(tires screeching)
- What the heck was that?
It came like that!
You're eight years old, exploring Dead Man's Creek
behind Old Man Spankenburg's house.
Everyone knows you don't go into
that old red barn, but somethin'
catches your eye, in the corner you notice a shape
under a fraying canvas tarp.
You pull the sheet and as the dust
settles, you discover the most beautifully
weird car you've ever friggin' seen.
What is this, how did it get here?
This is everything you need to know
to get up to speed on the Dodge Daytona,
and the Plymouth Superbird.
In 1968 Nascar was a big deal,
and Dodge was gettin' their butt
kicked by Ford and struggling to keep up
with their sister company, Plymouth.
It was pretty embarrassing.
- It's completely humiliating.
- So, the order came from the very top,
build a car that can win and do whatever it takes.
The first try was a modified Charger.
The '68 Charger is an icon, probably
top five best looking American cars ever,
but it was a crummy race car.
The wide ass grill trapped in a bunch
of air and the flying buttresses created
a vacuum that sucked the car upward,
making it impossible to drive at high speeds.
To fix this, Dodge fitted the Charger with the
grill from the Coronet and made the rear
window flush with the b-pillars.
The result was the Charger 500,
a much smoother car that could actually handle at high speed
But it wasn't enough to win as Ford had also been perfecting
their own stock car, the Gran Torino,
named after Clint Eastwood.
When the Charger and Torino met at Daytona,
Ford went home with the win.
Dodge was fucking pissed.
And to add insult to injury, Plymouth's
star driver Richard Petty was tired
of driving such a crummy race car and left for Ford,
promptly winning the first race of 1969.
The pressure was on Dodge to save face
and lure Petty back to the team.
Dodge engineers whipped up a radical
concept with a pointy nose and a big ass wing.
They sent the sketch to Dodge general manager, Rob McCurry.
And he said it was the ugliest car he had ever seen.
But, he followed it up with, will it win races,
I gotta win Nascar or I'm gonna get friggin' fired.
The Charger Daytona was a go.
Dodge even brought in a guy from Chrysler's missile
division to work on the Daytona project.
Wait, what, Chrysler had a missile division, what the frick?
Yeah, dude, Chrysler built ballistic missiles for
the government, missiles designed by Nazi scientists
that we brought over here after World War II.
It was called Operation Paperclip,
it's a real thing.
Happened, Google it.
Back to the car, John Pointer was a literal
rocket scientist.
Chrysler thought that building the Daytona was
more than the Cold War, that's what
I call having your priorities in order.
Dodge took their winged beast to
the Chelsea Proving Grounds for some testing.
But, when the drivers got to the track,
the Dodge engineers gave them specific
instructions not to go over 190 miles per hour.
Here's why they couldn't do that,
Ford had spy planes circling the track,
this is weird, right?
Chrysler had a missile division and Ford had spy planes.
What a time to be alive!
Dodge driver Charlie Glotzbach drove the Daytona
to 204 miles an hour, the first Nascar to
break the 200 mile an hour mark.
The team kept the top speed a secret,
no one outside of Chrysler's engineering
staff or upper management knew how
fast their car really was.
The Daytona made its public debut
on September 14th, 1969 at the
Alabama International Speedway, AKA, the house that
Ricky Bobby built.
- Well Jack, here's the deal, I'm the best there is,
plain and simple, I mean I wake up
in the morning and I piss excellence
- The Daytona took pole position with ease
and claimed victory the next day.
Ford and Chevy had no idea what hit them.
What just hit us?
Dude I have no idea what just hit us!
Why have we been fighting this whole time?
You're actually pretty cool.
Nah, but we're rivals.
And then they pretended to hate each other.
The Daytona then won seven out of the last
10 races of the 1969 season.
It was clear, their hard work had paid off.
The pointy nose cut through the air
better than anything else on the track.
And that insane wing gave it insane grip.
And those little scoops on the fenders
weren't just for looks babe.
Dodge told Nascar they were for
wheel clearance at high speeds.
But what the vents really did
was relieve air pressure that built
up under the car, keeping it glued to the track.
Oh, and about that wing, the wing was so big,
because it needed to be in the clean air.
John Pointer, our rocket scientist from before, remember?
He knew that the already swirling air just
above the tail would have less contrasting forces,
so he put the wing up high where it could
produce significantly more downforce to the rear wheels.
Also, for the Daytona to be legal to race,
Dodge had to build 500 production models
for the public to buy.
On Sunday you could watch the craziest looking
race cat ever destroy the competition,
then go buy the same car on Monday.
That's marketing, baby, but it really didn't work.
Dealers had a really, really hard time selling the Daytona.
It was weird looking, and the nose
made engine overheating a real problem.
It got even harder the next year when Nascar rules
said 1,500 cars had to be delivered to dealers.
That's three times as many.
The next season, Plymouth brought to life
a winged car of their own, the Superbird.
(tires screeching)
And even though both the 'tona and the bird looked
pretty similar, there are some
subtle differences betwixt them.
You gotta be a real connoisseur of winged, pointy nosed
Nascar cars to know.
For one, Plymouth designers really didn't like
the idea of putting a big nose
on their prized Roadrunner, and only agreed to do it
if they could make it look better.
The nose was reshaped and the wing was placed
further up on the trunk.
These changes made the Superbird around
three miles per hour slower than
the Daytona, and after two hundred laps,
I gotta be honest with you, that
makes a pretty big difference.
But that didn't stop Richard Petty from
returning to Plymouth for the 1970 season.
In his signature Petty blue paint scheme.
Well, well, well, we finally have a good car
and now suddenly Richie's interested?
I see how it is, dick.
Now, we have two race cars with giant wings
that people would buy at the dealership.
Am I the only one who sees how
fucking crazy this is?
Chrysler wanted to win Nascar so bad
that they made 3,000 cars that will only
be sold to two guys, Joe Dirt,
and Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused.
Actually, if you think about it,
I'm sort of a mix between Joe Dirt and
Matthew McConaughey from Dazed and Confused, Dads?
They 1970 season was friggin' dominated
by Chrysler's aero car, the Daytona and Superbird
won 33 out of 48 races that season.
But, their supremacy was short lived.
For the 1971 season, Nascar rules mandated
that any aero car couldn't have an engine
bigger than 300 cubic inches, the fuck?
The rule killed the Daytona and Superbird over night.
Nascar officials said they were concerned
with the crazy high speeds these cars could achieve.
Oh, come on, Nascar, I thought that we were here to race.
That's not the real reason, how about
you be honest.
No, no, I'm good, I've only had one drink.
Today, the Daytona and Superbird live
on as legendary muscle cars.
Outlandish survivors from a time before
stock cars became shapeless blobs
with painted on headlights.
Maybe someday Nascar will put the stock
back in stock car racing, but until
then I'll be fantasizing about
having a Daytona of my own.
Oh, and if anyone from Nascar is watching,
please add more road courses to the calendar, thanks.
So, there it is, everything you need to know
to get up to speed on the
Dodge Daytona and Plymouth Superbird.
We're gonna move beyond cars, we're gonna
start doing track, rivalries, racing series,
designers, drivers, et cetera.
What do you want to see on future episodes of Up to Speed?
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