By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

A car feature on a 1971 Plymouth Super Bird? You got it. So what if Mopar never built such an animal, Gary and Pam Beineke did, and this one’s loaded with a 472ci Hemi wth a Six Pack. Yeah, Chrysler never made a Six Pack Hemi, either.

The vaunted “aero wars” in NASCAR came to a crashing halt in 1970 with the announcement by Bill France that all of the “special cars,” or those that had factory aerodynamic enhancements would be limited to a mere 305ci. Fielding a miniscule small-block in a field of big-inch stompers was not going to be productive, so the manufacturers killed their aerodynamic projects and went back to big cars with big frontal areas and big motors to punch through the air.

What gets lost in the mix is the simple fact that everyone, Ford, Chrysler, and GM, had skunkworks programs well in progress for the 1971 season and beyond. Although they were stopped after the announcement, testing had been done and documents created about the wind-tunnel prowess of the cars.

This is where Gary and Pam Beineke come in. Continue reading and see the full photo gallery at BangShift.com

By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

While it seems perfectly normal for a collector car magazine to feature the Daytona and Superbird nowadays, it must have seemed a little jarring to readers to crack open Special-Interest Autos #45, May-June 1978, and find an article by Richard Langworth discussing eight- and nine-year-old cars. It’d be akin to putting a 2000 model year vehicle in HCC. Yet a club had already formed (the Daytona and Superbird Owners Association), and all of the people involved in producing and racing the cars were still alive and available for Langworth to interview, thus an article that un-self-consciously looked at a relatively late model car as a collectible. Continue reading at Hemmings

By Ron Honig

WaytooFurious

Sunday was a great day for me. My friend John and I went to check out the Sandown Swap Meet held at Sandown Racecourse. There were a lot of cool cars in the display area and despite vendor numbers being down there were plenty of bargains to be had. I was really pleased when I picked up a Plymouth Superbird for my model collection. It was a lot cheaper than buying it in a store or on the Internet. So what’s your latest swap meet find?

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Mike and I saw Goldberg’s Superbird at SEMA, and it’s a very impressive build. I wonder what it will fetch at Barrett-Jackson when it goes up for auction on January 17. I’ve heard predictions of up to $1 million, despite the soft economy (all proceeds will be donated to the Darrell Gwynn Foundation). In the meantime, check out Year One’s video on the car!

By Mike Musto

AKA Mr. Angry

Over a year ago when I decided to start work on our 1969 Dodge Daytona, I got a call from former wrestler, pro-football player and auto-maniac Bill Goldberg. Bill was the host the Bullrun TV show that I was a part of, so when I found out he was building a 1970 Plymouth Superbird in conjunction with Year One, I was obviously curious about the project. Well, the project was unveiled and seeing the car in person just doesn’t do it justice. The guys at Year One worked with Goldberg’s vision of a true Nascar Superbird and created a truly spectacular car. The best part though… no one is keeping this baby as it’s being sold at Barrett-Jackson this January for charity. Check out the video link to get a better idea what I’m talking about.

Check out this Superbird, which was painted like this in 1976 for the Bicentennial. Sadly, it was heavily damaged in a storage fire in 1999, along with about 60 other collector cars, through the remains of this Bird still exist. It’s a 440-4 bbl, 4-speed, white with white buckets. 

I’ve got a bunch more patriotic Mopars after the jump, including more Superbirds, wheel standing Sox & Martin cars and a Richard Petty car.

Continue reading "Patriotic Mopars" »