moes
Well-Known Member
I came across this article on the net today. What a car!!!!
HOLY GRAIL FIND: ONE OWNER, FULLY-LOADED 1970 DODGE SUPER BEE
CODY COLE
| 7 December, 2017 at 00:01
9083
4
It’s no secret that us here at Mopar Connection love 1970 Dodge Coronets and Super Bees. We currently have two in our fleet, with Editor-in-Chief’s Kevin Shaw owning a Super Bee better known as ZomBEE (you’ll be seeing lots more of this car in the near future) and Associate Editor Cody Cole owning a Coronet 500. The front end on the 1970 Coronets and Super Bees are truly a love it or hate it thing. There a quite a few die-hards that absolutely love them and a number of others that passionately hate them. Needless to say, they are one of our favorites.
When you think of the Dodge Super Bee, you think of a bare bones street brawler. When the Super Bee came out in 1968, it quickly gained credit on the street for being the average Joe’s muscle car. With the 383 Magnum standard under the hood and a number of other higher performance engines available, one could pack a ‘Bee full of power for pretty cheap. A lot of Super Bees came from the factory as pretty bare bone stripper models with bench seats, column shift automatic transmissions and hubcaps. When it comes to Super Bees, finding one loaded full of options is as rare as hen’s teeth. That being said, we personally feel the 1970 Dodge Super Bee you’ll see below is one of the most loaded ones out there; especially in post/coupe form!
Back in the summer, we received a text message from our good friend Rick Boux from British Columbia, Canada sharing a car that he had managing to track down and buy. Upon seeing the pictures he sent us, we couldn’t believe it so we decided to head over to his place and check out the car for ourselves. We must say, this ‘Bee is truly even cooler in person!
“I heard about this car through word of mouth in November 2016. When I was told about it, I couldn’t believe it. I told him ‘BS!’ I didn’t believe such a loaded Super Bee existed,” says Rick. He continues to say, “Somebody told me about it but couldn’t exactly remember where it was. They gave me a rough location. I went on three wild goose chases. Eventually, I got a name and number on a bit of a whim. I searched the name on Google and got an address. It was actually pretty funny; I was out looking for the car and pulled over to Google his name. The address it gave me was only a few townhouse complexes away from where I had pulled over!
“Finally, I got lucky and banged on the right door. The original owner, who is 73 years old, said a cop tried to buy it off of him a little earlier on and offered him $15,000 but the original owner thought he was going to flip it so he said no. Somehow, Mark Worman from Graveyard Carz heard about the car as well and made contact with the owner. He was supposed to come up and look at the car with the intentions of buying it. The original owner was holding the car for him but Mark never showed up. I told him I wanted the car and wanted to buy it. At the same time, I said if he didn’t want to sell it, I’d help him find someone through my sources to help him restore it or get it at least running again so he could drive it. He said no, he just wanted to sell it. He said it had a lot of bad memories for him and he didn’t want the car in his garage anymore. His wife didn’t want it there either.”
As it turns out, he was lead to believe that his wife was allegedly “stepping out on him” while driving the car. After that, he didn’t drive the car very much. He put it away and left it. The mileage on the car is true and the original owner says the odometer was never rolled over. Rick teld Mopar Connection, “From the late ‘80s onwards, he didn’t drive it. He only took it out once in a while just to keep the wheels rolling. He lost interest in it. He’s into model trains now. It just had a lot of bad memories. He was a very nice man; he even helped us load it up. Every time I need to know something about the car or have a question, he is always very friendly and helpful with answering whatever I need to know.”
When Rick bought the car, the original owner told him the entire history behind it. On October 4th 1969, he was 25 years old and walked into Lawson Oates Chrysler in Vancouver, British Columbia to order a 1970 Dodge Coronet R/T. He told the sales guy he wanted a post car because his kids were young and he didn’t want them rolling up and down the back windows so the sales guy pointed him to the Super Bees. “If he didn’t have young kids, he would have ordered a Coronet R/T hardtop and then this car wouldn’t have been as cool. Coronet R/Ts are supposed to be loaded and a lot came with gator grain tops but hardly any Super Bees what so ever. This car is weird because it was supposed to be a lower priced car. Super Bees were poverty cars; the average man’s muscle car,” says Rick.
When ordering the car, the original owner loaded the ‘Bee absolutely full of options. The Super Bee was ordered in TX9 Black with black interior, white C-stripes and a gator grain top. Under the hood, he opted for the 383 Magnum and 727 automatic transmission. For exterior options, he chose bumper guards, hood pins, fender mounted turn signals, passenger side mirror, power steering, power disc brakes, Hemi suspension, SureGrip rear with 3:23 gears and 15×7 Rallye wheels. On the inside, he checked the boxes for air conditioning (with tinted glass), AM/8-track, rear speaker, Tic-Toc-Tach, six-way manual adjustable seat, cruise control, bucket seats, center console, pedal dress up, rear defroster and even the rare headlight time delay!
“He told me he ordered the headlight time delay option but he didn’t know how to use it. He only figured out how to use it because he read about it in the owner’s manual. He just thought the option sounded cool. He wanted power windows for the front as well but Chrysler told him no, they wouldn’t do it. If he would have been allowed, it would have had power windows too,” says Rick. When all was said and done, the price tag on the Super Bee came to $6,197.10!
Rick continues to say, “When he ordered the car, he wasn’t 100% sure what the 1970 model year was going to look like. He just had a rough idea. When his Super Bee came in, he said he wasn’t the happiest with it. When he saw the gator grain roof, he was kind of turned off. He told me he didn’t even remember ordering that option but it was on the sales slip. He thought it looked like a pimp roof. He didn’t like it. I’m actually surprised it’s still on the car and it lasted this long but its there and still the original one.”
Once he took possession of his new Super Bee, the original owner drove it around his neighborhood of Delta, British Columbia and enjoyed it for a number of years. In 1974, he decided he wanted to go for a long drive so he drove it all the way to Napierville Drag Strip in Montreal, Quebec and raced it when it only had 3,500 miles on it. Rick says the car came with around a dozen time slips showing it ran 15.8s with the 3:23 gears and Polyglas tires. In 1981, he decided to do some TLC to the car. On the inside, he had the seats redone in the original pattern but in full high quality leather.
The exterior was still in nice shape however there was a rust blister on each front fender so he had them fixed and carefully blended at Coquitlam Chrysler’s old auto body shop. The white C-stripes were showing their age so he took them off and wanted to replace them. However, he couldn’t get the white C-stripes new from Chrysler; only the circular ‘Super Bee’ logos. You could only order black at the time as Chrysler wasn’t making new white ones; they discontinued them. Wanting to put white stripes on it again, he painted the stripes on and then put new Super Bee logos on it.
The painted stripes are totally wrong as they are fatter than and not as angled as the original ones but they are right out of 1981. At some point, 1969 Ford side mirrors were added as well as a 1966 B-body center armrest and console mounted vacuum gauge. He also drilled holes in the original trunk lid and added a Go-Wing as well as drilled a hole in the driver side quarter panel for an aftermarket antenna. When Rick bought the car, it had a spare trunk lid on it but it came with the original one. Rick has since put the original trunk lid back on and plans on getting the spoiler and antenna holes fixed and blended as well.
In 2001, he parked it for good. Three years later, he fired it up and moved it a few blocks to his new house and said it ran like a pile of junk. Around 2009, he fired it up and said it ran even worse than before so he let it idle itself out of gas. “Everything is still hooked up and working perfectly. When the original owner parked it, the A/C still blew ice cold,” says Rick. Rick says when he bought the car; he was surprised at everything that came with it. The original center console lid, front wheel well trim and front valance trim were in the trunk.
The ‘Bee had the wrong Rallye wheel center caps on it but the original ones were also in the trunk along with the original spare tire and jack. Rick tells us the trunk mat is the wrong one. It turns out the original owner pulled one out of a 1970 Plymouth at a junkyard one day. The original owner even had the original Polyglas tires hanging on the wall beside the car! The car came with a build sheet in beautiful shape, original sales slip and all documentation from day one.
In today’s world, you rarely get to buy cars like this from the original owners anymore. Finding a Slant 6 Dart is pretty easy to find from the original owner but a Super Bee is almost un heard of anymore. According to the original owner, the engine and transmission have never been removed from the car. One muffler and both tail pipes have been replaced but the rest of the exhaust is original. Once Rick got it home, he got to work on making it drive-able. Since the original gas tank had a dent and a pin hole in it, it was replaced with a new unit. The sending unit is the original part.
“Since he let it run out of gas, the tank was bone dry. It’s the first time in my life where I’ve changed a gas tank and I didn’t have old gas dump all over me. Nothing like having stinky old varnish running down your arm,” says Rick. All of the original rubber fuel lines were split and weathered so those were replaced as well to ensure the car wouldn’t go up in flames. For the most part, the Super Bee can be classified as a survivor. The paint is weathered, chipped and scratched but is the original paint that was applied at the factory. The car is practically rust free too; the body is in beautiful shape! As mentioned earlier, the very rare gator grain top is the original one and still in fantastic shape. Besides the few added accessories on the inside and the leather seat skins, the interior is all original as well.
“This could be the only Super Bee post made with buckets, console, A/C and gator grain top. I could be wrong but I’ve yet to see another with this many options. I’m positive it’s 1 of 1 built for Canada but it’s possible it could also be 1 of 1 worldwide. It’s an oddity. I’m not going to paint it or touch it. It’s a true survivor. I’m just going to drive it, enjoy it and do burnouts. I have absolutely no plans to sell it. Everyone sees the tattered paint and thinks it’s an $8,000 car. I’d much rather have the car than money any day. It’s irreplaceable; you’d never find another”, says Rick in closing. If one of our readers knows of a higher optioned post car, we’d love to know so shoot us an email!
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HOLY GRAIL FIND: ONE OWNER, FULLY-LOADED 1970 DODGE SUPER BEE
CODY COLE
| 7 December, 2017 at 00:01
9083
4
It’s no secret that us here at Mopar Connection love 1970 Dodge Coronets and Super Bees. We currently have two in our fleet, with Editor-in-Chief’s Kevin Shaw owning a Super Bee better known as ZomBEE (you’ll be seeing lots more of this car in the near future) and Associate Editor Cody Cole owning a Coronet 500. The front end on the 1970 Coronets and Super Bees are truly a love it or hate it thing. There a quite a few die-hards that absolutely love them and a number of others that passionately hate them. Needless to say, they are one of our favorites.
When you think of the Dodge Super Bee, you think of a bare bones street brawler. When the Super Bee came out in 1968, it quickly gained credit on the street for being the average Joe’s muscle car. With the 383 Magnum standard under the hood and a number of other higher performance engines available, one could pack a ‘Bee full of power for pretty cheap. A lot of Super Bees came from the factory as pretty bare bone stripper models with bench seats, column shift automatic transmissions and hubcaps. When it comes to Super Bees, finding one loaded full of options is as rare as hen’s teeth. That being said, we personally feel the 1970 Dodge Super Bee you’ll see below is one of the most loaded ones out there; especially in post/coupe form!
Back in the summer, we received a text message from our good friend Rick Boux from British Columbia, Canada sharing a car that he had managing to track down and buy. Upon seeing the pictures he sent us, we couldn’t believe it so we decided to head over to his place and check out the car for ourselves. We must say, this ‘Bee is truly even cooler in person!
“I heard about this car through word of mouth in November 2016. When I was told about it, I couldn’t believe it. I told him ‘BS!’ I didn’t believe such a loaded Super Bee existed,” says Rick. He continues to say, “Somebody told me about it but couldn’t exactly remember where it was. They gave me a rough location. I went on three wild goose chases. Eventually, I got a name and number on a bit of a whim. I searched the name on Google and got an address. It was actually pretty funny; I was out looking for the car and pulled over to Google his name. The address it gave me was only a few townhouse complexes away from where I had pulled over!
“Finally, I got lucky and banged on the right door. The original owner, who is 73 years old, said a cop tried to buy it off of him a little earlier on and offered him $15,000 but the original owner thought he was going to flip it so he said no. Somehow, Mark Worman from Graveyard Carz heard about the car as well and made contact with the owner. He was supposed to come up and look at the car with the intentions of buying it. The original owner was holding the car for him but Mark never showed up. I told him I wanted the car and wanted to buy it. At the same time, I said if he didn’t want to sell it, I’d help him find someone through my sources to help him restore it or get it at least running again so he could drive it. He said no, he just wanted to sell it. He said it had a lot of bad memories for him and he didn’t want the car in his garage anymore. His wife didn’t want it there either.”
As it turns out, he was lead to believe that his wife was allegedly “stepping out on him” while driving the car. After that, he didn’t drive the car very much. He put it away and left it. The mileage on the car is true and the original owner says the odometer was never rolled over. Rick teld Mopar Connection, “From the late ‘80s onwards, he didn’t drive it. He only took it out once in a while just to keep the wheels rolling. He lost interest in it. He’s into model trains now. It just had a lot of bad memories. He was a very nice man; he even helped us load it up. Every time I need to know something about the car or have a question, he is always very friendly and helpful with answering whatever I need to know.”
When Rick bought the car, the original owner told him the entire history behind it. On October 4th 1969, he was 25 years old and walked into Lawson Oates Chrysler in Vancouver, British Columbia to order a 1970 Dodge Coronet R/T. He told the sales guy he wanted a post car because his kids were young and he didn’t want them rolling up and down the back windows so the sales guy pointed him to the Super Bees. “If he didn’t have young kids, he would have ordered a Coronet R/T hardtop and then this car wouldn’t have been as cool. Coronet R/Ts are supposed to be loaded and a lot came with gator grain tops but hardly any Super Bees what so ever. This car is weird because it was supposed to be a lower priced car. Super Bees were poverty cars; the average man’s muscle car,” says Rick.
When ordering the car, the original owner loaded the ‘Bee absolutely full of options. The Super Bee was ordered in TX9 Black with black interior, white C-stripes and a gator grain top. Under the hood, he opted for the 383 Magnum and 727 automatic transmission. For exterior options, he chose bumper guards, hood pins, fender mounted turn signals, passenger side mirror, power steering, power disc brakes, Hemi suspension, SureGrip rear with 3:23 gears and 15×7 Rallye wheels. On the inside, he checked the boxes for air conditioning (with tinted glass), AM/8-track, rear speaker, Tic-Toc-Tach, six-way manual adjustable seat, cruise control, bucket seats, center console, pedal dress up, rear defroster and even the rare headlight time delay!
“He told me he ordered the headlight time delay option but he didn’t know how to use it. He only figured out how to use it because he read about it in the owner’s manual. He just thought the option sounded cool. He wanted power windows for the front as well but Chrysler told him no, they wouldn’t do it. If he would have been allowed, it would have had power windows too,” says Rick. When all was said and done, the price tag on the Super Bee came to $6,197.10!
Rick continues to say, “When he ordered the car, he wasn’t 100% sure what the 1970 model year was going to look like. He just had a rough idea. When his Super Bee came in, he said he wasn’t the happiest with it. When he saw the gator grain roof, he was kind of turned off. He told me he didn’t even remember ordering that option but it was on the sales slip. He thought it looked like a pimp roof. He didn’t like it. I’m actually surprised it’s still on the car and it lasted this long but its there and still the original one.”
Once he took possession of his new Super Bee, the original owner drove it around his neighborhood of Delta, British Columbia and enjoyed it for a number of years. In 1974, he decided he wanted to go for a long drive so he drove it all the way to Napierville Drag Strip in Montreal, Quebec and raced it when it only had 3,500 miles on it. Rick says the car came with around a dozen time slips showing it ran 15.8s with the 3:23 gears and Polyglas tires. In 1981, he decided to do some TLC to the car. On the inside, he had the seats redone in the original pattern but in full high quality leather.
The exterior was still in nice shape however there was a rust blister on each front fender so he had them fixed and carefully blended at Coquitlam Chrysler’s old auto body shop. The white C-stripes were showing their age so he took them off and wanted to replace them. However, he couldn’t get the white C-stripes new from Chrysler; only the circular ‘Super Bee’ logos. You could only order black at the time as Chrysler wasn’t making new white ones; they discontinued them. Wanting to put white stripes on it again, he painted the stripes on and then put new Super Bee logos on it.
The painted stripes are totally wrong as they are fatter than and not as angled as the original ones but they are right out of 1981. At some point, 1969 Ford side mirrors were added as well as a 1966 B-body center armrest and console mounted vacuum gauge. He also drilled holes in the original trunk lid and added a Go-Wing as well as drilled a hole in the driver side quarter panel for an aftermarket antenna. When Rick bought the car, it had a spare trunk lid on it but it came with the original one. Rick has since put the original trunk lid back on and plans on getting the spoiler and antenna holes fixed and blended as well.
In 2001, he parked it for good. Three years later, he fired it up and moved it a few blocks to his new house and said it ran like a pile of junk. Around 2009, he fired it up and said it ran even worse than before so he let it idle itself out of gas. “Everything is still hooked up and working perfectly. When the original owner parked it, the A/C still blew ice cold,” says Rick. Rick says when he bought the car; he was surprised at everything that came with it. The original center console lid, front wheel well trim and front valance trim were in the trunk.
The ‘Bee had the wrong Rallye wheel center caps on it but the original ones were also in the trunk along with the original spare tire and jack. Rick tells us the trunk mat is the wrong one. It turns out the original owner pulled one out of a 1970 Plymouth at a junkyard one day. The original owner even had the original Polyglas tires hanging on the wall beside the car! The car came with a build sheet in beautiful shape, original sales slip and all documentation from day one.
In today’s world, you rarely get to buy cars like this from the original owners anymore. Finding a Slant 6 Dart is pretty easy to find from the original owner but a Super Bee is almost un heard of anymore. According to the original owner, the engine and transmission have never been removed from the car. One muffler and both tail pipes have been replaced but the rest of the exhaust is original. Once Rick got it home, he got to work on making it drive-able. Since the original gas tank had a dent and a pin hole in it, it was replaced with a new unit. The sending unit is the original part.
“Since he let it run out of gas, the tank was bone dry. It’s the first time in my life where I’ve changed a gas tank and I didn’t have old gas dump all over me. Nothing like having stinky old varnish running down your arm,” says Rick. All of the original rubber fuel lines were split and weathered so those were replaced as well to ensure the car wouldn’t go up in flames. For the most part, the Super Bee can be classified as a survivor. The paint is weathered, chipped and scratched but is the original paint that was applied at the factory. The car is practically rust free too; the body is in beautiful shape! As mentioned earlier, the very rare gator grain top is the original one and still in fantastic shape. Besides the few added accessories on the inside and the leather seat skins, the interior is all original as well.
“This could be the only Super Bee post made with buckets, console, A/C and gator grain top. I could be wrong but I’ve yet to see another with this many options. I’m positive it’s 1 of 1 built for Canada but it’s possible it could also be 1 of 1 worldwide. It’s an oddity. I’m not going to paint it or touch it. It’s a true survivor. I’m just going to drive it, enjoy it and do burnouts. I have absolutely no plans to sell it. Everyone sees the tattered paint and thinks it’s an $8,000 car. I’d much rather have the car than money any day. It’s irreplaceable; you’d never find another”, says Rick in closing. If one of our readers knows of a higher optioned post car, we’d love to know so shoot us an email!
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