Photo: Barrett-Jackson
There are several cars made over the years so special that even their simple names are a delight to roll on the lips. But in my book, nothing can beat the Plymouth Road Runner with a Hemi powerplant and the Superbird moniker attached to it.
And that's saying something, given how the Plymouth Road Runner-based Superbird is one of the rarest… birds you'll ever come across. It was only made for one year, in 1970, and in just under 2,000 units. Making surviving examples, no doubt about it, highly collectible.
These things are so rare chances are you won't find any on second-hand marketplaces. From time to time, though, one of them pops up on the block of some major auction taking place in the good old U.S. of A.
And guess what, one of them just did. A rare Superbird that's even rarer thanks to the engine it packs, and the fact it survived all these years (53, to be exact) in its original form.
Back in the day, Plymouth offered the Superbird with a choice of three engines. Two of them, equally sized at 440ci, were of the Super Commando variety. The third was the mighty Hemi, the top-of-the-line offering. It was a unit that, even if it came with a slightly smaller displacement, 426ci, has undoubtedly become the highlight of the range, at least for today's collector's market.
According to records, the limited run of Superbirds had just 135 units produced with the Hemi engine under the hood. And the one we have here is one of them.
The car is, we're told, an original matching-numbers beauty, whose engine is controlled by means of an upgraded four-speed manual transmission. The carburetors and distributors are also the ones that originally shipped with the car. It's likely the drivetrain is capable of the same power levels, 425 hp, it cranked out when it first rolled off the assembly lines.
The exterior is that of the quintessential Superbird, with the sharp front end balanced by the simply huge wing at the rear. The only thing I personally don't like about it is the color. The result of a repaint, it is a type of white that looks simply bland compared to say the Tor-Red we've seen on other examples.
The interior is like a museum where everything that was original was preserved: the seats, door panels, instrument cluster and the gauges inside it, and even the headliner.
The rare 1970 Plymouth Superbird with a Hemi engine is scheduled to go under the Barrett-Jackson hammer in January 2024 in Scottsdale. It is selling with no reserve, but complete with the original decoder fender tag, the build sheet (most of it, anyway), and all the required body stampings.
The original vinyl roof, the original jacks, and a set of Goodyear Polyglas tires pulled over Rallye wheels are also thrown into the mix.
These things are so rare chances are you won't find any on second-hand marketplaces. From time to time, though, one of them pops up on the block of some major auction taking place in the good old U.S. of A.
And guess what, one of them just did. A rare Superbird that's even rarer thanks to the engine it packs, and the fact it survived all these years (53, to be exact) in its original form.
Back in the day, Plymouth offered the Superbird with a choice of three engines. Two of them, equally sized at 440ci, were of the Super Commando variety. The third was the mighty Hemi, the top-of-the-line offering. It was a unit that, even if it came with a slightly smaller displacement, 426ci, has undoubtedly become the highlight of the range, at least for today's collector's market.
According to records, the limited run of Superbirds had just 135 units produced with the Hemi engine under the hood. And the one we have here is one of them.
The car is, we're told, an original matching-numbers beauty, whose engine is controlled by means of an upgraded four-speed manual transmission. The carburetors and distributors are also the ones that originally shipped with the car. It's likely the drivetrain is capable of the same power levels, 425 hp, it cranked out when it first rolled off the assembly lines.
The exterior is that of the quintessential Superbird, with the sharp front end balanced by the simply huge wing at the rear. The only thing I personally don't like about it is the color. The result of a repaint, it is a type of white that looks simply bland compared to say the Tor-Red we've seen on other examples.
The interior is like a museum where everything that was original was preserved: the seats, door panels, instrument cluster and the gauges inside it, and even the headliner.
The rare 1970 Plymouth Superbird with a Hemi engine is scheduled to go under the Barrett-Jackson hammer in January 2024 in Scottsdale. It is selling with no reserve, but complete with the original decoder fender tag, the build sheet (most of it, anyway), and all the required body stampings.
The original vinyl roof, the original jacks, and a set of Goodyear Polyglas tires pulled over Rallye wheels are also thrown into the mix.
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