Plymouth built the 1970 Superbird to win NASCAR races, not to sell on dealer lots — and it showed. Some dealers converted unsold Superbirds back into Road Runners just to move them, while owners who kept theirs got pulled over for a front bumper that was actually there. Decades later, commenters are still correcting each other’s facts about its Holley six-pack carburetors and describing what the wing feels like at 115 miles per hour. Watch to see how a car nobody wanted became one of the most valuable Mopars ever built.
Plymouth dealers in 1970 had a problem nobody at the factory anticipated: they’d built a race car for the street, and almost nobody wanted to actually buy one. Some dealers got so desperate they quietly converted unsold examples back into standard Road Runners just to get them off the lot. Meanwhile, the handful of owners who did buy one got pulled over constantly — not for speeding, but because police assumed a car with no visible front bumper couldn’t possibly be street legal. Decades later, this same car sells for more than a house. So which is it: was the 1970 Plymouth Superbird a rotten idea, or the golden egg nobody recognized at the time?
Built for NASCAR, Sold to Confused Dealers
The Superbird existed for one specific reason: NASCAR homologation rules required Plymouth to sell a minimum number of street versions before the aerodynamic race car could compete on Sunday. Every stretched nose cone and towering rear wing on this car traces back to wind-tunnel work aimed at reducing drag and adding stability at NASCAR-superspeedway speeds, not at winning a beauty contest in a dealer showroom. That mismatch between purpose and market reality is exactly why so many sat unsold well into 1970 and beyond, forcing some dealerships into the strange position of converting Superbirds back into standard Road Runners just to move inventory off the lot.
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Pulled Over for a Bumper That Was Actually There
One commenter recalled a neighbor’s Superbird getting pulled over by police repeatedly during road trips, not for speed but because officers assumed the smooth, cone-shaped nose meant the car lacked a legal front bumper — a detail some jurisdictions apparently flagged regardless of what was actually built into the structure underneath. It’s a small anecdote, but it captures something real about the Superbird’s reception at the time: a shape this radical didn’t just turn heads, it actively confused people who were supposed to know what a street-legal car looked like.
Borrowed Fenders and a Mismatched Marker Light
The 1970 Superbird’s front fenders weren’t unique to the model — Plymouth borrowed the more pointed fender shape from the 1970 Dodge Coronet, since Road Runners, GTXs, Satellites, Coronets, and Super Bees of that era all shared the same basic B-body chassis, doors, roof, and glass. That parts-sharing explains a detail eagle-eyed owners still point out: the Superbird’s front marker lights don’t quite match its rear ones, because the Coronet-sourced fenders used chrome trim where the rest of the car used painted trim. It’s a small mismatch, but one that tells a much bigger story about how quickly Plymouth had to engineer this car onto an existing production line.
The Six-Pack Carburetor Myth Comments Corrected
Comments on this video also corrected a detail that gets repeated incorrectly more often than it should: the legendary 440 “Six Barrel” engine option didn’t use three Carter carburetors, as one early comment claimed — it ran three Holley 2300-series two-barrel carburetors, a correction that other commenters jumped in to confirm. It’s the kind of mix-up that happens easily with an engine this famous, since “Six Pack” and “Six Barrel” badging varied between Plymouth and Dodge versions of essentially the same triple-carb setup, but the Holley hardware underneath was consistent across both brands.
How the Six-Pack Actually Comes Alive at Speed
According to one commenter who owns both a six-pack Superbird and a Hemi Superbird, the triple-carburetor car is actually a tick quicker off the line than its more famous Hemi sibling. The engine runs on just the center two-barrel carburetor under normal driving, only bringing the front and rear carbs online once revs climb high enough to need them — a setup that produces a distinct roar as the car transitions into full power. That same owner describes feeling the nose cone and wing physically push the car lower to the road at around 115 miles per hour, the aerodynamics doing exactly the job they were engineered to do at the speeds this car was actually built for.
Two Years of Dominance, Then a Ban
The aero cars’ NASCAR dominance was short-lived by design. Superbirds and their Dodge Charger Daytona siblings raced competitively for two seasons before NASCAR effectively banned the wing-car body style heading into the following year, unable to let a design this dominant keep winning races the sanctioning body needed other manufacturers competitive in. One commenter who lived through the era summed up the frustration plenty of fans still feel about it: NASCAR, in their words, was NASCAR back when the stock car part of “stock car racing” actually meant something.
The GTX Connection: A Sibling With Its Own Story
Not every Superbird story in the comments is about the car itself. One commenter still owns the 1969 Plymouth GTX 440 his father bought new and handed down to him in 1985, before his father passed away — a reminder that this entire family of Mopar B-body muscle, Superbird included, carries as much personal history in enthusiast garages as it does NASCAR trivia. The GTX shared its basic architecture with the Superbird, just without the aerodynamic bodywork, making it the more attainable, more commonly kept-in-the-family version of the same underlying car.
From Unwanted to Priceless
What started as a slow-selling oddity that dealers couldn’t move now regularly changes hands for prices that would have seemed absurd to the salesman stuck converting one back into a Road Runner in 1970. That reversal — from unwanted inventory to six-figure collector centerpiece — is the entire “rotten or golden egg” question this video poses, and more than fifty years on, the comments make it clear which way enthusiasts have decided it landed. There’s nothing rotten about it, as more than one commenter pointed out flatly — just a car whose reputation needed a few decades and a shift in enthusiast taste to finally catch up with the engineering that went into it. Owners lucky enough to hang on to theirs through the lean years now hold one of the clearest examples in automotive history of a market completely reversing its verdict on a car. Fifty-plus years later, the golden-egg answer is the only one anyone’s arguing for anymore.
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Golden
Love the big winged MOPARS…..
Winger
David Floyd
Love
When l was a high school kid a family close by bought two of these. One had a 4 speed and had a short life. lt rolled til it was junk! Decades later, l found quite by accident and bought that transmission, complete with the high pistol grip for $40.00 (that’s not a misprint) and stuck it in my ’66 Charger.
Eddie Nasser!
Thanks Pat Hartley,,,,but I had to STOP LISTENING to it because they have many facts WRONG!! CARTER DID NOT MAKE THE 6Pak,,carburetors!! HOLLEY DID!!! Also the front fender mounted scoops were closed on production wing cars but were open on lowered race cars for tire clearance,,,,,,anytime they speak MoPar,,,,,,take it as highly inaccurate unless researched or actual experience with these cars,,,,,my 1st,,,car was a 70 SB,,,440 6bbl
You would know brother.👍🏻 I just thought you would enjoy the post.
Thanks Bro,,appreciate it!!
Dumbfuckers
Awesome
Cool love
Golden egg
Golden by far.a true legend
Why would this ever be considered as rotten?
Love those cars
My father had a lime green one and promised that it would be mine when I grew up well that didn’t fucken happen I drive a Dakota thanks dad for the memories in my young years that was taught and learned by my family and y’all know who I’m talking about love ya
Add a 426 Hemi and you got a ride. !!
it was banned from nascar, they couldnt catch the bird,,
Precisely!
Would love to have one of these
Gold egg! !
Lindsay J Dix
I don’t care if people like them or don’t like them. When I’m rich and famous I will own one
Dealerships had a hard time selling these back in the day.Two years later they were still available new.