Steve Netkow’s 1970 Plymouth Superbird

The Plymouth Road Runner Superbird was produced in 1970 for 1 year only. 1,982 were produced to homologate the body style for NASCAR racing. 434 were built with the 440 6BBl engine and Torqueflite automatic transmission as this car is equipped. Approximately 51 were painted this color which Plymouth called Tor-Red, a play on the word “torrid” and quite in keeping with the marketing style of the day. The car was built on November 28th, 1969 and is the 812th Superbird built. It was delivered to Bob Hawk Chrysler Plymouth in Athens Ohio as an ordered car. Price as delivered was $4,899.10. Superbirds were partially assembled at Plymouth’s Lynch Road assembly plant in Detroit and then shipped to Creative Industries to have the special body parts installed. They all had to be built before 1/1/1970 as federal bumper laws were scheduled to go in effect for the New Year and the Superbird would not have met the stricter standards.

I have owned the car for 19 years and it is driven regularly. It has been on the NASCAR track in Kansas, participated in the Route 66 Mother Road Festival in Springfield, Illinois and it was poised to run up Pikes Peak in June 2012 when the Waldo Canyon fire erupted and we were forced to leave Colorado Springs 2 days after we arrived. The Superbird has attended events in Tennessee, Indiana, South Dakota, Kansas, Colorado, Michigan and Wisconsin. We are scheduled to participate at race weekend events at Elkhart Wisc. this September.

The Superbird was body-off restored in 1992 and I purchased it in 2001. I do have a copy of the original dealer invoice and when I had the carpeting replaced in 2003 we found the original build sheet under the back seat. The build sheet verifies the car is currently represented as built, with all of the original options still on the car and nothing extra added. – Steve Netkow