Perhaps not as famous as its Dodge Charger Daytona counterpart, the short-lived 1970 Plymouth Superbird is still capable of all kinds of crazy associations. Anything related to the Wile E. Coyote nemesis will do but having both the Road Runner (the animated character, not the car) and an alcohol-fed blown HEMI is infinitely better.
As it happens, there is one particular example fitting the description. Better yet, this “extreme bird” (check out the gallery to see the Road Runner connection) is actually the latest build created by the Mopar-loving Malek Racing family for the Promod/Top Sportsman category.
Based on the behind-the-scene photos provided by the racing team and the description from the Race Your Ride YouTube channel, we get a little bit of a background story on this very green Superbird.
Apparently, all Malek family members are racers (father, father-in-law, wife, son, twin daughters), and the double-chuted green monster (which lived in Europe until recently) is actually driven by a very young man called Bobby Wescott, who is actually “son of Steve's wife Christine's brother.”
That easily makes us wonder if the entire family tree actually has racing in their veins. Well, that’s really beside the point once the Superbird starts expelling fire and brimstone out its many exhausts (there’s a vertical one in the back and many more on the sides) and from the drag slicks.
After all, we’ve joined them for some alcohol-infused blown HEMI action, didn’t we? No worries, because it’s all neatly arranged in the video below. We start with a few close-ups of the extreme build, pan out to an overview and join the young and talented driver as he fires up the raging Mopar.
Then it’s time for the traditional smoky tire warmup before the ‘70 Superbird shoots down the straight at the Byron Dragway in Byron, Illinois, for the initial 1/8th of a mile. That one’s a wrap after just 4.4 seconds, and the Plymouth doesn’t even use its twin parachutes, although it reached 162 mph (almost 261 kph).
With everything neatly in place, it’s time for the quarter-mile run from the 2:16 mark after the HEMI drinks some more alcohol. That blown freak of a mechanical nature is up to great deeds, obviously, as the Superbird wraps up the footage with a 6.29s run at over 206 mph (almost 332 kph).
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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