Upscale Muscle Survivor: 1968 Plymouth GTX
In 1969, Plymouth had a couple of go fast cars that looked a lot alike. There was the base 335 horsepower 383 V8 and a four-speed for $2,896. It could get you through the quarter mile in the low 15s. Or, you could go upscale and get a base GTX for $3,416. It came with a 375-hp Super Commando 440 V8 and an automatic that could turn low 14s in the quarter mile. You also got a little more insulation and a more plush interior. This GTX listed here on eBay is apparently both a barn find and a survivor.
After being driven for less than 15 years and covering only about 30,000 miles the owner took the interior and the wheels into his house and stored them. It appears the rest of the car was also stored very well. It’s about as original and complete a survivor that’s been driven can be. The numbers all match and it even has the build sheet. The BIN is $38,444 which is about average retail according to NADA. The seller reinstalled the interior. It really does look like everything is in great condition. The interior wasn’t plush but also wasn’t as basic as the Road Runner.
This isn’t a very good view under the hood, but it looks decent from what can be seen. That’s the base 375-hp, Super Commando 440-CID V8.
From the little peek underneath it looks OK. You can’t see much except the spring shackles and tank straps and they look OK.
There are likely dried out rubber bits on the body and in the suspension that will need to be replaced but overall this GTX seems to be a completely original car. If this GTX is as nice as advertised, the $38,444 asking price seems reasonable if someone is looking for an original low miles car. Many, though, may have their heart set on a bucket seat and console car with the 426 V8 425-hp engine or even a Hemi but that could set them back two or three times the price of this one. This GTX may end up in a collection but perhaps there’s someone out there who’ll want to drive and enjoy it. Hopefully, it will stay original.
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Comments
38k for this car???? I don’t get it?
An original 440 with less than 30k miles on it – I do not see 38k as out of line, GTX’s are expensive.
If it was coated in dirt and rust it would bring in 30k so I can’t see this price as That bad.
I have been a huge Cuda Challenger fan all my life. Now that I have hit almost 60 I am starting to really dig the GTX and Roadrunner style. 3500 dollars sure would of bought a great car back then. Thats tax money here in Canada now !
38k seems high but it looks nice.
Is it canary yellow?
Full seat grocery getter and column shift too🤡
The neighbor’s kid had one of these in the early ’70’s when I was a teen in mid-state NY. Every time I heard him fire it up, I was like Pavlov’s dog and would start drooling (hyperbole, but you get the point)!
Dad drove a loaded ’68 Chrysler Newport Custom four-door with a 383 4-bbl, full power everything! Mom drove a ’63 Fury convertible with a 318 and push-button automatic!
Guess it was inevitable my first car would wear the Pentastar emblem on the right front fender.
Didn’t see many GTX’s. I’d say for every 10 Roadrunners, you maybe saw one GTX. The Roadrunner was a cheap muscle car, and I don’t think many wanted to cough up another $500 bucks for basically the same car. ( a lot of money in ’68). People, mostly youngun’s with part-time jobs, weren’t concerned with upscale, they just wanted to go fast, and Roadrunner fit the bill. Nice find, for sure. One thing, people that had GTX’s, tended to take better care of them, while the kids killed the Roadrunners.
I traded my 67 GTX in on a new Road Runner in July of ’68 . Don’t think the dealer ever had a 68 GTX . The RR was just fine.
Like I’ve said in other posts I just don’t understand why all these old mopars are so expensive these days. Back in my day (I’m 56) these mopars were considered inferior to chevy’s and fords and were considered ugly (and still are today). Mopars back then were the cars you bought when you didn’t have the funds for a Chevy camaro or a Ford mustang. The mopar bodies, suspension, starters, and interiors were always junk. The only good part of these old mopars were the big block engines (426, 440) and the 340 small block for straight line racing, that is if you could keep the rear end from hopping under hard acceleration due to their cheap leaf springs). I know I know, you mopar lovers are thinking I’m a hater but I’m just stating the facts…….just saying?
Sorry, but there was not a single fact stated in that diatribe. It was pure opinion, and pretty much opposite of my opinion. Having owned all of the above mentioned cars, and several of some of them, I know from experience.
Looks are in the eye of the beholder… But seriously, I think your opinions are pretty far out of the mainstream. For example, Mopar starters are junk? That’s a new one. Is that why Toyota copied the design?
I don’t remember those “facts”. I had a 69 mustang and my buddy had a 68 Camaro in 1981. And we remember those kids w the Mopars were hardcore. We respected them.Ugly? I think the 71 Cuda is the most viciously beautiful muscle car ever made. Those are my “facts”.
Seems like my GM cars and trucks went through starters more often than Mopars. In fact, I don’t remember any problems with Chrysler starters. We had a ’66 in the family for 20 years/200000 miles.
Actually, you aren’t that far off. They were cheap, tinny cars with poor build quality, handled and stopped poorly, but did one thing great, snap your neck back. A friend had a ’68 RR, was a fun car. There were better cars to buy, but like I said, these were cars the paperboy could afford, especially in the 70’s, when these were pretty shot already. $4 or $500 bucks got you a cheap muscle car, even a ratty GTX. Every corner or vacant lot had one of these with a for sale sign, nobody wanted them, and that, there in lies the justification. Certainly, you won’t get a Baby Boomer, who lived through this time, to pay a lot for these, we know what they are, it’s the next generations that missed out, and wants to see what the hub bub was all about, and will pay big bucks to do it. From what I see on TV auctions, the price of vintage Mopars has come down some. It seemed for a while, every big block Mopar that came through was 6 figures.
The next generation? You mean Gen X? The generation with no money? Sorry, but you are totally wrong. The baby boomers are EXACTLY who are paying these prices! Boomers are the ones who were between 8 and 25 when they came out. They’re the ones who desire them and drive the market up. The boomers are the ones who are retired and are buying the cars they’ve wanted since or had when they were kids. As the Boomers hit their 70’s you’re now seeing the market drop, as driving a car with manual steering, drum brakes, cataracts and a heart condition is not a great combination. Nothing from the 50’s or 60’s, no matter the manufacturer, is either a ‘good’ car or even a ‘fun’ car by today’s standards.
Gen X is still working full time and will buy the cars of their youth in good time… the decal laden stuff from the 70’s, early 80’s imports like Celica and Prelude as well as miscellaneous turbo cars from throughout the 80’s. The values of these cars are just starting to creep up, as Gen X finds the money they were told they’d never have. But the prices for this group of cars won’t peak for another 10 years or so, as he value of 50’s and 60’s cars fade (just as the prewar cars have been doing for the past 10 years or so). That’s how the market works.
Sorry, I disagree. Baby boomers are buying kidneys and outrageous health insurance. From what I see on TV auctions, which is all I can go by, it’s the gray ( or no ) hairs, that’s selling the car. Case in point, I enjoy Pawn Stars, even though it’s scripted, it has some merit. Corey, Rick’s son, went to an auction, saw a hemi Road Runner he just had to have.( and paid dearly for it) Rick, the father ( and baby boomer) thought he was nuts for paying what he did, because he knew the kind of car it was. For the record, the Gen X’ers are using daddy’s money to buy these things.
And your statement, ” nothing from the ’50’s or ’60’s are considered good or fun cars”, man, I don’t know what part of that to correct first.
Corey would be a Millenial, born in the 80’s. Rick is Gen X, born after 1962. It’s Millenials using daddy’s money… but your example is clearly the exception and special case. Most Millenials are not into cars, they are into saving the planet. They are the first generation not to care about driving that much. But not nearly as much as Generation Z, those born since 2000….
You ever watch Barrett Jackson? Baby boomers were born from the mid 40’s to the early 60’s, and they’re the ones buying these. You’ll rarely see a buyer without at least two of the following—a grey beard, a Panama hat, and a Hawaiian shirt.
100% Nonsense. Not one fact in that post Keith. I guess you can have alternative “facts”. Just so you know the rest of the planet would call them lies. My dad had both Dodge & a Ford dealership. I have a clue, you don’t.
if you got nothing good to say !why say anything! for your information chrysler was always years ahead of chev and ford in the engineering dept! and if you look at chrysler new yorker and imperial interiors they made gm and ford look cheap!
Opinions are like buttholes—everybody has one. I’m a Ford and AMC fanatic, but I can always appreciate a beautiful Mopar like this.
To me, this is worth it, every penny.
Well the good news is that we live in a free country and you can spend your money anyway you want??????
That’s right, it’s the same here in Canada. I assume you’re being sarcastic, but yes I can spend my money any way I want.So, would this be worth the money to you ,if it was a big block Chevy or Ford?
“with the 426 V8 425-hp engine or even a Hemi”… the described 425-hp 426 V8 engine IS the Hemi. In 1968, the 426 Hemi was the only optional engine on either a 383 Roadrunner or the 440 GTX. Meaning, there are no ’68 440 Roadrunners or ’68 383 GTX’s. Fun fact: “GTX” is short for “Adios”….
Keith, One of the reasons these got so expensive is because of clowns like me who passed up the chance to own one back in the day for 500 $. Engine ran but needed an overhaul. Lots of folks now have the coin it takes to correct past mistakes,no matter what it costs.Supply and demand sets the price. I’m happy playing with my 300$ Mercurys and try not to think about the ones that got away.
I understand why the Mopars sell so high is because most were destroyed back in the 60’s & 70’s street racing, drag strip racing, middle aged boozers crashed them leaving the bar so not many exist like the Camaros and Mustangs.
They’re also well documented. Unlike a Chevy or Ford, the fender tag and VIN of a MOPAR give the buyer more assurance that what they are buying is real and the options are as left the factory. That, in addition to superior drivetrains and engineering, is what drives the value of MOPARs.
I would say Pontiac has the documentation issue hands down. I think you can still go back to Pontiac Historical Services for any Pontiac back to 1968(?) with the VIN and get all the info for that car and general info of those cars made that year.
Chrysler started using fender tags in ’62. Galen Govier is the Mopar equivalent of PHS for Pontiacs, or Marti Report for Fords. Any of the pay services are pretty much the same. Chrysler just had better and multiple ways of recording the information. Plus, all the individual parts are marked with date and time, unlike the others. In the cases of most cast parts, the time and date are either stamped or cast into the part. There is some of this with Ford and GM, but nowhere near what Chrysler was doing. In addition, the Fender tag on the car is what was set on the line. Many times a last minute change to the order from any of the manufacturers wouldn’t be caught in the documents (such as those owned by PHS), but would be on the fender tag…
I don’t know that one is ‘better’ than the other, but I do know that the Chrysler stuff, for those who know and understand these things, provides much more assurance that they are what they purport to be than the Fords and GM’s.
Am I seeing a black, painted roof? That’s either an unusual option, or a non-original modification to replace a tattered vinyl roof.
As for the price, it’s simple economics: the ratio of buyers to sellers is higher for Mopars than for many other comparable cars. Why? Perhaps because there were fewer to start with. Perhaps because unitized body construction makes rust and accident repairs more challenging – before values took off, cars that would be restored today were junked. Perhaps the Mopars enjoy a better reputation today than they did back in the day.
You could order a roof painted in a different color! Not that unusual. Nice car, perfect colors. Worth the money. Funny a lot of comments on here from people who probably weren’t around when these cars could be bought new and were prowling the streets. Like usual these days a lot of misinformation. Yes i like Mopars but also other brands. I like this site but the negative comments directed toward other people is getting old. Don’t ruin it for other people. At least be respectful toward others.
Ok I know you Mopar lovers feelings get hurt when someone voices a negative comment about their beloved Mopars…. Heck a mother will always defend their ugly children…..LOL! Just kidding guys and gals. In my earlier post I was just stating the facts on what people thought of these Mopars back in the day. Fast forward to today it appears to me that a cult following has developed for these cars hence the elevated prices. I think this cult following is the reason for the prices, definitely not the quality of these cars. Lastly this is just my opinion, no offense intended.
The Pentastar guys do get testy but Mopar to ’em !! A couple more “simple truths”. Having been raised in a large family with many friends all heavily involved in drag racing, it was common knowledge that Mopar was more expensive to maintain, repair and/or modify. That was always true. They also always seemed to come with rust as standard equipment. We were never fans of the “unibody” construction as it was simply a cheaper way to build cars.
Automatic aside; this car pushes all my buttons – Gorgeous!
Looking at it, you have to wonder what The Man behind the decision to walk away from the Plymouth marque was thinking in walking away from this kind of legacy. “I’m going to shelve Plymouth and build… A ‘Dart'”. Good call.
Then I guess it’s a good thing The Man behind the decisions gave the idea to build a Dart to Dodge Division in 1959, or nearly a decade before this car was build…
Hi Walrus – I think you may have missed my point. I was being a little tongue-in-cheek. I was referring to the c. 2000 decision to close The Plymouth Division and “choosing instead” to pursue scuds like the c. 2013 – 2016 Dart that even Richard Rawlings couldn’t move for Chrysler. (Yeah, I know it wasn’t One Person’s decision, and I know that a different company made each decision.)
Gotcha…
Ahhhhhhhh another sensitive mopar lover…..I love it!
Beautiful for it’s age. Back in 69-70 I worked at a place that made car parts (among other things) and there was a guy there that had both a GTX and a RoadRunner. When the car guys got together it was something else, even if they just drove them to work. Take either one of them (though the GTX was much nicer), add a 69 Camaro SS with a 396 4 Speed, a 63 Split window coupe with a 65 Fuelie Engine (went very fast straight line but pray a lot if you had to brake). Add my 67 Malibu (which was no where as fast as these) and a few others and you had a virtual carshow in the parking lot.
Mopar or no car…who can forget Phantasm and the 71 cuda 4 spd with 440 engine in it. Shooting the little men chasing them from the sun roof.
Favorite Quote: Warning shoots are for pu$$ies aim for the head shoot to kill
Pete Christensen, better watch those Phantasm movies again, The car was a Hemi Cuda. Great movies.
The reason why I said Mopar starters are junk is because my first car I owned was a 1973 Dodge Dart Swinger (318) and it went through starters like crazy! I must have replaced several starters while I owned that car not to mention many of my friends who owned Darts and Dusters went through the same thing. That gear reduction starter was junk with a unique sound when activated. The reason why my first car was a dodge is because that’s all I could afford at the time, never bought another one again.
I think it is worth the money. Compare it to what you would have to pay for a mustang fastback same era same condition.
Personally I love these cars and wish I had this one. I would take this over a restored one any day at least you know what you are getting.
Also in this part of the world these were well respected cars.
I had a buddy back in the day who owned a GTX and when he would punch it the rear wheels would hop so bad it would shake the rust out of the trunk and underside. Just saying?…………
I can attest to all the above affinity towards Mopars. My first two cars were Chargers. I would up keeping the wrong one as the one I sold would be worth 20 times what I paid for it. I learned to work on cars with those cars- heads, carbs, electrical, etc. I work at a Dodge dealer, and I can afford a Challenger Hellcat. While the heated seats and steering wheel, backup camera, remote start, etc. are nice, and for my age very timely, nothing can replace the simplicity of a no-nonsense, in-your-face ready to go rumble of an old-time muscle car. With all our gadgets and gizmos, you’d think life has gotten easier-
but it’s more complicated than ever. All I want is a big block, three pedals, a shifter and a tach (brakes wouldn’t hurt either).
Brake pedals are overrated. Of course, momentum is a mean woman!
When this first popped up can you see why I thought it may be my old car… Just for an instant?
Mine was a 1969 Road Runner but, it looks somewhat like the feature car.
Wow, who would have thought a GTX would cause so much conversation? The asking price is not out of line according to Hagerty, a good car brings a bit over 36K. Cars and women, guys sure do have opinions and arguments over both, huh?
Opinions are great, and generally don’t get people worked up, but when the opinion includes something like “I’m just stating the facts”, its trolling and ticks people off.
GTX
Grand Touring Experience
A pinion snubber gets rid of wheel hop never use traction bars on a mopar tends to bend and break things make sure you have engine mount straps on early models or engine twists up into the hood if mount breaks rear leads are designed to flex ever notice on some built mopars in the rear one side is lower than the other that’s for wind up and breaks just slow you down
Mopar muscle cars hold their value cause everyone and their grandmother has a camaro ,mustang, or corvette for sale
Sorry for the error auto correct leafs not leads
“B” body with a big block, posi rear & pick your trans. That was the formula for fun “back in the day “!! GMs multi link rear end had it’s problems also. Wheel hop usually happens with claptrap shocks. Did for me! Put new good ones on, no problems with hop! Also, learned 2 let the car get hoocked-up!!
Well, I read through all the comments, and Mark, yours won. Simplicity….I need more of that…….and some more dollars for my 69 BB Coronet…..just sayin. There should be a special category for the BF write ups that get over 50 comments. ;-)
So Keith – how many Mopars have you owned or wrenched on ? And how many Chevies ? And how many Fords ? What about other makes ? Just trying to understand your opinions ?
Must have been a bad ring gear ?
Lots of trash talk on the mopars, there’s news. I’m not brand loyal, not anymore anyways, heck I like all the factory hot rods from back then. They built some darn crazy machines! But it seems to me it was the Ford guys who got the blunt of all the jokes, “fix or repair daily” comes to mind, “so slow it’s got to have square tires” I remember some chevyman belching out. I’m talking late seventies through the eignties here, when cars like this GTX were still roaming around, usually built and ticking people off. Anymore I just enjoy what is left of those cars that my generation didn’t cut up into street freaks, pro streets or flat out race cars.
Don’t forget; Found On Road,Dead! The reality is that one mans Ford, has no problem with another mans Mopar, people have the problem. People can be jerks.
You have got that right, lots of jerks out there. It came with the territory I guess, liking something other than the usual Chevy Craft stuff.😎
I think the Road Runners and GTX’s were great looking cars. I couldn’t afford one then, and I can’t afford one now. GLWTA.
If $38K is too much for most now, just wait 5 years. I sold a 70 RTSE Hemi Charger(1of only 9), for $75K 6years ago. The guy who bought it to just sold it for $245K.
As Alfred Hitchcock once said; “Nothing’s more expensive than a cheap Mercedes!”
Or in other words, if you can’t swim, stay out of the deep end of the pool.