1970 Superbird
You are not looking at some custom-type car made in someone's garage. This exotic bird was made by Plymouth just at the tail end of the muscle car era. What your eyes are seeing is a full-blown race car, straight from the factory at about $3,600! The car was a Plymouth Road Runner with a spoiler (wing?) to end all spoilers. There were two allen head bolts at the end of the uprights so you could adjust the pitch of the wing, depending on what conditions you were driving. The front end was designed for spliting the air at speed way over 130 miles an hour. The same for the roofline. That front is all metal, not fiberglass, and 17 inches long. The standerd Road Runner was constructed on a Belvedere chassis of 116 inches and was 204 inches long. The Superbird is 221, 17 of which is that bolt-on front end.
The Superbird came in colors to match its looks. There was a bright slime green, hemi orange, purple, and yellow.
The inside of the car was austere. This was a nuts and bolts dragster, not ment to be nifty on the inside. With that monter preformance engine, the only transmission available was the tree-speed automatic. Air-con, cruise control, and a lot of other doohickeys were not avalible.
To further emphasize what this car was ment for, it had not bumber! Short runs to the supermarket were not for this car.
As for the ride, it was firm, to be polite. The seats are not the cushiony type of the 300's of a few decades before. The exaust is deep and throaty, and when all six barrels (remember that in this case a six-pack does not mean beer) are open, the blood does seem to run a little faster.
The car does not handle curves well, but then again, this is a dragster. With a very heavy front end, you will not take any alpine curves at full throttle.
The Superbird is an idication of how wild the Muscle Car era was. It represents an imagination gone wild (or that has been exposed to too many exaust fumes), the fun end of cars. See that Superbird on the upright of the wing? He's smiling!
Overall Length: 221"
Wheelbase: 116"
Width: 76"
Hight: 54"
Weight: 3,789 lbs.
Engine: OHV V-8 440 cid/7.2 liter
Bore x Stroke: 4.33" x 3.75"
Carburetor: 3-2 barrels (Six-pack)
Compression ratio: 10.5:1
Horsepower: 390 @ 4,700 rpm
Torque: 490 ft-lbs. @ 3,200 rpm
Rear Axle Ratio: 3.55:1
Transmission: Torque-Flite (3-speed auto)