Two Rare Mopar Aero Warriors Found Hidden in a Hay Barn!!!!

Deep inside a Wisconsin barn, under a stripe of bird droppings and a small mountain of collapsed hay, sat two of Mopar’s rarest aero warriors: a 1969 Dodge Charger 500 and a 1970 Plymouth Superbird, untouched for the better part of thirty years. Their owner found each one through a different stroke of luck, a vague classified ad and a tip from a wing car club, decades before either car ever left the barn. Read on to find out how both cars ended up parked together, and why one of them still wears its original barn hay to car shows.

Some cars get restored the moment money allows. Others sit for decades, waiting for someone patient enough to actually finish the job, and when a longtime Mopar collector finally opened those barn doors in rural Wisconsin, what he found wasn’t one forgotten car. It was two, sitting side by side under a stripe of bird droppings and a small mountain of collapsed hay, exactly where they’d been left for the better part of thirty years. One had a numbers story that started with a teenager and a classified ad that gave away almost nothing. The other came from a barn in Iowa that looked eerily similar to the one it sat in now, and together they proved that some of the rarest muscle cars in America are still hiding in plain sight.

A Barn Big Enough to Drive a Semi Into

The opening was large enough to fit a semi-truck, and inside, pushed back against the wall, sat a 1969 Dodge Charger 500 and a 1970 Plymouth Superbird, two of Mopar’s most purpose-built NASCAR homologation specials, parked together and untouched for decades. The Charger 500 carried a 440 backed by a four-speed manual, while the Superbird had been ordered with a Six-Barrel 440 and an automatic. Hay had rained down over the Charger 500’s engine bay for years, while the Superbird had at least been spared that fate, though neither car escaped the birds nesting in the rafters above.

⚑ Featured Gear

Start Car Conversations →

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Why These Cars Exist at All

Both models trace back to a very specific NASCAR problem. Dodge’s 1968 Chargers struggled on track because the open front grille and recessed rear window created serious aerodynamic drag at speed. Wind tunnel testing led to the 1969 Charger 500, which borrowed a 1968 Coronet grille and a flush-mounted rear window to smooth airflow. When that wasn’t enough, Dodge pushed further with the pointed-nose, big-wing Charger Daytona. Plymouth followed the same formula in 1970 to lure Richard Petty back into the fold, building the Superbird on the Road Runner platform, the car sitting just a few feet away in that same Wisconsin barn.

Thirty Years of Hay, Birds, and Patience

The Charger 500 was the more complete of the two, its engine and transmission still in place even though most of the interior had vanished and the grille had been stashed loose in the passenger compartment for safekeeping. The Superbird had been partially disassembled years earlier, its engine already pulled and sent out for a rebuild that, evidently, took its sweet time. Neither car had moved out of that barn in a very long time, but neither had they been abandoned. Someone was still working, slowly, toward finishing what he’d started decades earlier.

A Classified Ad That Changed Everything

Scott was 17 when he spotted a car listing in a Milwaukee newspaper that said almost nothing, just “1969 Dodge” and a phone number. A call revealed it was a Charger, but not a standard one; the seller mentioned a mismatched grille that a previous owner had apparently swapped in. That detail was enough for Scott, who scraped together whatever cash he could find, raced to the seller’s driveway, and knew instantly what he was looking at. He handed over the money on the spot and drove the Charger 500 home.

Finding the Superbird’s Twin Story

Around the same time, Scott’s membership in the Winged Warriors club, open only to Daytona and Superbird owners, put a second car on his radar through the club newsletter. The ad placed the Superbird in a barn in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in condition strikingly similar to where it sits today. Scott borrowed a friend’s Ford flatbed, drove out, and hauled the car home. The odometer read just 32,000 miles, and Scott’s working theory is that the original engine was never built correctly, prompting the previous owner to park the car and part it out rather than fix it properly.

A Lucky Find Three Weeks Later

Life got in the way for the next three decades, other projects, other obligations, but just three weeks after bringing the Superbird home, Scott managed to track down a genuine N.O.S. Superbird wing and nose cone, the kind of factory-correct parts that can take collectors years to source. That early stroke of luck meant the restoration puzzle was already missing fewer pieces than most barn finds ever get to claim, even if the actual work wouldn’t begin for years.

From Hay-Covered Barn Floor to Show Field

With his children grown and more time on his hands, Scott finally started digging the Superbird’s engine rebuild back out and pushing the project forward. When he learned that the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals ran a dedicated Barn Finds & Hidden Gems section, he agreed to bring the Charger 500, just days before the show, hay and all. It rolled onto the field without its hood on, exposing the original 440 sitting in the engine bay, still dusted in barn hay, and it became one of the section’s biggest hits.

Proof There Are Still Cars Left to Find

What makes this story remarkable isn’t just the rarity of the cars, it’s that they sat just a few hours from a dedicated Mopar enthusiast for years, completely unknown to him until the right introduction happened. Aero Warriors like the Charger 500 and Superbird were built in tiny numbers specifically to satisfy NASCAR homologation rules, and most that survive have already been found, cataloged, and priced. For every documented survivor with a known chain of ownership, there may be another sitting quietly under a collapsed hay loft, waiting for someone patient enough to make the drive out and ask the right questions.

What Happens to Barn Finds Like This Next

Cars like the Charger 500 and Superbird rarely go straight from barn to show field without years of mechanical sorting first, and Scott’s pair is no exception. The Superbird’s engine rebuild alone represents a multi-year commitment before the car could realistically run under its own power again, and the Charger 500 still needs an interior, a proper reinstalled grille, and a full mechanical inspection before it’s anything more than a driveable survivor. Neither car is likely to get a full cosmetic restoration anytime soon; owners this deep into a car’s history tend to preserve as much original material as possible rather than chase a show-quality repaint that would erase the very patina that makes the story worth telling.

Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Republished by Blog Post Promoter