Finding derelict classic cars on a field is nothing too spectacular nowadays. There are millions of cars rotting away in the open and most of them are nothing to write home about in terms of desirability. But from time to time, barn find explorers stumble upon super-rare vehicles. The rust bucket you see here is one of those cars.
At first glance, it’s just a pile of junk sitting on an old trailer. It’s something many of us would just ignore, especially since it looks like a Malaise-era car. But this mangled shell started life as something completely different: a NASCAR-spec 1971 Plymouth HEMI Road Runner.
The race car belonged to Ramo Stott, a not-so-famous NASCAR driver who raced part-time in the competition from 1967 to 1977. Stott had 35 NASCAR starts and scored 17 top tens and a second-place finish at Talladega. So how did the Mopar end up like this and why is it no longer a 1971 Road Runner?
Well, Ramo owned it for many years and made updates to the sheet metal to keep it legal for both the NASCAR and ARCA series. The Road Runner was updated to 1973 specifications after the 1972 season and then, it received a third-generation body in 1975.
Raced like that until 1977, when it was crashed, the Road Runner was rebuilt into a Plymouth Volare for the 1978 season. The chassis was also slightly shortened to accommodate the new body. Sadly, the car crashed hard again and the outfit decided to give up on it. Parted out, the car was retired in a barn and went missing for a few decades.
The mangled Road Runner surfaced again in the 2000s, this time around, sitting on a field under new ownership. Documented by “Auto Archaeology,” the Mopar spent the last two decades fully exposed to the elements, and, not surprisingly, it’s in pretty bad shape.
But even though it’s missing vital components, including the original 426-cubic-inch (7.0-liter) HEMI V8 engine, the car still has its original race-spec chassis. The latter might just be salvageable, but will this NASCAR gen be restored to its former glory?
I have a feeling that it won’t since it will cost a fortune to rebuild a 1971 Plymouth HEMI Road Runner almost from scratch, but it’s still cool to see an old-school racer still standing after so many decades off the track. Even if it’s just a derelict Volare that no one cares about today.
But perhaps it will have the lucky fate of yet another Mopar that was discovered behind Stott’s shop decades ago. I’m talking about the first 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona that hit 200 mph (322 kph). Found with a 1973 Charger body, the car was restored to original specs and auctioned off for a whopping $550,000 in May 2022.