Road Runner Hood Ornament
We Build Custom 3D Foam Sculptures
The golden age of muscle cars peaked from 1964 to 1970, six years of prime glory, with a boastful variety of supercars on the road. Today, car enthusiasts still recall when these beefy machines, with their loudly revving V8s and drag race-ready rear-wheel drives, ruled the road. In 1969, the Plymouth Road Runner was named Motor Trend’s car of the year. In 2020, car enthusiasts continue to regale this Warner Brothers-branded performance vehicle.
WhiteClouds was asked to recreate the Road Runner’s head and neck to attach to the air scoop of a 1970 model Plymouth of the same name.
The entire sculpture was hand sculpted from two-pound expanded polystyrene foam to look precisely like the Road Runner. Sculpting the bird, including bodywork, took about two and a half weeks to complete. Once the rough shape was carved out, refinement of the finer details included shaping proportions of the bill and the feather plume at the top of the head. The foam’s imperfections were filled with a polymer hard-coating and then hand-sanded to prep the sculpture for painting.
We did an automotive-grade paint job to flawlessly match the WB Road Runner cartoon character’s colors and tones. After the paint was dry, we applied a high-gloss protective clear coat to guard the sculpture against scratches.
The sculpture was broken down into three separate parts, the head, neck, and feather plume. This breakdown allowed for easy packaging and transport of the piece. Each component connects with locking wooden dowel pins to form the completed hood ornament. The neck of the bird connects to a wooden base plate that slides flush into the air scoop.
To learn more about our custom foam sculptures, “Beep, beep” on over to our sculpture page.