NASCAR is known for having tall tales among racers and teams. It seems that the street versions of NASCAR homologation specials have carried the tradition with them, as you can peruse any online discussion and see the same false stories being repeated (plus a few new ones too). Because we like truth to rise to the top, we are doing our part to help preserve the proper narrative in this facet of NASCAR and muscle car history.
Tall Tale #1: NASCAR banned the Dodge Charger Daytona and Plymouth Road Runner Superbird
To preface, this claim is often used when discussing the 426 Hemi after its introduction for the 1964 racing season, as Ford and General Motors have been accused of complaining about Chrysler Corporation’s “unfair advantage” with its new engine (though these people seem to forget that GM had been out of sanctioned racing for a year already).
Yet, the 426 Hemi wasn’t banned. The problem NASCAR had with the Hemi was that it felt Chrysler had removed the stock from “stock car.” NASCAR then sought to ban these specialized engines as a result, but before you Mopar folks start whining about how NASCAR always picked on Chrysler, be aware that Ford also faced sanctions with the SOHC 427. Chrysler decided to sit out the 1965 race season in protest, instead focusing on using the Hemi in drag racing. For 1966, Chrysler returned to NASCAR after creating the Street Hemi for production, thereby satisfying the new homologation requirement.
This same complaint was raised several years later with Chrysler’s wing cars—NASCAR sought to impede this zeal to go faster and faster. NASCAR’s solution was to limit the engine size of—not ban—the aero specials. According to wing car expert Doug Schellinger, who runs the Daytona-Superbird Auto Club:
“All the Mopar and Ford aerodynamic cars were legislated off the track for 1971 by way of the 305ci engine rule. The feeling from NASCAR was that no one would try to race a five-liter engine. No Ford tried it, most likely because all factory support was pulled at the end of 1970. Chrysler had limited support, and there was just enough to help Mario Rossi run the 305 in the #22 car. They knew it would only work at Daytona or Talladega, where the cars are WOT all the time. The 305 also had no restrictor plate, whereas the Hemis and Boss 429 had the smallest plate openings.”
Rossi’s Keith Black-built, de-stroked 340 ran well, qualifying eighth in the starting grid and even leading five laps in the race, but an accident with Pete Hamilton resulted in a seventh-place finish. Afterwards, “NASCAR simply told them not to bring it to the next big track race at Ontario,” adds Schellinger. “And that was the end of it.”
NASCAR enthusiast David Thayer has a different take:
“NASCAR was concerned about 200 mph speeds because of the lift generated, so restrictor plates were mandated starting in August 1970 at the Yankee 400 in Michigan. The plates dropped the speeds by 8 mph. Meanwhile, at issue was Ford pulling its NASCAR funding, while Chrysler announced that for 1971, it would only fund one full-time team (Richard Petty) and another part-time team (Buddy Baker). Bill France was desperate to get General Motors back, though GM balked at the idea of building an aero car, only willing to run if stock bodies were run. Chevrolet came back and, by the end of 1971, was winning major races again.”
Let’s be clear: Any sanctions against the Charger Daytona and Road Runner Superbird were also applied to Ford and Mercury aero cars. Most racers in 1971 preferred to go full-tilt with their seven-liter engines in cars without aero enhancements.
Tall Tale #2: Superbirds were converted to Road Runners because they were languishing on the lots
In 1969, when Dodge added the Daytona to the Charger series, NASCAR rules required 500 to be built for homologation. As it turned out, 499 (plus at least one prototype) were built. As the Daytona was based on the Charger R/T, standard power was the 440 Magnum, with the 426 Hemi being an option. At the time, the Daytona looked like nothing on the road, a polarizing missile created with one purpose. Though a hard sell, there were enough enthusiasts (if not NASCAR fans) sufficiently intrigued to purchase this unusual vehicle.
Not so for the Road Runner Superbird the following model year. NASCAR changed its homologation requirements to be one car for every other dealership. Plymouth had around 4,000 dealerships in the United States, so NASCAR required approximately 1,920 Superbirds to be built to qualify for NASCAR. Plymouth wooed Richard Petty back from Ford, after all, so there was a lot riding on it.
However, this ungainly winged vehicle for the street was a tough sell at close to 2,000 units. The performance market had been shrinking since the 1968 model year, so there were fewer people pulling the trigger on performance cars (if not ones with an extended nose and wing). There also was a mild recession that began in December 1969 and lasted for 11 months, which hurt potential sales even more. And then there was the insurance industry, hell-bent on surcharges for cars that simply implied performance.
Urban legend holds that dealerships removed the wing and nose cone and installed a conventional Road Runner nose. Those who repeat this rumor fail to realize that the Superbird wasn’t just a Road Runner with a wing and nose cone but, rather, a Road Runner that utilized Coronet front fenders. The stock Road Runner’s nose was incompatible with the Coronet’s front fenders, so imagine what it would take to completely make the conversion. New fenders, hood, paint, labor, and what-not. Wouldn’t it be easier to discount the Superbird than reconfigure and repaint it?
According to Schellinger, “There was no wholesale conversion of Superbirds to Road Runners. In nearly 50 years of tracking the cars, I have records of only one Superbird that was known to have the wing removed at the request of the original owner [with the nose left on]. Is it possible there were a few cars converted? Yes, but no one has come through with proof. It would be a lot of work to perform the conversion and at considerable expense.”
Tall Tale #3: Daytonas and Superbirds featured the same modifications aside from the Charger and Road Runner bodies
Sorry, folks, but the cars are quite different. But, before we begin, let’s discuss NASCAR in 1968 and the events that led to the creation of the Superbird.
When the 1968 Charger debuted, Richard Petty wanted one because he felt it was sleeker than his Plymouth, but the Charger was a Dodge and he didn’t race for Dodge. That’s when Petty decided to join forces with Ford for 1969. “If they had allowed him the aero Charger 500 for 1969 and some financial sweeteners, it is likely the Petty team would have remained with the Chrysler Corporation. It certainly is true that Plymouth had no interest in building a special body for 1969,” says Schellinger.
The Charger Daytona took over where the Charger 500 left off after spending more time in the wind tunnel. Everything was done with a purpose, but when Plymouth got into the game, it was different.
Petty returned for 1970 when Plymouth gift-wrapped the Superbird for him (plus the race car fabrication went from Nichels Engineering to Petty Enterprises). But Plymouth stylists did more than just add a wing and a nose to a Road Runner: They tweaked both ends to make them more satisfying to the division’s sensibilities. While the nose is clearly different from the Daytona’s, the wing is not as obvious—it leans back more.
As a result, the Superbird was not as aerodynamic as the Daytona, with documents from Chrysler showing the Superbird being one to three mph slower than the Dayona in equal environments.
Tall Tale #4: Daytonas and Superbirds were street cars modified for the track
When you look at NASCAR race cars today, the words “stock car” do not seem to resonate. But, at the circuit’s inception, the race cars were stock, then prepared for the races. As mentioned before, NASCAR began to demand certain modifications be made available for production for cars to be legal for the race circuit.
That’s not to say that the Charger Daytona and Road Runner Superbird were street cars modified into race cars. By 1969, stock cars started out as a different breed from the get-go. Per Schellinger, “My race Superbird sits a full four-inches lower compared to a street ‘Bird next to it. While the suspension layout of torsion bars and rear leafs mirror the street car, everything from the firewall forward is pretty much race-only. For most Daytonas, the outer body shell and rockers were separated at the floors, repositioned, and rewelded at Nichels Engineering—for example, the #88 Daytona was built 1.5 degrees nose-down relative to the floors. This was the optimum configuration for the Daytona.”
NASCAR enthusiast Thayer adds, “No street cars were ever used as race cars. In fact, all the winged Mopars had been standard-bodied race cars and the wings and nose cones were added to them.”
Today’s NASCAR race cars clearly bear little resemblance to production vehicles, but the closer kinship between the two in 1969-70 doesn’t change the fact that the race cars were degrees apart from the street cars.
Tall Tale #5: The Road Runner Superbird was the first production car to achieve 200 mph
When I was a kid, the contemporary Lamborghini Countach 25th Anniversary had a top speed of 183. This was slower than that claimed by Lamborghini when the Countach was first introduced in 1974, though the buff books said the manufacturer was exaggerating by about 16 mph.
This wasn’t much faster than its predecessor, the Lamborghini Miura, which had a top speed of around 170 mph in P400S form.
Ferrari’s response to the Miura was the 365 GTB/4 Daytona, which could reach 174 mph.
And let’s not leave Maserati out. The Ghibli was also a hot car at the time. As with the above cars, various resources cite differing top speeds, with the Ghibli SS hitting similar numbers.
You would think these three Italian thoroughbreds would be the benchmarks for all automobiles, right? So why are some online folks claiming the wing cars were the fastest cars in the world? It would be preposterous to think a street car from Detroit had a 25-mph advantage over any Italian sports car. Plus, the tire technology at the time simply didn’t exist for a vehicle to achieve 200 mph on the street. Car Life managed to achieve 130 mph @ 5,500 rpm in a 1966 Plymouth Satellite with 3.23 gears—the highest gears available for a Hemi from 1966-1971. A similarly equipped 1967 Dodge Hemi Charger pulled 134 mph @ 6,000 rpm. A 1968 Plymouth GTX convertible reached 144 mph @ 5,900 rpm. A 3.54-geared 1969 Dodge Charger 500—a homologated aero car—achieved 134 mph @ 6,100 rpm. How much top end do you think a nose cone and wing add, even taking into consideration the unreliability of old road tests?
Thayer notes, “In the 54 years since 1970, nobody has ever taken a stock winged Mopar to any top speed event and run any faster, which coincides with the then-new 120 mph tires that Chrysler put on them, yet they think adding 300-pounds worth of nose cone and wing magically make it faster. At this level, the top speed had ever little to do with any aerodynamics—it was just gearing and rpm.”
Tall Tale #6: Okay then, the Wing Cars were the first NASCAR race cars to achieve 200 mph
Ever since an engine has been connected to wheels, man has been on a quest to go faster. Even within the limitations of sanctioned racing, speed is king. Have people gone faster than a NASCAR race car? Yes, but NASCAR features sustained speeds not present at Bonneville or Le Mans.
We tend to like round numbers, so crossing the 200 mph barrier in NASCAR would be logical and magical. Many cars came close in the 1960s, but they had already extracted as much horsepower as possible. And it seems that NASCAR was trying to control the development of special racing engines because, of course, stock car racing was evolving into something less stock. In October 1964, NASCAR banned these special racing engines, which included the Hemi and Ford’s response, the SOHC 427. NASCAR then developed a manner to keep manufacturers in line by creating homologation rules such as requiring engine and body modifications to be available to the car-buying public.
So, logically, what could be done to increase top speed? Reduce drag.
Dodge was first to produce aerodynamic tweaks with the dealer-installed addition of a subtle lip spoiler on the trunk lid of the 1966 Charger. The redesigned 1968 Charger looked sleek, but it featured styling that was detrimental to its stability at race speeds. Dodge engineers went to the wind tunnel and created the Charger 500, which featured a flush front grille (taken from the Coronet) with exposed headlights and a backlite that smoothed out the flying buttresses that had been creating turbulence.
Ford Motor Company responded with the Torino Talladega and Mercury Cyclone Spoiler Special (aka Spoiler II); Dodge’s response to those was the Charger Daytona, the first car in NASCAR history to break 200 mph…or was it?
“No car—repeat, no car of any brand—ran an official qualifying lap or race lap of 200 mph or more until Benny Parsons did it in his Pontiac in 1982,” says Thayer. “In 1970, at Talladega, Bobby Issac took the pole at 199.647 mph in his Charger Daytona, with Dave Pearson’s Ford taking the outside front row with a 199.403. The closest Superbird was sixth with a 196+ mph lap—those were the official fastest laps of 1970.”
So, how do you explain Buddy Baker’s 200.447 mph run at Talladega on March 24, 1970? Let’s revisit the history of the Daytona in NASCAR. Talladega ran its debut Grand National race, the Talladega 500, in September 1969. It was the perfect track to allow the Daytona—in its NASCAR debut—to stretch its legs at what was touted as the fastest track in the world. However, during practice sessions, tires were coming apart, most likely due to rough patches on the new track. The Professional Drivers Association (PDA), a union of sorts, wanted the race postponed to give tire manufacturers time to create a product that could handle the track at speed. NASCAR head honcho Bill France wasn’t having it, so the inaugural Talladega 500 was boycotted by those who belonged to the PDA; the race that was held mainly consisted of independent drivers and Bobby Isaac, who drove the K & K Insurance Daytona.
In February 1970, after the Daytona 500 and two months before the Grand National circuit returned to Talladega for the Alabama 500, Ford announced that it was pulling all its NASCAR funding and would be micromanaging its drivers and the races in which they’d participate. Due to this, plus the bruising he received from September’s race, France was anxious for positive publicity for his baby, the Talladega track. He saw a chance and talked with Dodge PR’s Frank Wylie about an opportunity to set a lap record at Talladega. This resulted in Buddy Baker taking the #88 Daytona (code DC-93) under the auspices of a “transmission test.” Additionally, the track had been smoothed out by then and the newer rubber compounds from the tire manufacturers were holding up.
Baker ran a 200.447-mph lap that Chrysler claimed was the first 200-mph lap on a NASCAR closed course. However, as this was not a legal race effort, it would be unfair to state that the Daytona ran 200 mph in NASCAR.
Is there another myth that needs to be shattered about these 1969-70 Mopars or other aero warriors? Or do you have an idea for an old wives’ tale that needs to be put to rest? Tell us and let’s get to the bottom of it together.
Special thanks to Doug Schellinger and David Thayer for their expertise.
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