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NASCAR stability 1971 Road Runner vs 1970 Superbird?

The Charger 500 is a good looking car. I'd feel more comfortable driving one around than I would a Daytona or Superbird.
A few years back I saw a white Mercury that I think was a '69 Spoiler II just down the street from me and then again down in Muskogee driving around. It looked very long and narrow. I haven't seen it since. I wish I had taken a better look at it. It could have been a '68 but I don't think so.
The Charger 500 is underrated in my opinion.
I believe Ford used a column shifted C6 in racing Talladegas.
 
The racing Talladegas used four speeds. Early in the season they had the 427, later on switched to the 429 shotgun hemi.
1357327463850662.jpg

Compared to the Daytona, the Talladega seemed spartan: bench seat only, column shift automatic only, 3.25 open axles. An AM radio was optional.
 
71 up B Bodies are the design of John Herlitz. Known as the Fuselage Body.
Beautiful cars. Designed in clay, there is evidence of the Heritage/styling cues in today’s modern Mopars.
 
Aeronet said:
Those Fords and Mercs were damned functional and without 'em there never would have been Daytonas or Superbirds. They looked a little bit like Charger 500s, another car I really like.
Click to expand...

Yeah, to me...that is such a special car, the Fastback 1966 & 1967 Dodge Chargers
My Bud's older Brother bought a Red "383" car, red on Red brand new in 1967 the day after he arrived home from Nam...1967.
He had it one or two weeks and ended up getting in a slight fender bender...it was FAST!
He got it fixed of course..
To me, those cars a way under valued alone with the FORD Aero Cars
 
Dennis H said:
71 up B Bodies are the design of John Herlitz. Known as the Fuselage Body.
Beautiful cars. Designed in clay, there is evidence of the Heritage/styling cues in today’s modern Mopars.
Click to expand...

Yes, I LOVE that fuselage style!
again, under the RADAR...In my opinion!
 
I had a few 71-74 Mopars in the past. Loved them all. I had a 73 Charger 340/727. On the highway that car was very stable at triple digit speeds.

red71rr.jpg
 
33 IMP said:
I like the charger 500 better than the superbird/daytonas. (Not that i would throw one out of my garage).
I had a friend who had, and restored, a maroon Talledega. Strange car, one of 280-odd maroon cars (three color choices ,white maroon or blue). 428 cj only, bench seat only, column shift c6 only, open 3.25 9" only, no other choice. Worth about half of a wing car, maybe.
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I have only see one 1969 Charger 500 in my life!
Dark green with a Black Vinyl top
Parked "Long Storage" at 5 points, Fairborn Ohio, 1983 and it was owned by an Air Force Captain (?)
Gorgeous cars!
 
Interestingly there was a green 500 with a tan interior parked outside the Lakeland FL Autofest a few years ago (2014-ish) with a "for sale sign" in the window.

The quarters were wavy with bondo but the hood was up and it had a Hemi.

Price was...




10K

!!!


Why TF didn't I buy that?
 
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super-bee_ski said:
I have only see one 1969 Charger 500 in my life!
Dark green with a Black Vinyl top
Parked "Long Storage" at 5 points, Fairborn Ohio, 1983 and it was owned by an Air Force Captain (?)
Gorgeous cars!
Click to expand...
I had a Y2 yellow 69 Charger 500, I traded it to a guy on Moparts for the 70 440 Sixpack Charger R / T I have now.
 
When I was around 7 years old I saw a Lime Green Superbird in a parking lot in Denver, CO. That really got my attention. That would have been in '73 or '74.
Several years ago I worked with a guy who said he owned one. Said he was gonna sell it to pay for his daughter's college. He drove a Lil Red Pickup to work.
 
20180423_124547.jpg
Sometimes, but at the time 69 Charger 500s weren't getting the respect they deserved as an Aero car pioneer, but were considered to be a failed experiment, that needed to be improved upon. Most people at shows preferred the looks of a standard Charger to the looks of the flush grilled,flush rear windowed Charger 500. When I traded cars,both cars needed to be restored, and I considered them to be of equal value. I believe that the Charger 500 actually had more wins than the aero superior Daytona did. For a while I had a Daytona nose and wing on the car.
 
That is an original Daytona wing on the car,and my little red express truck is in the corner of the picture.
 
Too cool!
There's an engineering paper on AeroWarriors discussing Chrysler track tests of the Charger 500. After some changes they made to it they said that the car handled so good at 190 mph that Buddy Baker thought it was boring to drive. Something to that effect.
 
In our small town, there was a hottie that had a new Lime green Superbird. Our downtown area had that diagonal parking so she was always busting up the bottom of the nose cone on curbs. I thought the car was very cool but I remember as we pulled into our little grocery store Mom said, "That's the ugliest car I've ever seen." That was shared by many and we hear stories of slow selling wing cars and that dealers had to change them back into a Charger or Road Runner to sell them.

It makes me wonder what ostentatious cars are out there right now that will be looked at as cool later. There are some big decal Fords and Mopars that will probably look cooler in later years.
mustang.png
hellcat.jpg
 
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According to the wingcar experts, only one or two Superbirds were changed back to Road Runner configuration, and the story snowballed to something that was a regular practice, which was not true. All of the Daytona wingcars sold except for one that the original dealership decided to keep for themselves and never register. There were a few wingcars that were involved in accidents that had the front sheetmetal swapped out for standard Charger or Road Runner sheetmetal, but it was done by the owners of the cars either due to the cost or lack of availability of the replacement Aero front end parts.
 
The guy that I traded the 69 Charger 500 to has owned four of them. He is a member here ,and is currently restoring one of the first 69 Hemi Charger 500s built. It was a press release car,and is believed to be the car that was road tested on the television show Road and Track with Bud Linderman back in late 1968. The car that I traded to him,he traded it for a finished 69 Daytona clone that was built from a 69 Charger R / T. The guy who ended up with my former 69 Charger 500, 440 automatic car, restored the car. It was repainted B5 blue with a white stripe. There is a build thread on Dodge Charger.com in the Aero cars section, on page 23,titled Happy Super Bowl Sunday, that details the restoration of my former Charger 500. I tried to attach the link, but it didn't work! We helped template the Daytona /Charger 500 rear window moldings that AMD makes using this car. The grille mounting brackets/hardware, and surround moldings, that Dayclona was offering were also templated from this car. The A pillar moldings were also templated from this car.
 
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