Before introducing the affordable Road Runner in 1968, Plymouth took the premium muscle car route with the GTX in late 1966. A competitor for the first-generation Dodge Charger, the GTX was fancier than the average muscle car but delivered outstanding performance.

That’s because it arrived in showrooms with Mopar’s most potent mills. The GTX came standard with a 440-cubic-inch (7.2-liter) RB V8 rated at 375 horsepower and was available with the mighty 426-cubic-inch (7.0-liter) HEMI, good for 425 horses.

But America wasn’t yet ready for a premium performance rig. The GTX sold only 12,010 units in its first year on the market and moved almost 18,000 examples in 1968. That same year, the newly introduced Road Runner found more than 44,000 owners.

Plymouth kept the GTX on the assembly line until late 1971. That’s when it discontinued its high-performance V8 engines. With no proper mill to rely on, the GTX went into the history books. The nameplate moved 55,516 cars up to that point. For reference, Plymouth sold a whopping 175,879 Road Runners through 1971.

But the fact that it wasn’t very popular at the time makes the GTX a rare classic today. The HEMI version is particularly scarce since only 1,526 units were built over five years. The Seafoam Turquoise example you see here is one of those cars and one of the very few GTXs that look spotless many decades after they left the assembly line.

Spotted at a public auction event, this GTX arrived in showrooms for the 1969 model year. It’s one of 14,902 units built that year, but the HEMI V8 makes it one of only 224 examples equipped with the range-topping powerplant. If that’s not rare enough for you, there’s more! Of the 224 HEMI rigs produced for 1969, only 208 were two-door hardtops.

Records say 11 were shipped to Canada, so we’re looking at one of 197 vehicles sold in the US. Finally, the four-speed manual gearbox makes it one of only 98 sporting this drivetrain configuration. Oh wait, there’s more. The Q5 Seafoam Turquoise color is quite rare on the 1969 HEMI GTX.

I don’t have exact figures to run by (Plymouth did not keep records), but this hardtop is only the second 1969 HEMI GTX I’ve seen in this color so far. I’m not saying there aren’t more out there, but until I can find one, I’m okay with calling this Mopar a one-of-two gem based on paint code alone.

But I could take it up a notch and call it a one-of-one rig since it has different options and different (dog-dish) wheels compared to the turquoise HEMI I showed you in September 2023.

How much is such a rare golden-era muscle car worth nowadays? Well, this GTX crossed the auction block earlier in 2023 for $107,250. That’s not a lot of dough, given that some HEMI-powered ‘Cudas and Superbirds fetch more than $400,000. If you’re into GTXs, it’s quite the bargain.