Good morning everyone. I know the topic of red or black inserts with either the V21 performance hood paint or the N96 Air Grabber option has been beaten to death on this board, with the consensus, it seems, to be that the inserts were red with the N96 and black without (I know the Paul Herd restoration book says they are red with the V21 option but my impression is the Herd book is not all that well thought of).

My question is if there is no N96 option and the inserts are black with the V21, are the inserts painted with the Organosol as well? It seems the thicker Organosol would screw up or "fill in" the ribbing found on the black inserts. Are they painted with the rest of the hood, or is the ribbed part spared the Organosol treatment and reattached later?

Thank you all for your help today.

My dad's 69 Road Runner, R4 Red with the black hood strips, Non-Air Grabber car has red painted inserts from the factory. The car is a spring special package with black vinyl top, post car. I have only seen the Red non air grabber cars with the painted inserts and other colors all painted black. I have seen Red cars with both versions too. Pictures going all the way back to new show the red hood inserts on it.

Attached is an original ad of a red Non Air Grabber car and you can see the red painted hood insert on it.

I had a '69 V21, Spring Special, F8, non-AG, dead-original car, I was the 2nd owner.
And another, R4, non-AG, V21 '69, also dead-original.
Both had the ribbed plates and they were black, same as my other non-AG non-V21 cars; not organisol.
All were St Louis cars, about mid-year production.
I've never seen a different scheme including when they were new, but a variance could be possible, I suppose.

I ordered my 1969 Road Runner in the early spring of 1969 with N96 Air Grabber and the V21 hood stripes, the grilles were red. I was proud of having the Air Grabber on my 383 RR and whenever I saw another RR with red grilles I knew that RR had the Air Grabber also. Back in the day during that time I had several friends and saw many other RR's and never remember ever seeing a non Air Grabber equipped RR with red grilles. I even remember seeing an ad that pointed out that Air Grabber equipped RR's had red grilles to mean they were red for the fire breathing fresh air intake hood. Hood stripes or no hood stripes if the RR was originally equipped with the N96 AIR GRABBER from the factory (speaking for the Lynch Road plant) it had red grilles IMO. Hood stripes or no hood stripes non-air grabber RR's had black closed inserts and regardless of body color.................which has also been a discussion...and somewhat red and heated

N96 Air Grabber option determined the air intake grille or non-intake insert color not the V21 hood stripe option.

If you look closely at the GTX ad (cartoon?) the area between the air rushing in is red........not that this proves a darn thing but it's red

How can one be sure that is a non-Air Grabber RR in the ad? The small images above the car could be from any car or ad copy images. Just saying.

The only contribution I can help with...

Mike

The photo 65pacecar posted is of the '69 Belvedere line brochure.
That's a heavily photo-re-touched brochure in general.
Also, those would be pre-production cars used for the basic photos, and in some cases they appear retouched to show different trim levels.
A couple of the Road Runners - yellow coupe & green convert on the next pages - IIRC show the "recall" wheels, also shown on the options page.