VINTAGE: Superbird Stars In Las Vegas

Probably the most outrageous car in U.S. showrooms in 1970 was the Plymouth Road Runner Superbird, an 18-foot-long aerodynamic muscle car that was deeply influenced by NASCAR racing and Warner Bros. cartoons. With its lofty rear wing and long added-on nose, the Superbird followed hot on the heels of the equally wild 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona.

The Superbird brought the concept to full fruition, though only for a single year.

The Superbird's most-enduring feature is its towering rear wing. (Photo: Barrett-Jackson) Barrett-Jackson's beautiful example of a rare 426/425hp Hemi Superbird (Lot #670) on Saturday earned $297,000, including buyer fee, one of the highest sales at the Las Vegas auction. Immaculately restored by Premier Body and Paint from a car with just over 20,000 original miles, the bright-yellow Superbird was rightfully one of the featured cars for the Vegas auction.

Just a limited number of ?winged warriors? were sold by Plymouth for homologation as a NASCAR entry, and this particular ?bird is rare even in this small flock.

?They only made 1,900-some of these cars, and they only made about 100 Hemi Superbirds,? said Darren Jasper, one of the partners of the rural Missouri shop that performed the restoration. ?The way the paperwork breaks it down, it?s one of only two that was ever made with the combination of the 426 and the color with an automatic in it. With the options on our car, it?s actually one of one; what breaks it down to be a one of one is actually the wheels.?

The wheels that are on the Plymouth are correct, Jasper added. ?That is coded out on the Broadcast Sheet. That?s the wheels that belong on it.?

Jasper and his partner, Jeff Abercrombie, own the car and have consigned it to the Barrett-Jackson Las Vegas auction under their dealership name, Premier Classics, he said. Their shop doesn?t specialize in Mopars, but this isn?t their first go-round with a Superbird.

The Superbird at Barrett-Jackson is one of the few produced with a 426 Hemi V8. (Photo: Barrett-Jackson) ?We do a little bit of everything,? Jasper said. ?That just happened to be one of the cars we ran across. We knew it was a rare car because we?ve done six of those cars now for different people. But we own this one.?

The Superbird and the earlier Dodge Daytona were efforts by Chrysler racing designers to use wind tunnels to create aerodynamic cars to run on NASCAR?s high-speed ovals. As the story goes, Richard Petty was driving for Plymouth when he got a load of the Daytona on the track in 1969 and wanted Plymouth to produce a similar race car. But Plymouth wasn?t prepared to build it.

In anger, Petty went over to Ford to drive for them, a relationship that lasted one year until the Superbird was readied and he was lured back.

Because the Belvedere that Plymouth had been racing was a slightly different shape than the Dodge Charger, additional engineering needed to be done for a similar aerodynamics formula to work. Repeated attempts to apply it to the Belvedere were unsatisfactory, so the designers switched the platform to the one used for the Road Runner, which still needed more aerodynamic experimentation as well.

Superbird's streamlined nose added an additional 19 inches to its length. (Photo: Barrett-Jackson) They developed their own more streamlined nose cone with retractable headlights ? which added 19 inches to the car?s overall length ? and the wing is broader than the one on the Charger. The distinctive reverse scoops on the front fenders scavenged air from the wheel wells, adding to the aerodynamics.

The refinements of the Superbird produced a wind-cheater that could soar at high speeds, the rear wing adding downforce in the rear to enhance traction. The aerodynamics of the Superbird reputedly beats many of the streamlined cars built today.

Under NASCAR homologation rules of the day, Plymouth had to produce just over 1,900 Superbirds for sale to the public. Soon, Plymouth dealerships had Superbirds in their showrooms, complete with graphics of the Warner Bros. Road Runner cartoon character holding a crash helmet and equipped with a horn that made his distinctive ?beep-beep? sound.

Source: http://automotive.speedtv.com/article/vintage-superbird-stars-in-las-vegas/

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