1969 Plymouth GTX: The Fastest Car in the Test, Outsold Five to One by Its Little Brother

Motor Trend lined up six supercars for its January 1969 issue: a Plymouth GTX 440, a Dodge Charger R/T 440, a Ford Cobra 428 Cobra Jet, a Pontiac GTO 400, a Chevelle SS 396 and a Buick GS 400. Bill Sanders' verdict on the drag strip was not close. The GTX, he wrote, was "the flat out, best qualifier of all," and it posted the best times in every acceleration category the magazine measured: 0 to 60 mph in 5.8 seconds and the standing quarter-mile in 13.7 seconds at 102.8 mph. For a car that Plymouth's own showroom was about to leave behind, that was quite a send-off.¹

The magazine was honest about the asterisk. Its test GTX, the text says, "had been romanced by Plymouth's fine tuning experts before we met it," and it ran the standard 440 with a three-speed automatic and a 4.10:1 axle. The Charger R/T carried the same engine and transmission on a 3.55 axle and ran 13.9 seconds at 101.4 mph, although Sanders' scale put the GTX 35 pounds heavier, 3,790 pounds against 3,755. Behind the Chrysler pair came the Cobra at 14.5 seconds, the GTO at 14.9, the SS 396 at 15.4 and the GS 400 at 15.9. Those numbers belong to those six prepared press cars, not to every GTX a dealer sold.¹

The GTX had been Plymouth's answer to the Pontiac GTO since 1967: a fancier, big-engine version of the intermediate Satellite, as Ate Up With Motor describes it. For 1969 its standard engine was still the 440 Super Commando with one four-barrel, rated at 375 horsepower at 4,600 rpm and 480 lb-ft at 3,200 rpm on the SAE gross standard. The 426 Street Hemi, rated at 425 horsepower at 5,000 rpm and 490 lb-ft at 4,000, cost $700.90 on a GTX. The same history is blunt about how the formula had sold. Big engine, standard automatic and plush trim pushed the price well above the GTO, and GTX sales, it says, made depressing reading.^2,3

The real competition was parked in the same showroom. Plymouth's stripped Road Runner had arrived for 1968 at $2,870, which Ate Up With Motor puts $559 below an equivalent GTX. For 1969 the Road Runner added a convertible, the Air Grabber and a 440 option of its own, and Motor Trend named it Car of the Year. Over-Drive's fact sheet draws the obvious conclusion: GTX sales dropped when the Road Runner was also offered as a convertible. Its production table shows 81,125 Road Runners built for the United States plus 3,295 for Canada and other markets, 84,420 in all, against 15,602 GTXs. Ate Up With Motor gives 82,109 Road Runner sales, on a basis it does not state.^2,3

The GTX split its 15,602 cars between two bodies: 14,902 two-door hardtops, body code RS23, and 700 convertibles, RS27, which means convertibles were about one car in twenty-two. Even that small figure is not settled. Over-Drive's production table says 700 convertibles, while the text of the same fact sheet says 701, eleven of them with the Hemi, and the discrepancy sits inside a single compiler's work. Over-Drive also says 1969 was the last year the GTX offered a convertible. For the Hemi across the whole model, MuscleCarFacts reports 209 of its own 15,602-car total, and because the site does not name the record behind the number, it stands as that site's report.^3,4

The buyer's list started at $3,416 for the hardtop and $3,635 for the convertible in Over-Drive's production table; Motor Trend's price panel printed a $3,433 base for its test car, a small gap the two sources do not explain. From there the GTX was built by checking boxes. The N96 Air Grabber cost $55, performance hood paint $18, the Track Pack $143 and the Super Track Pack $256, the latter only with the 440 or Hemi and a four-speed. Motor Trend described the Track Pack as a four-speed with Hurst shifter, 3.55 gears, viscous fan, dual-breaker distributor and Sure-Grip, with the Super Track Pack adding disc brakes and 4.10 gears. Its loaded test car came to $4,335.40.^3,1

The Air Grabber was the season's new trick, and Motor Trend's description of the first version is worth keeping because Ate Up With Motor, for one, calls it a pop-up scoop. On the 1969 car, the magazine explained, a lever under the dash opened and closed vents that fed either outside or underhood air to the carburetor, and the louvers sat flush in the hood. Sanders liked that it kept the hood low and did not block the view the way the Cobra's scoop did. Over-Drive confirms the N96 Air Grabber was introduced that year. The same option code was offered on the Road Runner, so the cheaper car could breathe the same cold air for the same $55.^1,3,2

Away from the drag strip Motor Trend was less generous. The GTX handled tolerably, with understeer that grew pronounced in tight turns, and the Sure-Grip and handling suspension made it hop around corners. The tachometer was too small for precise shifts, the car had no oil-pressure gauge, and the 4.10 axle spun the engine at 4,500 to 5,000 rpm at 65 to 70 mph. The text gives 8.7 to 10.4 mpg while the data table prints 9.9 to 10.8. Its overall-quality box is harsh: "Not too good. Body loose." The magazine did credit the GTX with the lowest trunk liftover of the six, 24 inches against the Charger's 34.¹

On the superspeedways, 1969 was the year Plymouth lost its best-known driver. The Talladega and Spoiler Registry notes that 1969 was the only season Richard Petty raced a Ford, and that he won ten races in it. Dodge, meanwhile, had its Charger 500 and then the winged Charger Daytona, while Ford answered with the Torino Talladega and Mercury Cyclone Spoiler, according to Ate Up With Motor's history of the Dodge aero cars. Plymouth's intermediates had nothing comparable that year. The source trail here does not document the negotiations behind Petty's move, so the season is best told by its result: the brand's figurehead spent the year beating Chrysler products in a Ford.^5,6

What followed came fast. Plymouth's own aero answer, the Road Runner Superbird, arrived for 1970 as a NASCAR homologation special, and Ate Up With Motor counts only 1,920 sold. The GTX carried on into 1970 as a hardtop only, while Road Runner sales fell to 41,484, which the same history ties to soaring insurance premiums on performance cars. The 1969 GTX is therefore the high-water mark of a car that did its job and still lost the argument: the quickest of six supercars in Motor Trend's January test, built about 15,600 times, while buyers who wanted speed more than carpet signed for more than five Road Runners for every GTX.^2,3,1