Dodge Super Bee 1970 440 Six Pack 4 Speed in Purple

This 1970 Dodge Super Bee pairs a rare 440 Six Pack — ordered by fewer than 1,270 buyers that year — with a Hurst Pistol Grip four-speed and a two-year, showroom-condition restoration. Read on to find out just how rare this exact combination really was.

Fewer than 200 Dodge dealers in 1970 ever sold a Super Bee wearing this exact combination of options, and it took a two-year restoration to bring one back from the brink. Painted in Plum Crazy Purple — a color Chrysler practically dared buyers to order — this particular Super Bee packs the 440 Magnum engine breathing through three two-barrel carburetors, backed by a Hurst Pistol Grip four-speed. Restorer Mark Sekula spent two years returning it to showroom condition. Just how rare was this exact combination when it rolled off the line?

Only About 1,270 Six Pack Buyers in 1970

The Super Bee launched in 1968 as one of two entry-level muscle cars Chrysler introduced that year, built on the Coronet platform. In 1970, only about 1,270 customers ordered the 440 Six Pack option out of 15,506 Super Bees produced that year, and fewer than 200 of those were 440-equipped coupes, meaning a car like this Plum Crazy example represents a tiny fraction of an already limited production run.

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The Six Barrel Engine’s Hidden Upgrades

The 440 Six Pack, also called the Six Barrel, used three two-barrel Holley carburetors on an aluminum intake manifold for 390 horsepower, wrapped in a distinctive black fiberglass lift-off hood secured with hood pins, backed by heavy-duty suspension and 15-inch wheels to handle the power. Period performance figures show 0-60 mph in 6.3 seconds and a quarter mile in 13.8 seconds at 104.2 mph.

Internals Borrowed from the Hemi Program

For 1970, the engine also received a fresh internal redesign: 10.5:1 pistons, beefier connecting rods, a new lubrite-treated camshaft with tapered lobes on a 3-bolt sprocket, a Hemi roller timing set, heavy-duty rocker arms, and Hemi valve springs — essentially borrowing hardware from Chrysler’s legendary 426 Hemi program to keep the Six Pack durable at the power levels it was making.

1970: The Peak Before the Fall

1970 turned out to be close to the high-water mark for cars like the Super Bee. Rising insurance premiums on high-horsepower muscle cars and tightening emissions regulations were already squeezing factory performance options, and within a couple of years, engines like the 440 Six Pack would disappear from Chrysler’s lineup entirely, making surviving, numbers-matching examples from this final full-strength model year especially significant to collectors today.

Why Plum Crazy Purple Still Turns Heads

Chrysler’s high-impact color palette of 1970 — Plum Crazy Purple, Hemi Orange, Sublime Green among them — was a deliberate response to a market where muscle car buyers wanted to be seen as much as they wanted to be fast. A Six Pack car wearing one of these colors combines mechanical rarity with a visual statement that’s arguably even harder to find well-preserved today than the engine itself.

What a Two-Year Restoration Actually Involves

Bringing a car like this back to showroom condition over two years typically means a full body-off process: media-blasting the shell, repairing or replacing rusted structural sections, rebuilding the drivetrain to factory specifications, and sourcing period-correct trim and hardware that Chrysler stopped making decades ago. A restoration timeline that long usually signals a build done to a documented, numbers-matching standard rather than a quick refresh.

The Hurst Pistol Grip’s Own Reputation

The Hurst Pistol Grip shifter became almost as iconic as the engines it was paired with, thanks to its distinctive handle shape and crisp, mechanical shift feel that enthusiasts still describe as one of the best factory shifters ever fitted to a muscle car. Finding one paired with a numbers-matching 440 Six Pack adds another layer of desirability for purists.

How the Super Bee Compared to Its Road Runner Sibling

The Super Bee shared its platform and much of its engine lineup with Plymouth’s Road Runner, but historically sold in smaller numbers, which has quietly made surviving Super Bees somewhat scarcer today despite similar performance credentials. That relative rarity is part of why well-documented examples like this one command serious attention at shows.

A Car Built for the Final Full-Strength Year

Every detail on this Super Bee — the color, the engine, the transmission, the restoration effort behind it — points to a car built right at the edge of the muscle car era’s peak, before insurance companies and regulators forced the segment to retreat. That timing alone is a big part of why cars from this exact window keep climbing in value.

How the 440 Six Pack Compared to the 426 Hemi on Paper

On factory horsepower ratings alone, the 440 Six Pack’s 390 horsepower trailed the 426 Hemi’s 425, but the Six Pack cost significantly less to option and proved easier to live with day to day, which is exactly why it outsold the Hemi across nearly every Mopar model that offered both engines.

What Documentation Matters Most on a Numbers-Matching Six Pack

Buyers evaluating a car like this should look for a broadcast sheet, matching engine and body tag codes, and fender tag verification confirming the original 440 Six Pack and four-speed combination, since aftermarket engine swaps into lesser Super Bees have muddied the market for decades.

Why Coronet-Platform Muscle Cars Still Undervalue Relative to Their Rarity

Despite production numbers this low, Coronet-based Super Bees have historically traded for less than comparable Plymouth Road Runners with similar options, a gap that collectors increasingly view as a buying opportunity given how genuinely rare a documented 440 Six Pack coupe like this one actually is.

Why Purple Cars Historically Sold Slower New, Then Sold Faster Old

Dealers in 1970 sometimes struggled to move high-impact colors like Plum Crazy Purple off the lot, since plenty of buyers preferred a more conservative shade even on a performance car — but that same boldness is exactly what makes surviving examples stand out at shows today, turning what was once a slow-selling color choice into one of the most recognizable and desirable options a Mopar collector can find.

A Reminder of What Full Restorations Actually Preserve

Beyond returning a car to showroom appearance, a restoration this thorough preserves the specific combination of options, color, and drivetrain that made this particular Super Bee rare in the first place, ensuring that history survives for the next owner rather than disappearing with time.

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