We found this write up on Ridelust about a guy that took his ’73 Road Runner and had transplanted it with a late model LS2 from a GTO. Knowing how much controversy and negativity this story might raise, we had to tell you about it and let you decide.

From the outside this ’73 Plymouth Road Runner looks like any restored muscle car you might see at a cruise night or local car show, but open the hood and it would surely shock many of the purist and die hard Mopar fans. The owner says that when he blew up the factory 400 engine he couldn’t afford to have it rebuilt so the car sat parked for about 4 years until a friend that owned an automotive salvage yard called him and told him about a wrecked 2006 Pontiac GTO that came in with a perfect drivetrain.

Having the opportunity to buy the LS2 with the computer and transmission for a very reasonable price he decided that it would be a great swap to bring the Road Runner back to life. He figured he would have the best of both worlds with a modern fuel injected 400 Horsepower engine, that would get decent mileage and be able to smoke the tires at will, and that’s exactly what he got.

For those of us that know and grew up around muscle cars its a hard idea to swallow, especially mixing brand X with Y. The fender tag on this Plymouth will not match its newly transplanted heart, and the rest of the crowd will probably bark out rude remarks and criticize what he has done to an otherwise authentic appearing example of Mopar muscle.

We all can accept an early Ford roadster with a small block Chevy in it, or a rat rod with an off brand engine, because that’s what we did back then, but and LS2 in a Road Runner? This will definitely take a while to digest.