1969 Dodge Daytona or 1970 Plymouth Superbird ? Pick a 426 Hemi ?

Owner Tom Lembeck has something almost no other collector can claim: a 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona in Spring Green Metallic and a 1970 Plymouth Superbird in Vitamin C Orange, both factory 426 Hemi cars, parked side by side in the same collection. Host Lou Costabile walks through exactly what separates NASCAR’s two winged Mopars once you see them together. Watch to see both aero legends compared directly, nose cone to nose cone.

Plymouth built 1,935 Superbirds. Dodge built even fewer Daytonas. Finding either one of NASCAR’s wildest homologation specials in the same city on the same day would already be remarkable; finding both of them owned by the same person, parked nose to nose, is the kind of thing most Mopar fans go their whole lives without seeing in person. Tom Lembeck has both, in two of the most striking factory colors either car ever wore, and he’s about to explain exactly what makes each one different from the other, wing to wing.

The Aero Wars That Built These Cars

Both the Dodge Charger Daytona and the Plymouth Superbird exist because of NASCAR homologation rules that required manufacturers to sell a minimum number of street versions of any car they wanted to race competitively on the superspeedway circuit. That’s exactly why Dodge and Plymouth built these extreme aerodynamic packages, complete with towering rear wings and elongated nose cones, specifically to legally campaign them on ovals against Ford and General Motors. The Daytona came first in 1969, with the Superbird following a year later in 1970 as Plymouth’s answer once Richard Petty needed a winged car of his own to stay competitive.

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Two Different Colors, Two Different Personalities

This particular pairing puts a 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona in Spring Green Metallic against a 1970 Plymouth Road Runner Superbird in Vitamin C Orange, two of the more vivid factory color options either nameplate offered during its brief production run. Colors like these have become closely associated with the winged car era’s over-the-top personality, and seeing both cars parked together highlights just how differently Dodge’s and Plymouth’s take on essentially the same aerodynamic concept actually looked once they left the factory floor and hit dealer lots.

Both Powered by the Factory 426 Hemi

According to the video, both cars in this pairing carry factory-installed 426 Hemi engines, the same legendary big block that anchored Mopar’s most serious muscle car offerings throughout the era, and one of the rarest and most valuable options a buyer could check on either the Daytona or Superbird order sheet at the time. Hemi-optioned winged cars represent a small fraction of an already tiny production run, which is part of what makes a pairing like this one so genuinely significant to see documented on camera, side by side, in person.

Why You Almost Never See One Winged Car, Let Alone Two

Host Lou Costabile notes plainly that it’s rare to see even a single winged Mopar at a car show, which underscores just how unusual it is to have both a Daytona and a Superbird from the same collection sitting side by side on the same afternoon. Between low original production numbers and decades of attrition, wrecks, and cars simply lost to time, examples this specific have become genuinely difficult to find in any condition at all, let alone two of them owned and carefully maintained by the same collector for years.

Tom Lembeck’s Mopar Collection

Owner Tom Lembeck is described as well known specifically for his Mopar muscle car collection, and a pairing like this Daytona and Superbird combination is exactly the kind of holding that builds that reputation within the collector community over time. Collecting one winged car takes patience, connections, and real resources; collecting both variants from the same aero era, in strong original factory colors, reflects a level of specialization that goes well beyond casual muscle car ownership into genuinely serious Mopar scholarship.

The Nose Cone and Wing Engineering

Both cars’ signature features, the elongated fiberglass nose cone and the towering rear wing mounted on tall struts, weren’t styling exercises so much as functional aerodynamic tools, engineered to reduce drag and add rear downforce at NASCAR speeds well north of 190 miles per hour. That the wing sits as high as it does wasn’t an arbitrary design choice either; engineers needed it positioned above the turbulent air coming off the trunk lid to actually function correctly, which is exactly why both cars wear a genuinely odd-looking piece of hardware that was, in period, taken very seriously by Chrysler’s aerodynamicists.

Comparing Daytona and Superbird Side by Side

Chassis-wise, the Daytona and Superbird share more in common with each other than either shares with a standard Charger or Road Runner, but subtle differences remain, most notably in nose cone shape and mounting details between the Dodge and Plymouth versions of the same basic aero package. Having both cars available in the same video, from the same collection, gives viewers a rare direct side-by-side comparison that’s almost impossible to get anywhere outside of a dedicated Mopar show like MCACN, where cars this rare rarely appear together even once.

Why NASCAR Banned Them Almost as Fast as They Arrived

NASCAR effectively legislated both cars out of competition after the 1970 season, tightening rules specifically aimed at reining in the aero war Chrysler had just won, which means the Daytona and Superbird’s factory racing careers were brief by design and never repeated in quite the same form again. That short, decisive window is part of why both cars carry the mystique they do today: they weren’t just fast, they were fast enough that the sport’s own rulebook had to be rewritten to stop them.

What These Cars Are Worth Today

Values for both cars have climbed steadily as collectors have come to appreciate exactly how brief and consequential their factory racing window really was, with well-documented, numbers-matching Hemi examples now regularly commanding prices well into seven figures at major collector auctions. That kind of appreciation reflects more than just rarity on paper; it reflects a broader recognition that the Daytona and Superbird represent a genuine engineering arms race captured in steel and fiberglass, not just a limited-edition trim package built to hit a sales quota. Seeing two of them together, owned by one collector and driven enough to be filmed rather than kept permanently under wraps, is a reminder that cars this significant can still be enjoyed rather than only appreciated from behind a velvet rope.

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