70RTCHARGER
Well-Known Member
This will be my first restoration thread on one of my cars and I’ll try and keep everyone updated!
Here is some history on the car, the Superbird was sold new at Hi Line Dodge in Havre Montana on July 14th 1970. I was able to talk with the original owner and he remembers seeing the car sitting on the show room floor. He said it sat for three months and one day he decided he had to have it so he bought the bright yellow bird! He owned the car for three months and ended up scratching the side of the car.. said he can’t remember exactly what happened it but he damaged the car and decided to paint the car midnight blue and he never installed the wing again it stayed in the trunk! Within a year the car was sold and onto the second owner..
The second owner was pretty rough on the car where people witnessed seeing the car driving through pastures and chasing cow! That wasn’t the worse of it though, he had a friend that had a car with out a starter so they used the Superbird to push start the car!! Needless to say the nose was damaged by doing this. The owner had a hard time making his payment so the car has been repod several times.. people started to realize the car would more then likely get taken away again so the next time the bank took the car back the third owner jumped on it right away and ended up buying the car and saving it from being destroyed by the second owner.
The third owner started to restore the car and started to buy NOS parts for the car in the mid 70’s. The nose was beyond repair or so he decided at the time and he called a local dealership in Hardin MT and was able to get a NOS nose! Supposedly it was one of the last nose that Chrysler had or it was the last one in this region. Chrysler ended up calling Savage (the third owner of the car) and bugged him about buying it back to where he said don’t ever call me again! Savage got all the body work done on the car and ended up painting the jams on the car back to the factory Lemon Twist yellow. I’m not sure why Savage sold the car but I know he was going through a divorce so maybe that caused it. I believe the car sold for around 5,000 and went to Wyoming in the early 80’s.
The fourth owner bought the car and never drove it! The car was running driving and he parked the car. He told me when he first bought the car he would tell people he owned the car but as time went on and the value of the cars went up he wouldn’t tell anyone about it and it more less became a urban legend..
Fast forward to 2018 I was building a 1969 Charger Daytona clone and I was on the hunt for a 70 Charger fender and not having a lot of luck after a couple months.. so a Facebook friend sends me a message saying he has a 70 fender he would sell me and if I’m interested he would be willing to sell me a 70 Charger R/T SE.. so I was really interested in finding out more about the charger so I made the 4 hour trip to meet him in person and check out the car and parts.. I ended up buying the charger fender and I also was able to buy an original trunk lid and trunk hinges from a real XX car. I told the owner I would buy the R/T SE but to do that the clone had to go sadly.. few weeks go by and the clone is gone so I’m going to buy the R/T SE charger. After I got the car loaded up the previous owner asked if I wanted to check out his first car (30’s Chevy sedan) so we got into a two car garage and check it out and beside the car is a pile of plastic sheeting and dry rock, kinda looked like something was barricaded. The owner looked at me and said “Mark aren’t you going to ask me what this is” and I said I honestly didn’t know if it was a car under there.. and his reply was “yea it’s my Superbird”.. I know my jaw hit the!! I couldn’t believe it! I finally found my dream car.. I ended up leaving that day in awe still in disbelief what just happened. A couple months go by and still in contact with the owner he decided he would sell me the car!! I couldn’t believe I had a chance at owning a real bird! I had to sell a couple mopars and my first Mopar (1970 Charger R/T clone).
I bought the car October 13th 2019, I bought a complete car that came with a lot of extra NOS parts almost enough for another wing car. Before I bought the car the last time it was started was in 2001ish. The numbers matching 440 fired right up and sounds perfect! The car still has its original 4 speed and Dana 60 with the 3.54 gears. I’m currently in the process of doing the body work and hopefully this winter the car will be painted and next summer it will be on the road and being enjoyed by my family.
Here is some history on the car, the Superbird was sold new at Hi Line Dodge in Havre Montana on July 14th 1970. I was able to talk with the original owner and he remembers seeing the car sitting on the show room floor. He said it sat for three months and one day he decided he had to have it so he bought the bright yellow bird! He owned the car for three months and ended up scratching the side of the car.. said he can’t remember exactly what happened it but he damaged the car and decided to paint the car midnight blue and he never installed the wing again it stayed in the trunk! Within a year the car was sold and onto the second owner..
The second owner was pretty rough on the car where people witnessed seeing the car driving through pastures and chasing cow! That wasn’t the worse of it though, he had a friend that had a car with out a starter so they used the Superbird to push start the car!! Needless to say the nose was damaged by doing this. The owner had a hard time making his payment so the car has been repod several times.. people started to realize the car would more then likely get taken away again so the next time the bank took the car back the third owner jumped on it right away and ended up buying the car and saving it from being destroyed by the second owner.
The third owner started to restore the car and started to buy NOS parts for the car in the mid 70’s. The nose was beyond repair or so he decided at the time and he called a local dealership in Hardin MT and was able to get a NOS nose! Supposedly it was one of the last nose that Chrysler had or it was the last one in this region. Chrysler ended up calling Savage (the third owner of the car) and bugged him about buying it back to where he said don’t ever call me again! Savage got all the body work done on the car and ended up painting the jams on the car back to the factory Lemon Twist yellow. I’m not sure why Savage sold the car but I know he was going through a divorce so maybe that caused it. I believe the car sold for around 5,000 and went to Wyoming in the early 80’s.
The fourth owner bought the car and never drove it! The car was running driving and he parked the car. He told me when he first bought the car he would tell people he owned the car but as time went on and the value of the cars went up he wouldn’t tell anyone about it and it more less became a urban legend..
Fast forward to 2018 I was building a 1969 Charger Daytona clone and I was on the hunt for a 70 Charger fender and not having a lot of luck after a couple months.. so a Facebook friend sends me a message saying he has a 70 fender he would sell me and if I’m interested he would be willing to sell me a 70 Charger R/T SE.. so I was really interested in finding out more about the charger so I made the 4 hour trip to meet him in person and check out the car and parts.. I ended up buying the charger fender and I also was able to buy an original trunk lid and trunk hinges from a real XX car. I told the owner I would buy the R/T SE but to do that the clone had to go sadly.. few weeks go by and the clone is gone so I’m going to buy the R/T SE charger. After I got the car loaded up the previous owner asked if I wanted to check out his first car (30’s Chevy sedan) so we got into a two car garage and check it out and beside the car is a pile of plastic sheeting and dry rock, kinda looked like something was barricaded. The owner looked at me and said “Mark aren’t you going to ask me what this is” and I said I honestly didn’t know if it was a car under there.. and his reply was “yea it’s my Superbird”.. I know my jaw hit the!! I couldn’t believe it! I finally found my dream car.. I ended up leaving that day in awe still in disbelief what just happened. A couple months go by and still in contact with the owner he decided he would sell me the car!! I couldn’t believe I had a chance at owning a real bird! I had to sell a couple mopars and my first Mopar (1970 Charger R/T clone).
I bought the car October 13th 2019, I bought a complete car that came with a lot of extra NOS parts almost enough for another wing car. Before I bought the car the last time it was started was in 2001ish. The numbers matching 440 fired right up and sounds perfect! The car still has its original 4 speed and Dana 60 with the 3.54 gears. I’m currently in the process of doing the body work and hopefully this winter the car will be painted and next summer it will be on the road and being enjoyed by my family.
