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The exact moment that Bob Hough spotted a 1969 Plymouth Road Runner that he just had to have has become a little murky in his mind, but he does remember he was 19, or something like that.
“I believe I owned it in ‘71. It was metallic bronze with a vinyl top. It looked really good and went really fast. There were a lot of muscle cars out there – Camaros, Vets, Chargers. It was the thing to do,” said Hough, who resides in Arnold with wife Karen.
Characterized by their powerful engines and aggressive styling, muscle cars were in their golden age at the time. Demand for these cars took off in the mid-1960s and continued through the early 1970s before being impacted by fuel crises and stricter emission standards.
The cost of a brand new Road Runner at the time was about $3,000.00 – more if it was a hardtop. Hough bought his used for somewhere around $1,500.00, including interest, and made monthly payments of at least $67.00 a month for a couple of years.
He was a single guy working for Don Henry on Stop Table southeast of Arnold. His long hair fit right in with the times.
“One picture I have of the car is when I got married. It was decorated at our wedding in 1973. When my kids see our wedding pictures, they think it’s terrible how long my hair was, but I had it cut for the wedding; it was the shortest it had been in years,” Hough chuckled.
He listened to the softer side of rock when he was driving around and didn’t crank it up like most young people did, because, as he says, he could hear at the time.
“I believe (my music’s) louder now,” he joked.
And, as it always does, life changed. He sold the Road Runner around 1974, trading it in for a pickup to accommodate his new family. The new buyer – a kid that just got his driver’s license – brought his mom and her checkbook along.
“After we took a ride in it, and I saw his eyes, I knew I didn’t ask enough. He would have promised his mom anything. I have a copy of where I signed the title over to him. I noticed it has my dad’s name on it. Somebody had to sign for it; I wasn’t old enough to get a loan,” he said.
Hough forgot all about that Road Runner until one day this past winter, when he received a surprise phone call from a guy in Hartford, Kansas. He said he had the car and a record of who owned it.
The guy was Jason Meyer, a master mechanic at a Hartford car dealership and a muscle car enthusiast. He purchased the car from a fellow Hartford resident in 2001 with his dad, Richard Meyer, a retired farmer/truck driver who is also a MOPAR muscle car enthusiast going way back when he owned a couple of Dodge Chargers. He was the one who got his son into muscle cars when he was younger.
“We bought it for $4,200.00, as is. It was a rolling shell, with no motor, and was full of rust, beyond what we could see initially. It was a father/son project that we weren’t sure what we were getting ourselves into,” said Jason.
Originally, the pair didn’t plan to do a full restoration on the Road Runner, but one thing led to another. The restoration project took three-plus years, and the job will never be done, as they are still working on perfecting all the small, cosmetic details today – 20 years later. It’s not exactly the same car; replacing the vinyl top proved to be way too expensive, so now the hood has black stripes.
Jason said the car’s history had always intrigued him. He requested a title search back in 2004 in Kansas. It didn’t give him all the information he wanted, but it gave him enough to start piecing some information together. He had made contact with Hough, and even the owner who Hough had sold it to, but never went much further than that until this past winter.
“Curiosity was peeked again, and I wanted to dig further into the history and past owners. That is when I reconnected with Bob and was able to obtain more information from him and even received pictures,” said Jason.
At this point, from the research done, Jason believes there have been six previous owners, with he and his father being No. 7. Hough sold the car in 1975 to a guy who had it for a couple of years, when he decided to trade it in for a ‘78 TransAm at Dick Hill Ford in Kearney. It was then dealer traded to a used car dealership in Concordia, Kansas. It was purchased from that dealership by a Vietnam Veteran in 1978. The records from there went cold, until 1990, when the man from Hartford purchased it from a used car dealership in Junction City, Kansas. It then ended up in the Meyer’s hands.
This past winter, when the history search picked up again, Jason reached out to a cemetery page that was in Arnold on Facebook, and Kristi Dvorak responded. She said she knew Bob and could get Jason in touch with him again.
“Speaking with Bob on the phone was exciting, and I definitely believe it surprised him to receive a phone call from me wanting to discuss his memories and time with the car,” said Jason. “It surprised me to receive a phone call from Bob early in the week of March 13, letting me know he would be in the area and wanted to come see the car. It was an amazing experience getting to meet Bob and his wife and hear some of the stories of their time with the car. I loved being able to take Bob and Karen for a ride, and of course, had to give them the full experience of what that machine could do.”
The father/son pair has shown the Road Runner at all of the local shows, as well as the MOPAR Nationals in 2005 and 2007 in Columbus, Ohio, where it received 5th place, all over missing a fire extinguisher, no spare tire, and a lost screw. It received “Best in Class” at the World of Wheels show in Kansas City, as well. It has also been accepted to be shown at the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals in Chicago, Illinois, this November.
“The novelty of the Road Runner featuring a Looney Tunes Character is always a big hit, especially the sound of the Beep! Beep! horn. Also, the color, T5 Bronze Metallic, was a rare color for the ‘69 Road Runner,” said Jason, who houses the car in his garage, under a car cover.
Only 9,500 miles have been put on the car in the 20 years since the initial restoration. She only comes out for nice weather and the occasional car show. The Meyer’s might be putting a few more miles on her. Discussion is now being had on whether they can make it to SORC in Arnold this August.
Jason said his research on the car is not complete. He’s is still on the hunt of who the original owner was and the selling dealership, and hopes this article will help.
Hough said it wasn’t out of the way at the time to see the car. He and Karen were in Libo, Kansas, for Irv Jennings’ mom’s funeral and Hartford just happened to be only 30 miles away. It’s any man’s dream to relive their glory days and sit in their old car – muscle or not. Even though he wasn’t dreaming about it, it happened to Hough.
“It was cool when we were in Hartford, because now there’s a picture of the car with the two owners almost 50 years apart,” he said. “They wanted to know why I didn’t keep it and put it up on blocks ‘til my kids turned 16. You don’t see a lot of Road Runners now. It was just a tin can on top of a really powerful motor.”
