All right super bird boogie, boogie boogie, if you're ain't first you're last well, it does that well holy moly. I'm smelling smelling the sweet smell of coolant. Oh, i do believe that's what i was smelling. Yeah yeah.

We definitely have some issues with this weird bird. Welcome to movies garage, the dumbest automotive channel in all of youtube, and this has to be the silliest purchase that i have ever made for this channel. It is a 1970 plymouth super bird in vitamin c orange, and this is the real deal one of 1500 ever made and to make it even more rare. This is one of maybe less than 100 surviving factory hemi superbirds, but it was also the cheapest super bird.

In the usa, so it certainly isn't packing the numbers matching hemi under the hood, and it has a whopper of a history, but the super bird itself has a crazy story of how it came into existence and how i own one. So today, i'm going to tell you about what makes this superbird so absolutely crazy. Give you a tour of mine and how it came to be in this condition and why i bought it other than i'm nuts. So it seems impossible and ridiculous that a car like this would have been built in masses 1500 of these 500 daytonas in 1969.

But they built this to win races back in the 60s in nascar dodge and plymouth. They weren't doing so hot, especially with a new charger and that nose you see in the fast and furious charger. Uh, just sucked in a bunch of air wasn't very aerodynamic, so they actually went to the chrysler rocket engineers chrysler had a rocket division and asked them to make an aerodynamic car that could win races and the executives at chrysler thought. Well.

This is the ugliest thing. I've ever seen, but will it win races and when they were given the affirmative, they said well go ahead and build it, but i'm actually told i have a little connection to wichita with this thing that the car was wind tunnel tested in the tunnels in wichita. At wichita state university by alma mater because it was the only thing they had access to, but these were ex-nazi rocket. Scientists designing a nascar to win races to win back richard, petty who had left plymouth and gone over to ford because he was tired of losing and in 1969 the dodge daytona came out and absolutely dominated in 1970.

They came up with this. The super bird, which is what brought richard petty back now they based this on the plymouth roadrunner, which is why you see the roadrunner character all over the car i'll show you all of it in a tour here in a little bit, but this is back when Dodge was licensing cartoon characters to use on their cars, to make this thing even more insane and well. They continue to dominate nascar for the next year. Well, until nascar being party poopers decided to change the rules and say if you're gon na have an aerocar like this, it needs to have a smaller engine which pretty much neutered these things.

So really, there was only two years of glory with these crazy looking cars on the track, but in 1969 they needed to build 500 daytonas to meet nascar's rules because back in the 60s nascars actually had to be real cars more or less that you could buy In the showroom in 1970, they raised that limit to 1500 cars, which is why there's way more of these super birds, but most of them have the 440 v8 under the hood. Not many cars came like this, like the nascars with the 426 hemi, but it really didn't matter what engine they had when these were new. Nobody wanted to buy them. Dealers were practically giving the cars away some of them.

They would take the nose cone and the wing off to make them more sellable, and these cars were kind of considered ugly ducklings for a very, very long time until well in the last 15 years when they started exploding in value yeah. You thought that was a wing. No, this is a wing, it is taller than the roof itself, so it could catch clean air and the sides, i imagine, would help a little bit. If you got the tail kicked out, you had sort of like an airplane style.

Rudder to keep you straight on the track, but this is definitely the super birds calling card right here and the most ridiculous. Both sides have the road runner on it, plymouth lettering on the side, and you see the shirt that i'm currently wearing. If you guys have ordered this, you should be receiving them right now. The gt350 shirt me buying this car and the gt350 like within a month of each other, is only possible because you all watch these videos and uh.

Well, i sold off a lot of cars. 26, cars to be exact, are more than half my fleet, and this was uh a good chunk of that money. It was a hundred and thirty thousand dollars, which is uh almost the most expensive card that i have ever purchased individually uh for the garage, but i mean look at this thing. It's about the biggest thing i've ever purchased for this garage and as far as super birds go, that is very, very cheap.

Now they had their heyday back 15 years ago or so and hemi things were bringing crazy money at collector car auctions, a million dollars or more. And then all this crash - and this thing was built or restored or more like resto modded back when the crap is really hitting the fan with the recession and it sold in barrett-jackson in 2010. I believe for a hundred and thirty thousand dollars, which is what i paid for it, but it looked very different than what you see now now, you're probably wondering why would they go with arrested mod treatment on a car that is so rare and so valuable and The reason is this: car has a really crazy story. It was actually used as a race car in period, i'm told and it got sideways on the track and was t-boned by another car and then put away for decades.

So when somebody got this thing out, it had been wrecked and they decided to fix it. But in the registry for these cars it's listed as a partial re-body, which kind of dings it, and it's probably why whoever decided to build this thing took their own creative license and made well a pretty crazy, serious, resto mod. You can see in the interior. It does have a roll cage in it maybe left over from when it was a race car, so the back seat is completely removed, but up front, you have a very stock.

Looking super bird, the power windows are power windows. This looks like a crank, but really it is a window switch to give it a period. Correct, look, but you then you have power windows, you also have heating and air conditioning, but you still have a pistol grip, shifter, a modern stereo and well. It looks very vintage in here.

The horn also makes the roadrunner noise the meet me, but unfortunately this one doesn't work something for the wizard to look at, but you have the character here. You have the character in the door and overall this thing is cosmetically in excellent condition. I have always always wanted one of these and i've said that many times with many different cars, but i think this is the end-all be-all of muscle cars. You can't get anything more cool or crazy than this, and i think it fits right in with the garage and the crazy wings of the countach.

I mean just look at it now under the hood. It's still actually a hemi, but this is not the original engine. Far far from it, it may say 426, but it's actually a 528 hemi. It looks like a dragster or a racing engine, just absolutely ridiculous, but the engine bay being as big as it is.

It actually handles this gigantic power plant really easily. But you see all the modern touches you have the wheel: wood brakes. You have all the modern hoses air conditioning power, steering a modern aluminum radiator, all the presentation of a restomod, a modern ignition system. Everything you would want in a resting pod, but on a car that is very, very rare and very special.

You would think it wasn't real based on what you're seeing under the hood and what somebody did with it. But it is a real super bird underneath they also changed it and i'm not sure about this uh take a look at the suspension here. They put on a modern sort of race, car style, control, arm suspension. You can see the adjustable shocks there, which uh you know it needs some work, unfortunately, and when i drove one of these a 440 original car a few years ago at the midwest dream car collection, it kind of rode like a land yacht.

I really like the way it felt and this one well, it's all jacked up, unfortunately, but the wheels, obviously not factory, being gold, but i love the way they look personally, the wilwood hubs and brakes all around cosmetically a very, very nice car, but i don't think It was used very much or driven very much, which is nice because it's so well preserved in the restoration being over 10 years old at this point uh. But it certainly needs some sorting out so a lot of restaurants. They build them to look good but not drive all that good, which, if you're building a restaurant and you're putting modern components in an old car, it should drive as good as it looks. But it has all the right components i think, to make for a great driver, but at the moment not very good.

So with that said, let's start this thing up and see if it will idle today or start uh, it's kind of got a mind of its own on that come on there we go a lot of the gauges, aren't working and uh. Well, under the hood, you hear that pump noise, that is this big vacuum pump right here, which is going to run the headlights. I imagine other things that are vacuum controlled, but it makes a terrible terrible racket, not very practical. Yet now the engine's turned off.

It's just that pump running, let's close the hood and go for a drive, or at least try to 130 000 car and it's kind of a hoopty, maybe i'm a complete, but i was kind of hoping this would be a little bit more of a cruiser and Less of a race car like the gt350, even though it is a race car with a race car engine in it uh but uh, the suspension, i don't think, is supposed to be uh, basically no suspension it. The only shock absorption going on right now is with the tires, but there's a lot of other undisclosed issues, unfortunately, which we'll cover in the next video when we try and visit the car wizard with this thing, but right now just enjoy this thing. Just look at it now you see those things on the fenders. Those were built on the race car supposedly to allow the wheels to have more travel uh to go up into the wheel.

Well, there'll be a cutout in there which doesn't exist on these, but also, i believe, it's for more downforce, that nose cone causes issues with overheating, but also helps with aerodynamics. But this thing way more power than an original hemi superbird, something like almost 700 horsepower, which it definitely has. But this thing is: oh, a massive massive boat, it's longer than say a ford excursion expedition, uh, suburban escalade. It is huge and it's hard to believe that people were racing these back in the late 60s early 70s, and this was the first nascar to break the 200 mile an hour barrier when they were using the 69 daytona and testing it.

They were told not to go over 190, because apparently, ford had spy planes up in the air to watch as they were testing this new car, but they didn't listen. It went over 200 miles an hour way too easily, and then these things dominated on the nascar circuit for two years until the door was slammed on them because of this crazy aero kit, and now we know nascar all the cars kind of look the same. They all have to conform to a very same set of rules. The manufacturers are just well more or less stickers.

Nowadays they don't really do anything different with the cars and to me, some of the magic is lost. I mean obviously it's a lot more safe and well a little more equal level playing field, but you know formula one: the manufacturers can dominate based on what they're building within a certain set of rules. You know nascar could do the same, but you know they're not. Despite its diminished state, it still is very, very fun to drive.

Oh god, i'm gon na lift off here. Oh cheese, okay, stop stop popping stop hopping. Let's plant that rear okay, geez there we go! Oh, my goodness, all right so test drives haven't been very far because of its obvious obvious issues uh, but i'm going to attempt to burn out and then and then we're just going to go home all right. Super bird boogie boogie boogie, if you're ain't first your last well it does that well holy moly.

Well, we found his party trick. Didn't we holy crap turning radius soda turn around and get the camera pretty awful. Very awful! I'm smelling smelling the sweet smell of coolant. Although it's not overheating, just look at that, the orange lineup we have vitamin c, we have orencio atlas and we have a gulf orange with the porsche and oh, oh, i do believe that's what i was smelling.

Yeah yeah. We definitely have some issues with this weird bird. Thank you so much for watching and really from the bottom of my heart. Thank you so much for watching, because it makes this superbird possible if you're new to hooves garage be sure to hit that subscribe button because uh well, i think the next video, when we try and drive to the wizards, is going to be interesting.

I may have got scanned a little bit. You.