Late in 1974, newlyweds Heather and Dave Eamon decided to update their car. Prior to getting married, Dave Eamon had a 1972 Plymouth Duster, a car he’d bought new with savings earned flipping burgers at the A&W restaurant on McLeod Trail at 71 Avenue in Calgary. He drove it to school at SAIT, where he was taking business administration. The Duster was a base-model vehicle, with a 318 cubic-inch engine and a three-speed standard shift transmission.
“The original plan was to sell the ‘72 Duster and get a fully loaded car with an automatic transmission, power steering and power brakes,” Eamon recalls. “We were thinking that would be a ’75 Duster (equipped with) the 360 cubic-inch engine, but Heather said, ‘We’ve already had a Duster, let’s get something else.’”
Heather and Dave Eamon with their freshly restored 1975 Plymouth Road Runner, completed with plenty of help from members of the Northern Mopars Auto Club. CREDIT: Dave Eamon Photo by Dave Eamon
They visited Calgary’s Renfrew Chrysler and met with salesman Jimmie Anderson. Instead of the Duster, the couple factory ordered a 1975 Plymouth Road Runner — a one-year only B-body car based on the Plymouth Fury with a base price of $4,850.
“That was a time of high inflation,” Eamon says, “and it was like paying a king’s ransom.”
He continues, “I wanted the hottest engine I could get and for ’75, that was the 400 four-barrel with dual exhausts. With the car being so expensive, we kept the options to a minimum.”
In late April 1975, the Eamons sat down with Anderson. Because they wanted cloth on the bucket seats — essential given Calgary’s cold winters, Eamon says — they checked off the Sundance interior option. The 400 cubic-inch engine came paired with a TorqueFlite automatic transmission and power steering, but Eamon selected power brakes with front discs. Also added was a performance hood treatment, essentially, a matte black hood, Music Master AM radio, heavy-duty battery, dual block heaters, tinted windshield and tunnel trunk lid stripe on the Aztec Gold car. Built at Chrysler’s St. Louis, Missouri assembly plant, the Road Runner arrived at the dealership in early June, and they picked it up on Friday the 13th. It was a daily driver for a number of years until the late-1980s when Eamon parked it with 110,000 miles on the odometer.
“I kept it up, though, and changed the oil every year and drove it to car shows but the interior was faded and there was some rust in it,” he says.
Purchased new in 1975 from Calgary’s Renfrew Chrysler, Heather and Dave Eamon’s Plymouth Road Runner was driven regularly for a number of years. It was semi-retired but still driven occasionally before being restored over the last two-and-a-half years. Photo by Dave Eamon
A special order was the performance hood treatment, essentially, a matte black hood. Photo by Dave Eamon
With plenty of help from friends and members of the Northern Mopars Auto Club, Heather and Dave Eamon returned their 1975 Plymouth Road Runner to better-than-new condition. When they ordered the car, Dave wanted to largest engine available, and that was a 400 cubic-inch four barrel V8 backed up by a TorqueFlite transmission. Photo by Dave Eamon
Because the car was one of 7,183 Road Runners built in 1975, and it held memories for the couple. Photo by Dave Eamon
When the restoration began, the Eamon’s Road Runner was tired and rusty, but still a good-running vehicle. After disassembly, the body shell was delivered to Terry Levair of Investment Vehicle Restorations in Granum, Alberta. Levair found a donor vehicle to provide several body panels and he painted the car its original Aztec Gold. Photo by Dave Eamon
In order to get fabric covered seats in their 1975 Plymouth Road Runner, Heather and Dave Eamon had to select the Sundance interior option when they factory-ordered the car. Photo by Dave Eamon
Worried about where he’d ever find replacement fabric, in 2012 Dave found enough material at SMS Auto Fabrics in Oregon to have the interior redone by Gary Grodzack of Auto Marine Upholstery in Calgary. Photo by Dave Eamon
Because the car was one of 7,183 Road Runners built in 1975, and it held memories for the couple, Eamon decided late in 2019 to fully restore the car. He pulled the Plymouth into their two-car garage, and with help from several members of the Northern Mopars Auto Club, including Larry Gammon, Bryan Parker, Neale Felske, Mark Hopkins, Barry Manning and Arnold Stinner, fully dismantled the Road Runner. The body shell was delivered to Terry Levair of Investment Vehicle Restorations in Granum, Alberta. Several body panels needed to be replaced, and Levair located a parts car that yielded front fenders, quarter panels, trunk lid and driver’s door.
“Terry is well known for his stunning paint jobs,” Eamon says. “The body work and paint are beyond compare and far exceed what the factory originally did.”
Eamon and his Northern Mopars helpers restored all mechanical components. Because the engine ran fine and the transmission shifted through the gears, neither were rebuilt. Instead, they were cleaned, detailed and painted. Levair looked after the suspension and replaced the shocks, tie rod ends and ball joints.
The tunnel decal on the trunk lid was a special order option selected by the Eamons when they bought the car. CREDIT: Dave Eamon Photo by Dave Eamon
Eamon always wondered where he’d find the correct Sundance-pattern fabric with its various shades of brown, orange and gold and the white vinyl for the seat bolsters. In 2012, he read a magazine article about another Sundance-equipped car. It mentioned SMS Auto Fabrics in Canby, Oregon. Eamon went online and found they had the right pattern. He ordered the suggested amount of fabric from SMS, and kept it wrapped up in the basement until giving it and the seats to Gary Grodzack of Auto Marine Upholstery in Calgary. Grodzack stitched and installed replacement covers. Meanwhile, the bumpers were chromed by Alberta Plating, and approximately two and a half years after dismantling the Road Runner, it was back together.
But Eamon says he pays a price for selecting the 400 cubic-inch engine every time he visits the pump. The car gets about 10 mpg, or 23.5L/100km, and today in Calgary, it would cost him roughly $47 to travel 100 kilometres.
“We’re very happy with how the restoration turned out, though,” Eamon says of the car they’ve owned for almost 50 years. “I remember when we picked the car up new from Renfrew, and now it’s better than new.”
Greg Williams is a member of the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC). Have a column tip? Contact him at 403-287-1067 or [email protected]
Keyword: On the Road: 1975 Plymouth Road Runner