1970 Plymouth Superbird. Geoff Stunkard
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Название: 1970 Plymouth Superbird
Автор: Geoff Stunkard
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Автомобили и ПДД
isbn: 9781613254875
isbn:
The 1969 Ford Talladega was the reason Richard Petty made a one-season switch to Ford blue. Otherwise, Plymouth would not have committed the resources in late 1969 to build a truly competitive race car. (Photo Courtesy Quartermilestones.com)
For Richard Petty, 1968 proved to be a somewhat bittersweet follow-up to his dominating 1967 season. Ford released a new fastback called the Torino; Mercury offered an associated model named Cyclone. With less frontal area than Chryslers, they were slick enough to dominate most of the year. The wind tunnel work on Petty’s 1968 Road Runner showed that it was competitive thanks to its own flush grille and rear window. Therefore, when the Charger 500 was announced in June, he asked Plymouth what they planned to do for 1969.
The response was, “Nothing.” Plymouth felt that the Road Runner was already a good fit and believed that Petty could still win in it. Ford, meanwhile, had just announced and received ACCUS approval for a newly designed aero styling package for the Torino called Talladega, named for a new NASCAR track Bill France was constructing in Alabama. This car (and companion Cyclone Spoiler) took the functionality a step further, with a deliberately dropped and extended nose and smoothed-out rear cab design.
Petty was now more alarmed and requested to move to Dodge to run a Charger 500 for the upcoming season. Neither Dodge, who had enough big-name drivers already, nor Plymouth, who frankly had no other big-name drivers, were interested in this change. Phone calls were made to Dearborn, contracts were let, and at the end of the 1968 season, Petty Enterprises announced that the number 43 would be on a Ford for 1969. Plymouth had no back-up plan for this consequence.
For Bob McCurry, it was the hope that Dodge could finally win the Daytona crown. He had a car, the Charger 500. He had four drivers: Bobby Isaac in the Harry Hyde #71, Buddy Baker in Ray Fox’s #3, Cotton Owens’s #6 driven by Chargin’ Charlie Glotzbach, and Paul Goldsmith in Ray Nichels’s shop car #9. Alas, LeeRoy Yarbrough, in a Torino Talladega owned by Junior Johnson, won by inches when Glotzbach could not pass him on the final lap. Bob McCurry was not happy. At all.
During the run-up to the event, John Pointer and Bob Marcell had each sketched out the next generation car in theory. Convention did not matter; only function mattered. The plan was to add a quite pointed nose rather than one that simply sloped. In addition, instead of a small deck spoiler, they wanted one of enough consequence to literally plant the back end of the car to the racetrack. With McCurry on the warpath, they showed him the rudimentary ideas.
“It’s ugly,” he reportedly said to the aerostylists, then added, “Will it win?”
They told him, “Yes, it would.”
That settled, he gave it his final approval, and it was a no-holds-barred chase for its release. Work began in earnest using everything learned in the Charger 500 program to add an extended nose and figure out the spoiler design. This became more critical when noting that ACCUS intended to meet in late April 1969 to re-evaluate production numbers.
A number of things were discovered during this development process. Once the nose was configured properly, a set of front fender scoops was authorized for tire clearance, but they actually functioned more as air extractors. The rear wing was designed with an inverted Clark Y-style aircraft horizontal spoiler. It was styled high enough to clear the open deck lid. Using a pair of rear-fender-mounted streamlined uprights actually made this wing even more functional; the upright’s slab-sided shape was capable of straightening out the car in the event of drifting or air speed coming from anywhere but the front.
The requisite number was again 500, with six months advance notice given. As a result, the new Charger Daytona was formally introduced and shown to the press in the middle of April, with the implicit desire to have it debut at the new Talladega track in mid-September. ACCUS ruled mere weeks later that the new minimums going forward were one unit for every two dealerships.
The next step forward was a moonshot; the 1969 Charger Daytona looked like nothing that had ever appeared from any manufacturer. This Omaha Orange example, in the vicinity of an airplane propeller, was once in the Wellborn Museum’s collection. (Photo Courtesy Quartermilestones.com)
The cartoon on the wing notwithstanding, Plymouth’s Superbird was all business. (Photo Courtesy Quartermilestones.com)
The Daytona was truly an exercise in function; its look also had novelty and Dodge rode that wave into its dealerships as the cars began to show up in the latter half of 1969. Created from the normal Charger R/T packaging, all Daytonas were Hemi- or 440 Magnum–powered. In most cases they offered minimal extra options and base sold for little more than the conventional Charger R/T.
To facilitate construction as quickly as possible, Dodge turned to a Detroit-area fabrication firm, Creative Industries. Having worked on the Charger 500 program as well, Creative was tasked with constructing and installing the noses and wings, and making other changes to Charger R/Ts created on the assembly line. This included a large wraparound rear “scat stripe” that read “DAYTONA.” Working with engineer Dale Reeker from Chrysler, the parts were rapidly designed and all production issues dealt with quickly. Some immediate problems cropped up from the stylists, until McCurry stepped in and told them to shut up and back off. The Daytona arrived in time to help inaugurate the first race run at the Alabama International Motor Speedway in Talladega. It also won there.
Meanwhile, although Richard Petty had won a couple of races in his new Ford, it was not a great romance. Like Dodge, Ford had its own share of superstars, and they tended to get preferential treatment. The Petty team’s long experience with Chrysler Hemi engines no doubt aided them as Ford’s new Boss 429 had also arrived for 1969, and having the aero-styled Torino body was likely better than trying to tool around at 180 mph in a Road Runner, even if that vehicle had been named Motor Trend’s Car of the Year in 1969.
When Petty made statements that life was not perfect, Plymouth quickly got the hint. In June, some Chrysler people made quiet inquiries as to whether Mr. Petty would be interested in discussing a future back with Plymouth. He would. If they built a competitive aero-model, he would come back, but there would be a cost. In addition to money for racing Plymouths again, Petty Enterprises would also receive the corporation’s entire circle track parts distribution and contract-racing business for which Ray Nichels/Paul Goldsmith were currently responsible. The authorization for that change reportedly went all the way to Chairman of the Board Lynn Townsend, who signed off on it.
The new ACCUS minimum requirement meant that Plymouth needed to build almost 2,000 units. Changes in federal headlamp laws, slated to go into effect on January 1, 1970, meant that the Daytona-type concealed headlamp design had to be off the assembly line before then. The stylists intended to get some comeuppance for Dodge’s indiscretions, and took some. To top it off, the company had just six months to pull it all off.
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