so he decided to start checking the Internet and eBay for another. He wanted a B5 Blue 1970 with a 4-speed and black bucket seats just like his original one.

One day while searching online, he found a B5 Blue 1970 factory V-Code 440 Six-Barrel Track Pak 4-speed car. It had a black bucket seat interior just like his original one and was even optioned with the N96 Air Grabber. This Road Runner was an original Texas car but spent some time in Missouri and Wisconsin. The Road Runner was missing the original engine but was incredibly solid with original metal and paint. The likely story is that the original engine blew up so the car was parked in a garage and left alone.

Brian decided to purchase the car and brought it home. Next, it would take a few years in Massachusetts while an engine was built and the parts assembled to get it together and driving for him. Unfortunately there were some issues with the engine that was built for him so he ended up finding a date code correct 440-6bbl engine on a B-Body website.

From there, the car went to a local shop called D&M Automotive where it turns out that the owner actually did an engine swap in Brian’s girlfriend’s Chevrolet Nova back in the day. He actually ended up smashing his thumb badly with a hammer while working on the Nova, leaving it permanently damaged. Talk about a small world! The owner of the shop even used to work at a Mopar dealership back in the day so Brian knew he was the guy for the job.

With D&M Automotive doing the work and Brian sourcing parts from a friend named Hemi George, the engine was finally installed into the Road Runner. The original transmission was rebuilt and installed as well. Eventually, the Road Runner was finally ready to hit the road.

As mentioned, the exterior of the car still retains its original sheet metal and paint. On the interior, Brian did have to replace the headliner, carpet and upholstery as it was in rough shape however he said everything else is original and works as it did from the factory.

Even the original AM 8 Track radio works and plays 8-tracks just as well as it did in 1970! Brian says, “I get a lot of attention and thumbs up from people all the time as there are still some people out there that appreciate an old muscle car!”

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