Dodge Daytona and Plymouth Superbird: Design, Development, Production and Competition

By Steve Lehto

Immerse yourself in the Aero Wars era and take a thorough look at how Chrysler climbed the ladder to NASCAR supremacy using the Dodge Daytona and Plymouth Superbird.

Author Steve Lehto provides a detailed account of the history of Chrysler's battle with Ford, which culminated with the final wars between the Dodge Daytona/Plymouth Superbird and the Ford Talladega/Mercury Cyclone. The story of Richard Petty's defection from Plymouth, the mighty Hemi, and the creation of the street version of these cars come to light in this all-encompassing tale.

In the fiercely competitive world of NASCAR, every manufacturer was looking for a competitive edge. Ford and Chrysler turned their attention to the aerodynamics of their race cars, resulting in the Aero Wars. During the height of this competition, Chrysler and Ford produced, among other things, cars with radically altered grilles and tail sections. Mandated by NASCAR to produce production versions, these exotic beasts became some of the most costly, creative, and collectible machines ever assembled in Detroit, whether in race trim or in stock street trim.

Dodge Daytona and Plymouth Superbird: Design, Development, Production and Competition delivers a blow-by-blow account of the biggest races between FoMoCo and Chrysler, along with telling the rich stories of the development of these cars. If you are a fan of NASCAR, or just love outrageous muscle cars, this richly detailed and well-illustrated account of a fascinating era of performance will be a valued addition to your library.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Car Tech
• Release date: Aug 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781613256107

Book preview

Introduction

In the summer of 1979, I bought my first car: a 1969 Dodge Charger. I was 17 and it was the last summer before I graduated high school. I paid $300 for it and my brother repainted it for another $300. Even then, Chargers had a reputation. The Dukes of Hazzard had recently brought attention to these cars, but I remembered them from the movie Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry. In fact, we had decided to paint mine yellow as homage to that film.

I also knew that Chargers had a remarkable pedigree that predated silly TV shows and low-budget movies. The car I drove to school in the fall was related to the Charger Daytona, a winged car with a nose cone that had raced in NASCAR and at the Bonneville Salt Flats. On Woodward Avenue, I sometimes saw one on the road, or its cousin, the Plymouth Superbird. I knew then that these cars were special and even though my Charger did not carry a wing or a nose cone, I felt as if I were part of the story on some level.

Years later, I got to know many of the people who designed and worked on these cars. The story of the development of the winged cars is remarkable.

A major American corporation enlisted rocket scientists to help design the world’s fastest race car. Once the car was designed, the company agreed to sell the cars to the public at a loss so the cars could be raced as stock cars in NASCAR. The cars accomplished their task and did it so well, in fact, that NASCAR was forced to rewrite the rules. But before the cars were outlawed, they rewrote all the record books.

The face of the sport was changed forever. And the handful of cars that were built and sold to the public have largely survived and act as a testament to that magnificent endeavor. Prices have soared as collectors have scoured the country looking for and restoring the survivors.

This is the story of the Dodge Charger Daytona and the Plymouth Superbird, the most remarkable stock cars ever built and sold in Detroit. In this book, you will hear directly from the personalities who made these cars a reality. In 1970, the people who designed, engineered, and raced them could not have imagined how enormously popular the cars would be. They were just doing a job. Even today, privately, they confide that they don’t think they are well remembered. But they are.

None of this would have happened without them.

My first car was a 1969 Dodge Charger. I bought it for $300 in 1979. It had 90,000 miles on its 383 and still ran well, although Michigan winters had wreaked havoc on the sheet metal.

NASCAR: Early Days

Richard Petty suggested that people began racing cars the moment the second one was built. Auto racing has been around about as long as cars have been, but it gained popularity in the 1920s and 1930s. People were fascinated with the new machines. Some people built special cars for land speed record attempts, and some raced in a more populist form of racing. Everyday cars, stock cars, were raced against one another. What started on the streets and roads of America as a hobby soon moved to the fairgrounds and special tracks.

Some drivers modified their cars to go faster so they could outrun the authorities as they shuttled moonshine between backwoods stills and thirsty cities. Moonshiners sold their whiskey through channels that did not involve taxes, and also in dry areas where alcohol consumption was illegal. The result was lower prices for consumers but less tax for the government. The Robin Hood mentality played a large part in bootlegging, as did the desire for cheap booze. Many moonshine runners sank their profits into fast cars and considered it a business investment. After deliveries were made, some moonshiners blew off steam by racing their cars against one another on the way home.

By the 1930s, loosely organized auto racing was a staple of county and state fairs where budding young speed demons get a chance to break into the racing game, according to Modern Mechanix and Inventions magazine. Any backyard mechanic could compete with a street car for huge purses in front of thousands and thousands of people on the look-out for some new thrill. The popular press exaggerated things a bit; the same article claimed, These stock car races are conducted in a first-class manner. And, A dirty driver never gets very far in racing.

NASCAR expanded its popularity by running sportsmen and amateur races at local tracks throughout the South. For example, Raleigh Speedway was a popular spot, with a full bill of races every Saturday night during racing season. Fireball Roberts, Curtis Turner, and the Flock brothers regularly attended these races, battling for a purse that might give the winner a few thousand dollars on a good night.

A program from a typical race night from that time shows 55 probable entries listed, who faced off in two heats with the better finishers going on to the feature race at the end of the evening. Race fans who showed up at 6:30 pm could watch seven races in all, including the consolation races and the amateurs.

The same program displays a photo of an overturned car on its cover, with the driver climbing out the passenger door, upside down. The car is stuck on the guardrail and one of its tires is rolling by, unattached. Not far below the picture it says, Warning to all spectators and patrons. Stock car races are thrilling, dangerous, and spectacular. We have taken all available precautions for your safety. The management assumes no liability for injuries to body or property arising from any accident occurring during these races. You attend these racing events at your own risk.

The early days of NASCAR were inexpensive for spectators. In 1966, for example, it cost only $1 to watch practice and qualifying at the Riverside Raceway, the perennial first race for NASCAR each year. Race day cost only $5, with attendance in the range of 60,000 for the early races.

The Emergence of Professional Drivers

After prize money was introduced, the races and tracks became known beyond their local neighborhoods. One of the first tracks to become famous was laid out along highway A1A, near Daytona Beach, Florida. The area had been a focal point for racing since 1903, when a local hotel hosted the Winter Speed Carnival on the flat sands of the nearby beach.

Racing and speed record attempts continued intermittently through World War I and then a large event was envisioned in 1936. Someone measured off a mile on the highway and marked turnarounds at both ends. Racers flew down the paved straightaway, veered onto the sand for a wild, sliding curve to the northbound stretch of a hard-packed sand straightaway. With gas pedals floored, the sand flew and racers zoomed past those who had bogged down or spun out. At the north end, the cars swung another crazy arc until screeching and smoking tires announced that they hit the pavement again for the trip south. The race often looked like a demolition derby, the beach littered with mangled cars.

Max Muhlmann covered the early days of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) for the Charlotte News and remembered the first beach races fondly with the out-of-control cars spraying sand and roaring around the track. You should have seen the cars slide out of turns toward the beach and kiss the water, and the hundreds of yards of broadsliding they did as they prepared to exit the beach and go back up the road course. It was just spectacular. It was hard to get a position to watch it, but if you did, it was fabulous.

Richard Petty raced an Oldsmobile convertible much like this one in the early days of his career. This car could be converted from a hardtop to a convertible rather quickly. Petty showed this car at the Amelia Island Concours D’Elegance in 2010 along with many of his other cars.

The 1936 race was sanctioned by the American Automobile Association (AAA). It was 250 miles long and the winner took home $5,000. The race was limited to strictly stock automobiles. Some records don’t show who won the race (others say it was Milt Marion), but a local driver, William Henry Getty France, came in fifth. His friends called him Big Bill because he stood 6 feet, 5 inches tall. He won several races in 1938 and 1940, and even won the title of National Stock Car Champion in 1940.

NASCAR and Bill France

This form of racing was still largely a regional sport, and rules were hazy and subject to sporadic enforcement. Not much kept someone from modifying their stock car, especially inside the engine where changes might not be obvious to an untrained eye. Car inspections required time and trained inspectors who might want to be paid; promoters preferred to just run a race, hand someone a trophy, and skip town with the entry fees and gate receipts. Some even skipped town before handing out the trophies or prize money. And, many track operators claimed that their hometown favorites were a national champion or had broken a world record when those titles were nothing more than figments of a promoter’s overactive imagination.

The Hudson Hornet was a popular car among racers despite its decidedly non-aerodynamic design. At the time, automakers and racers cared little about the car’s shape. This car raced at a time when pole-winning speeds were often well under 100 mph and many of the cars on the track were actually not far from stock. Cars from this period were also not as dependable as later cars. It was not uncommon for huge portions of a field of cars to not finish a longer race due to mechanical failure.

Big Bill France was not the kind of guy who put up with such nonsense. France received permission from the Daytona authorities to manage their race, even though he raced in it himself. In February 1938, France came in 2nd place behind a man who tried replacing illegal parts of his engine after the race ended but before the cars were inspected. France disqualified him, and then (realizing that the disqualification made him the winner) disqualified himself to avoid the appearance of impropriety. He named 3rd-place finisher Lloyd Moody the winner.

France convinced other local tracks to institute inspections of all winning cars (to ensure that cars were indeed strictly stock) along with a new rule: Any car that won a race and was later discovered to be modified would be disqualified. Unhappy with lax enforcement of the new rule, and with fly-by-night promoters, France decided to create his own sanctioning body for strictly stock auto racing. He said: The purpose of this association is to unite all stock car racing under one set of rules; to set up a benevolent fund and a national point standings system whereby only one stock car driver will be crowned national champion.

In 1947, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) was formed in Daytona. From that time until he retired in 1972, NASCAR and Bill France were essentially the same entity. When someone suggested he was a dictator, he didn’t deny it. Well, let’s make that a benevolent dictator. What I’m doing is best for the sport, not just me. Although it was a corporation, France had opted to not have elected officers or a board of governors for NASCAR; he was the be-all and end-all of the corporation.

Rule Enforcement

France incorporated NASCAR in 1948 with himself as president. On June 19, 1949, in Charlotte, North Carolina, NASCAR’s first official strictly stock race was held. The race was filled with excitement as the boxy highway cars of the day roared around the track. Defying physics, Lee Petty managed to roll his Buick Roadmaster. Estimates vary, but somewhere between 13,000 and 23,000 people watched Glenn Dunnaway cross the finish line three laps ahead of his nearest rival. The race was a success with both the drivers and the fans, although one problem presented itself that plagued France and NASCAR forever.

Before race officials handed Dunnaway the $2,500 prize money, someone noticed his car had bootlegger springs in the rear suspension. The apparent winner of the inaugural race had cheated by modifying his car to gain an advantage using a simple trick the locals had known about for years. Dunnaway should have known better, but racing in the region had previously turned a blind eye to such minor and common modifications. France put his foot down to show how NASCAR was going to be operated and disqualified the winning car. The victory was awarded to 2nd-place finisher Jim Roper, who had driven his race car 1,000 miles to the race, from Kansas. After the race, he drove the winning car home.

Regarding Dunnaway’s disqualification for using the bootlegger setup in his suspension, Jack Smith recalled more than 50 years later, I think that was the worst injustice that I ever saw NASCAR do to anybody. To be fair, the same NASCAR officials that disqualified Dunnaway also tore apart Roper’s engine after the race to determine whether it was stock. The car passed inspection, but the tear-down was so destructive Roper had to spend some of his prize money to replace the engine for the ride home rather than rebuild the old one.

Still, the rule was enforced: The modified car was disqualified, and the car that had been driven to the race and then driven home afterward won. France wanted fans to see that the cars being raced were the same as those the fans had driven to the racetrack; cars they could relate to. It didn’t take much for a fan to watch the race and realize that the Buick Roadmaster Petty flipped was just like the one in his garage at home.

NASCAR’s stock races allowed the average person to fantasize, and to see those fantasies translated into real life. This vision of France’s, though, spelled out the divide that coursed through the NASCAR circuit for as long as it existed: cars designed to go fast versus cars that the average person could buy.

The Cars

The cars at the early NASCAR races were primitive by today’s standards. Unlike today’s stock race cars, the models looked just like cars you might see in traffic, with only slight cosmetic alteration. Headlights were still in place but covered with tape to prevent them from shattering if hit by flying debris. Car doors actually opened and closed, although many racers cinched them shut with leather belts or even dog collars.

Safety-conscious drivers in the era before seat belts strapped into their cars by roping themselves to their seats. When they said Strictly Stock, that wasn’t just the name of the division, that was the rule as well, said Bob Latford, an early NASCAR employee. France remained adamant that the only modifications allowed needed to be approved in advance and usually were safety-related. Modifications for speed were always suspect, if not outlawed altogether. It was a decade before France allowed racers to re-shape sheet metal to reduce wind resistance, or to put heavy-duty parts into the suspensions of the cars for a stiffer ride.

NASCAR also routinely ran races that involved many more cars than are allowed today: 75 cars raced in the 1950 Southern 500. The 1951 Southern 500 started 82 cars, the most ever in a NASCAR event. Starting fields nowadays are limited to 43 cars. Qualifying and starting grid placement for the races is the same, however.

In the days preceding a race, the drivers were usually given an opportunity to practice on the track to get a feel for its surface, the degree of banking, if any, in the corners, and to get an idea of how to prepare the car for the race. Then, the cars participated in qualifying.

A Success Story

Early on, the NASCAR organization was a family affair for France. His wife Anne and his son Bill helped out, handling the mail, posting fliers, and even selling hot dogs in the stands on race day. Still, it didn’t take long to catch on in a big way. By 1949, more than 60 radio stations up and down the East Coast broadcast NASCAR news a couple of nights each week. In 1950, NASCAR documented a million spectators who attended 396 sanctioned races at 50 different tracks.

Detroit Hosts NASCAR

When a NASCAR event finally took place in Detroit, many automakers paid serious attention to stock car racing. The city of Detroit celebrated its 250th anniversary in 1951. The Motor City was home to the Big Three of the automobile world (Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors) and many other manufacturers of the time, such as Hudson and Kaiser, were not far away. Someone came up with the idea of running a 250-mile race in honor of the anniversary, and NASCAR sanctioned the race at the Michigan State Fairgrounds on the northern edge of Detroit.

NASCAR entries from the old days bear little resemblance to the racers of today. For a time they even ran feature races with convertibles. The lack of a roll cage is even more apparent in a car with no roof. But as speeds increased, the cars needed more safety equipment. As they evolved, they moved further from their stock appearance. Eventually, NASCAR did away with convertible racing.

It was the first of only two NASCAR races ever held in Detroit and Big Three executives felt compelled to attend and watch the cars they built bounce around a 1-mile dirt oval. Many executives had never seen such a race before, neither had most of the 16,352 in attendance, and few knew what to expect. In the past, automakers had been indifferent about NASCAR. Some felt it beneath them to encourage the destructive driving of their products, while others worried their cars wouldn’t survive the stress of longer races.

Stock car racing still had a bit of an outlaw image as well. But the press reported that the industry’s officials and engineers were present in large numbers. Undoubtedly, the car people were as nervous as the drivers; 15 different car brands competed. They wondered what stigma would be attached to the losing cars. Along with the Big Three, others such as Nash, Henry J, and Studebaker tried for victory in Detroit.

The Race

Track officials briefed the 54 drivers (many had never run a NASCAR event before) and all were presented medals honoring Michigan’s birthday before the race began. After the pre-race festivities, a Packard pace carled the huge starting pack around the track. The winner received $5,000 as well as the pace car. Some wondered if any of the cars could last 250 miles on the rough surface of the fairgrounds, but France assured everyone that he had pulled off a race this length with 75 cars not long before.

Some of the worry was well founded; before the race, track officials had spread 45 tons of calcium chloride on the track to create a smooth surface. Calcium chloride is a chemical cousin to road salt, often applied to settle dust on bad roads. Many suspected the recently applied chemicals would be blasted from the track long before the checkered flag fell.

Although official figures showed 16,352 in paid attendance, many balked at the high cost of admission. The fairgrounds were not designed to handle such large crowds and many people snvvuck into the stands. A few thousand more watched the race from nearby hilltops. Local news reported the spectators, paid and unpaid, to number 25,000.

The sold-out crowd was in awe, and the executives were riveted as well. As expected in a race with this many cars on such a small dirt surface, there were collisions, spinouts, and rollovers. No drivers were injured, but there were spectacular multi-car pileups. Lee Petty was involved in a seven-car incident; one of the Flock brothers was knocked out in a five-car affair. Curtis Turner led the race until his 1951 Oldsmobile began to overheat and he drove the car until the engine seized. The winner was a likable kid named Tommy Thompson driving a Chrysler New Yorker.

Fewer than half the starting cars finished the race; many cars were knocked out simply by having their air filters clogged with sand and dust. Marshall Teague, the pole sitter of the race, was knocked out early and complained, These 250 miles of racing have been harder on a car than 200,000 of normal highway driving. This sand isn’t an automobile track. This is for horse races.

Auto executives returned to work on Monday and told their engineers to study the cars that had been raced, and find out why their cars broke the way they did. They also noticed the way the spectacle had riveted the attention of the audience. NASCAR did not have to be an embarrassing waste of product; it could be a valuable tool to sell and test cars.

Grand National Circuit

NASCAR began calling its top division the Grand National. France also decided to feature the late-model stock cars as the premiere event on his circuit. Other organizations sanctioned stock car races but most emphasized custom-built race cars over stock. This marriage of stock cars’ primacy with NASCAR is what separated NASCAR from its competitors and led to its populist appeal. It also drew automakers to NASCAR.

The earliest NASCAR rules were simple. Cars had to be American made, full-size, but not station wagons or trucks. Cars needed roll bars and doors were strapped shut. Full windshields were required and all other glass removed or taped over. Drivetrains needed to be stock and, at first, the car could not be valued over $150. Safety belts and a helmet were also needed; at that point, if the driver signed a release and paid a $2 insurance fee, he was set to race.

This Hudson Hornet is a typical stocker from the slower days of NASCAR. Before factory involvement, racers simply drove whatever car they could afford, with an eye toward durability and horsepower. NASCAR emphasized the everyday car aspect of the races, so they would appeal to the average car owner.

Long before Chrysler put wings on cars, they had tailfins. Typical of cars being raced in the early days of NASCAR, this Lee Petty ride was heavy and boxy but resembled cars on the road at the time. When automobile manufacturers began to embrace stock car racing, the vehicles became sleeker and faster. (Photo Courtesy Cal Lane)

Although France kept the circuit together through troubling times, Washington almost shut him down once. In 1955, a Senator from Oregon lobbied President Eisenhower to outlaw auto racing entirely: stock cars, open-wheel cars, dragsters, and anything else on wheels. The move was fueled by recent deaths in stock car racing as well as on the open-wheeled circuit sanctioned by the AAA. Although Washington did not clamp down on racing, AAA decided to exit the sport despite a 54-year history as the sanctioning body of the Indianapolis 500. France plowed onward, and NASCAR merely helped fill the void left by those who had abandoned racing.

Weekly Schedule

It was in these early races that legends came from a small group of friends. Ned Jarrett, Richard Petty, Bobby Isaac, and David Pearson all met at early races. At the time, the regular circuit often allowed a racer to stay busy Thursday night through Sunday.

Starting at Columbia, South Carolina, on Thursday, the drivers raced and then headed to Charlotte for a Friday night race. Hickory Motor Speedway’s big night was Saturday, when thousands showed up to watch them run. On Sunday morning the racers headed to Asheville or Savannah and then spent the early weekdays of the following week repairing whatever they’d broken during that weekend’s races.

The NASCAR Grand National circuit was, and still is, where the real money was. Races were longer than those run on small-town tracks, sometimes 500 or 600 miles. NASCAR’s Grand National circuit required cars to be no more than two years old. A successful effort called for money to buy a newer car, as well as spare parts, tires, and to hire a crew. Well-financed teams capable of competing in the Grand National circuit were sparse in the early days.

Safety Considerations

By 1957, some people within the auto industry worried that car companies were promoting unsafe and fast driving by openly supporting stock car racing. To calm them, France banned fuel injection, superchargers, turbochargers, and other features that might have made the cars even faster. He went further, telling manufacturers they could not use race results in car advertisements.

Some in the auto industry began to worry that racing was too dangerous when a fan was seriously injured at a racetrack in Martinsville, Virginia. The industry trade group, the Automobile Manufacturer’s Association (AMA), banned its members from openly supporting any NASCAR racing teams. Some manufacturers defied the ban by going underground with their support of NASCAR racers. They did not have official teams racing in NASCAR, but they funneled parts and advice to the racers who chose to drive their cars.

France honed his sights on building better racetracks, realizing that if the cars went faster, and the fans had better seats,

Reviews for Dodge Daytona and Plymouth Superbird

[mereric · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I was lucky enough to snag a copy of this as an Advanced Copy for my husband whom is a huge NASCAR fan. He loved this. With detailed information and wonderful archive pictures and diagrams, it was a well detailed book. We recommend this book for any race enthusiast.

[bjkelley · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Car Tech puts out some great books and this book Dodge Daytona and Plymouth Superbird fits right in with all the rest. Stunning photos and a great history from NASCAR to Collecting The Survivors.

[outdoorsman-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The best book I have ever read on the Daytona and Superbird. I read a lot of car magazines but this book is really special and will definitely be a coffee top addition. A hardback with a very nice cover. Don't want to spill coffee on this one!

[cyoder44 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I am not a big NASCAR fan so the accounts of races didn't interest me much, but the story of how these cars were developed was interesting. I would rate it one star higher if I did like NASCAR.

[dverg48 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mopar and NASCAR enthusiasts rejoice! Well-researched and written, with photos to match.

[bill_11 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I remember when 1955 Chevys appeared on our dirt tracks sporting wings even though they did not reach the speeds for them to have any effect. Steve Lehto's coverage of the Dodge Daytonas and Plymouth Superbirds is one of the best CarTech books I have read recently. He blends his own interest in the cars with racing history and engineering insights. Couple his excellent writing with historic photos and shots of the survivors and you have a an automotive history book that is hard to put down and rewarding to pick up from time to time just to browse the pictures. One car book that should not be missed by muscle car or NASCAR fans.

[bertha_-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Won this book through Early Reviewers. So good! So excited i won it! I purposely took my time reading it and looking at the pictures and looking up things on line. Really great book, even if you're not a car/muscle car enthusiast. The pictures are super cool and everything is easy enough for us non-car people to understand and get excited about. I see there are more in this series, can't wait to read them.

[fugitive_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is not just for "car people." Steve Lehto's book is typical for the publisher - a thorough, well documented, fun, labor of love. I was 12 or 13 when these bad boys (the cars) hit the streets of Southern California. I only saw a couple of them, but even to a non-car kid these were science fictiony awesome beasts. And Mr. Lehto walks you through all aspects of their design, development, and use.Don't expect this to be a glossy coffee table book with little substance. For its size, there is a lot of text and explanation. The pictures are used as documentation more than "gee whiz!" but golly, these are gee whiz cars!Coolest thing I learned: you can create a 200 mile per hour car, but if you don't have 200 mile per hour tires there's a problem.Second coolest thing I learned: The NASCAR rules of the time for what entailed a "stock" car. Basically, if you can sell 500 of them and they're legal on the street, then, POOF, stock car. I always thought the Dodge Daytona 500 referred to the race, but herein found out that the number 500 referred to the number of cars they had to sell (and apparently they didn't even sell 500 of them which is yet another cool fact).Recommended for car people, non car people, aerospace engineers, and people who just think America has produced some very unique cars. These are two of them.(My review was simultaneously posted on Amazon.com)