Plymouth Road Runner 1968 426 Hemi

Plymouth built the Road Runner to be a stripped-down bargain – until you optioned in the 426 Hemi and turned it into the rarest muscle car math in Detroit. Only 169 hardtops left the factory with that engine in 1968. Here is what it actually cost to order one, and why those same cars now change hands for six figures.

Today, cars with factory-installed 426 Hemi V8s are some of the highest-valued Muscle Cars in existence. The lure of limited production quantities and the power of the 426 Hemi combine to drive the pricetags of these cars beyond the average collector. So what’s all the fuss about a Hemi Road Runner? How about quarter mile times of 13.54 @ 105 ½ MPH as logged by Car & Driver Magazine? The Hemi engine was an expensive upgrade, but it did get you a solid performer that was ready to go off the showroom floor. And at the end of the day, we like Ma Mopar’s mission to bring performance back to the common customer.

A Number That Stops Mopar Guys Cold

Here’s a number that should stop any Mopar guy in his tracks: out of every 1968 Road Runner Plymouth built, only 169 hardtops left the factory with a 426 Hemi under the hood. Not 169 in some rare paint code or trim package – 169, period, out of an entire model year. Cut that down further to cars paired with the coveted A833 four-speed and Hurst shifter, and you’re down to 108 examples in the whole country. Plymouth built the Road Runner to be the everyman’s muscle car, a back-to-basics machine that traded chrome for cubic inches. Slot the Hemi into that formula and you get something almost contradictory: a stripped-down econo-cruiser with the most feared engine in Detroit. What did it actually cost to walk into a dealership and drive one of those 169 cars home?

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The Cost of Admission

The base 1968 Road Runner coupe started at $2,870 – a genuinely bare-bones car with rubber floor mats and a taxicab-grade interior by design, because Plymouth wanted the sticker low and let buyers spend where it counted. Adding the 425-horsepower 426 Street Hemi cost another $714.30, nearly a quarter of the base car’s price for one option box. There wasn’t a convertible on the order sheet, either — that body style didn’t join the Road Runner lineup until 1969, so a 1968 buyer chasing a Hemi had exactly two choices: coupe or hardtop. That kind of math tells you exactly who these cars were built for: not showroom cruisers, but stoplight-to-stoplight bargain hunters chasing the biggest engine Chrysler made.

From Bargain Muscle to Six-Figure Legend

Break the Hemi production down by body style and the hardtop’s rarity really stands out – just 169 built against 840 Hemi coupes, and that scarcity is exactly why hardtop Road Runners command such reverence among Mopar collectors today. The math has flipped entirely since 1968: median value on a Hemi Road Runner now sits around $78,000, and a well-documented, numbers-matching example can push well past six figures. Not bad for a car Plymouth marketed as the working man’s muscle car and equipped, at the buyer’s request, with rubber floor mats.

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