The compression ratio was 9.7:1, and it made 375 horsepower and 480 lb-ft of torque. The most popular was the base “Super Commando” 440 cid V8 with a Carter AVS-4737-S four barrel carburetor. Plymouth Superbird Engines and Performanceįor the sole year that it was available, Plymouth offered the 1970 Superbird with three different naturally aspirated engine options. Plymouth Superbird Engine Technical Specifications Model Years Today, the Richard Petty Superbird is available to be seen at the Richard Petty Museum in North Carolina. For 1971, NASCAR changed the rules to make things safer, and the Superbird was discontinued. The Richard Petty Superbird had the 426 HEMI engine, which came in at just under the 7.0 liter displacement limit.
Plymouth lured him back to the fold in 1970 with the creation of the Superbird, which he piloted to eight victories that NASCAR season. Petty had raced with Plymouth in 1968 using the Dodge Charger 500, but left in 1969 to drive the new Ford Torino Talladega. The NASCAR Plymouth Superbird was driven by none other than the legendary Richard Petty. That resulted in the smooth styling and massive rear-deck airfoil of the Superbird, which in hindsight had served to keep it as one of the most distinct and iconic muscle cars of the entire era.
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At the time, NASCAR restricted engine displacement to 7.0 liters, and nothing bigger was allowed to compete.įor race teams, this meant they had to figure out how to make their cars more aerodynamic to shave off seconds, because they couldn’t just add a larger engine to crank up the horsepower.
You might be wondering why Plymouth and Dodge gave the Daytona and Superbirds such interesting styling and resorted to putting huge rear wings on the back? The reason is related to engine displacement. What’s with the wing/airfoil? Credit: Sicnag/Wikipedia This arguably contributed to worse performance from the Superbird, and it was done to make it more aesthetically pleasing. The Superbird was 19 inches longer than the Daytona and had a new nose, and the airfoil wing itself was actually different, too. Though they both had the same body style and both had massive iconic wings, the Daytona and Superbird had many differences.
Dodge built the Daytona on top of the Charger two-door hardtop, while Plymouth used their version, the Roadrunner hardtop. The Dodge Daytona is one of the most iconic cars in history, and looks incredibly similar to the Superbird at first glance. The Plymouth Superbird was heavily based on two cars from 1969, the Dodge Daytona and the Plymouth Roadrunner. The Superbird, piloted by the famous Richard Petty, won eight races in 1970, showing it to be an improvement over the Daytona – or maybe it was just the addition of Petty. The next year, the Daytona won another four before it was succeeded by the Superbird. In 1969, Plymouth raced the Dodge Daytona and did very well, winning two races. Plymouth would be rewarded for their invention of the Superbird. It did not sell particularly well, but did enough to make it eligible for NASCAR, which was the whole point anyway. Thus, just like Dodge with the 1969 Daytona, Plymouth made the 1970 Superbird available to the public, purely for homologation purposes. While Dodge only needed to sell 500 units of the Daytona, new rules mandated that Plymouth sell one Superbird per dealership in order to compete. The Superbird was based on and served as the successor to the Dodge Charger Dayton that was used for the 1969 and early part of the 1970 NASCAR season. However, there was a time when the cars competing on the track were very similar to their production variants. You have probably heard of NASCAR referred to as stock car racing, even though the modern cars have virtually nothing in common with their mass produced cousins. To understand the 1970 Plymouth Superbird, you have to understand the conditions that came together for its creation. Today, it is one of the most valuable collectors vehicles, with the ultra-rare 426 HEMI versions topping more than $2 million at auction.
Featuring only big block 440 and 426 HEMI engines, the Superbird was the ultimate at the time for street performance. Modeled on their Chrysler brethren’s 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona, the 1970 Superbird is one of the most iconic muscle cars of all time. Plymouth built less than 2,000 Superbirds total, most of them to fulfill NASCAR’s homologation requirements at the time. Only available for one year in 1970, the Plymouth Superbird is as rare as it is majestic.
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