The Judge was supposed to be a budget beater

In 1968 Plymouth took a strippy two-door taxicab Belvedere/ Satellite model. They made the standard engine a 383 V8, and added the heads and cam from the GTX's 440 Super Commando ( Or in Dodge speak the 440 Magnum) engine. They also added an unsilenced air cleaner, and a horn that made the "Beep-Beep" sound that the Popular Warner Brothers cartoon character "The Road Runner" made. They even put little decals of the bird on the fenders and called the car the "Road Runner." To keep the price down, the cars had rubber floor mats, no carpet, and pop-out rear windows-they didn't even roll down. They didn't even have front disc brakes, just drums. They didn't have trick wheels, just hybcaps, or in some cases, like their Super Bee cousins, black steel wheels with chrome lug nuts. Chrysler hoped to sell 10,000 units. The car was a runaway hit, selling over 45,000 units the first year, and a fair number had 440s in them. Because they were so stripped-down, they were also fast. Whether you had the 383 or the optional 440 under the hood, these cars could outrun the much heavier and option-laden 396 Chevelles or 400 GTOs.  This fact was not lost on the GM upper brass, especially Pete Estes and John DeLorean who worked for Pontiac and had started the whole musclecar craze 4 years earlier with the GTO. However, the GTO had started out like the Road Runner-"Lets take a big motor and put it in a light car."  The 1964 Tempest-based GTO was a lean, mean, hot rod.  However, to broaden its appeal, The GTO had gotten bigger, heavier, and more luxurious, and thus, more expensive every year. They were still great performing cars, but this challenge from the new badass from Chrysler could not be ignored. It was obvious that the Road Runner was attracting a lot of potential GTO buyers, especially younger guys who couldn't afford a "Loaded" factory hot rod like the GTO, Olds 442, or even Chryslers own Plymouth GTX.  DeLorean told his engineers to build a stripped, down, cheap, badass GTO to crush the Road Runner challenge. They took a base-model Tempest coupe, and took a 350 Pontiac V8 and put bigger valve heads on it, a Ram Air III cam and four-barrel intake. They backed it up with a Muncie 4-speed and a 3.55 geared posi rear end. They painted it carousel red, and Called it The "E.T." For "Elapsed time".  They tested one against a 383 Road Runner, and the strippy Tempest was faster.  However DeLorean said that there would never be a GTO with an engine smaller than 400 cubes while he was president of Pontiac, but he liked the color. Estes said that by January 1969 Plymouth had already sold more Road Runners than they had in all of 1968, and they weren't all strippys. A lot of them had 440s and were loaded with options, and the new 440 "Six-Pack" which had  3 Holley 2bbls on an Edelbrock manifold, would certainly lure GTO buyers who were still pissed about Tri-Power being dropped in 1967.  This was a full on assault on the cash cow that Pontiac and GM held dear. A sales guy talked about the Popular Rowan and Martin comedy show "Laugh In" and "This funnt guy-( The "Funny guy" was Flip Wilson ) who says "Here Comes the Judge." "Why don't we call it "The Judge?"  DeLorean agreed, and Estes and others decided to give the Judge the heart to back up it's attitude. The Ram Air III 400 was standard equipment, and the Vaunted Ram Air IV was optional.  Although they weren't introduced until April, 6,833 Judge models were sold, and the magazines raved about them.  It still didn't stop the Road Runner from being the Undisputed Musclecar champ that year. Pontiac sold 72,287 GTOs in 1969. However Plymouth sold over 81,000 Road Runners that year, nearly doubling their total from 1968. Even mighty Chevrolet, with a dealer network network twice the size of Plymouths, could only sell 86,000 SS396 Chevelles-barely beating the Bird with funny horn. The Judge lived on until the option was dropped in mid-1971, and The GTO istself was gone by 1974, as were the big-block SS Chevelles. The Road Runner hung on until 1974 as well, but the GTX package was dropped after 1971, as were the 426 Hemi and the 440 Six-Pack.  However, for a few years-1968-1970, Chrysler went toe to toe with GM for performance car buyers, and we all won for it. If not for the Road Runner, there probably wouldn't have been a Hurst/Olds, a Judge, or 454 Chevelles or 455 Trans-Ams.  Mastermind