The Superbird Saga: How Detroit’s Fastest Car Was Killed by Rules

A Plymouth dealer in the Midwest spent two years staring at a car he never ordered, parked at the far end of the lot where nobody had to look at it. He cut the price twice and heard every giraffe joke there is. That same shape later crossed an auction block in Las Vegas for $1.65 million. We cover the wind tunnel Chrysler rented at Wichita State because it was the cheapest one they could get into, the 14 weeks two aerospace men needed to solve the problem, and the 18-inch nose cone and 58-inch wing that bought roughly 800 pounds of downforce at 180 mph for no horsepower at all. Richard Petty leaving for Ford and coming home for a promise. Buddy Baker's certified 200.447 mph lap at Talladega. And the 1971 rule that never used the word banned, it just capped winged cars at 305 cubic inches when the Hemi was 426. Standing on that lot in 1972 with $4,000 in your pocket, would you have bought the winged car, or walked 40 feet over and bought the Road Runner like everybody else? #Superbird #Plymouth #MoparMuscle #NASCARHistory #DetroitIron