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RamblinAround tracks down one of only 503 original 1969 Dodge Charger Daytonas ever built, still running its factory 440 V8 and finished in correct T5 Copper paint. The Daytona’s nose cone and rear wing were built to break NASCAR speed records, and did, forcing the sport to change its rules. Watch to see the winged Mopar that inspired decades of dream-car regret in the comments.
Only a handful of cars in history ever left a Dodge factory wearing both a towering rear wing and a 426 Hemi under the hood, and Tom Lembeck owns one of them. The Charger Daytona was not built to look fast at a car show; it was built because Dodge was losing on Sunday and needed something drastic. Read on to find out what Dodge was really trying to prove, and why so few Hemi versions exist.
Tom Lembeck’s Mopar collection includes two of the rarest muscle cars ever built: a 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona in Spring Green and a 1970 Plymouth Superbird in Vitamin C Orange, both packing factory 426 Hemi engines. Filmed side by side in Chicago, the pairing even fooled a passerby who walked right past without noticing. Fans in the comments are split on which winged Mopar deserves the edge. Watch to see which one Tom calls his favorite.
Everyone knows the Corvette skipped a model year and the Daytona’s wing was built for speed — but fewer people know that wing height was also a trunk-lid compromise, or that a handful of Dodge dealers once built the only production car to wear factory Cragar wheels. This rundown digs past the four facts every muscle car list repeats to the trivia that actually surprises collectors. Read on to find out which 1970 Super Bee variant was rarer than the Six Pack.
A stock 1969 Charger, an authentic Charger Daytona, and a modern Hellcat go through identical wind-tunnel testing to answer a question most muscle car fans get wrong: the Daytona’s towering wing wasn’t primarily about cutting drag, it was about solving a dangerous rear-lift problem at superspeedway speeds. Watch to see smoke trails and pressure data confirm exactly what Chrysler’s engineers were fighting in 1969 — and how differently Dodge’s modern Hellcat was ever meant to be used.
A stock 1969 Dodge Charger, an authentic Charger Daytona with its full nose cone and rear wing, and a modern 2015 Hellcat all go through the same wind tunnel to answer a question muscle car fans have argued for decades: how much did the Daytona’s radical aero package actually do? NASCAR banned the bodywork almost as soon as it proved effective. Watch to see what the real numbers say, fifty years later.
Only about 39 1969 Dodge Charger Daytonas were built with a factory 426 Hemi, and owner Tom Lembeck handed his keys to a first-time driver anyway. What follows is a stalled burnout attempt, two nervous laughs, and a reminder of exactly why NASCAR’s wing-car era got regulated out of existence. Watch to see what happens when someone drives a piece of Mopar history for the very first time.
V8TV’s Muscle Car of the Week spends time with a 440-powered 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona from The Brothers Collection, breaking down the aerodynamic nose cone and towering rear wing that made it the first car to officially top 200 mph on a NASCAR superspeedway. Comments dig into the engineering, the Daytona-versus-Superbird confusion, and even a family drag-racing memory from the car’s original era. It’s a deep look at Detroit’s wildest aero experiment. Watch to see the full breakdown.
Only about 70 of the roughly 503 Dodge Charger Daytonas built for 1969 left the factory with the 426 Hemi rather than the standard 440 Magnum. The 18-inch nose cone and 23-inch wing were worth a reported 20 mph at Talladega, and Buddy Baker used one to record the first 200-mph closed-course lap in stock car history. Dealers still could not sell them, and some removed the aero parts to move the metal. Read on for what a genuine Hemi Daytona has to document today.
Troy Hawkes’ 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona isn’t just wearing the look — the wheels underneath it are genuine NASCAR pieces, confirmed by Hawkes himself in the comments. Chrysler built roughly 500 of these to satisfy NASCAR homologation rules after grafting an 18-inch nose cone and towering rear wing onto a standard Charger to chase 200 mph on the superspeedway. What’s left is a car engineered to solve an aerodynamics problem, still being used for exactly what it was built for. Watch it light up the rear tires.
Dodge’s 1969 Charger Daytona wore a 23-inch nose cone and a rear wing tall enough to bolt through the fenders, chasing a single goal: beating NASCAR’s fastest superspeedway cars. It worked well enough to hit 205 mph at Chrysler’s own proving ground, but only 503 were built, and just 70 got the legendary Hemi engine. Read on for the numbers behind one of muscle car history’s shortest, strangest production runs.
A ride in a numbers-matching 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona 426 Hemi is rare enough on its own, but owner Tom Lembeck takes his out into real Chicago traffic rather than keeping it parked at a show. The car’s aero package once forced NASCAR itself to change its rules. Watch to see exactly why this particular Daytona earns its reputation.
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.