The 1970 Plymouth Superbird-440 hardtop stands as one of the premier racing cars of its era. Designed by Plymouth to be a rival to the Ford Torino, the Superbird-440 hardtop is a part of American automotive and racing history. It is part of that elite squadron of cars from the era whose value has been increasing so much in recent years to a baby boomer driven nostalgic demand. The Superbird was a combination of a powerful engine, innovative design, and a new trend towards aerodynamic body design than was popular amongst the high power American cars of the time.

The design of the Superbird was honestly not them most popular at the time. The car marked a departure from the standard look of the most popular cars amongst muscle enthusiasts of the period and was received with mixed reviews. It had two extremely prominent features that make it easy to pick out of a crowd of cars at a car show. It has a nineteen inch nosecone added to the front for aerodynamic purposes which really does give it a birdlike appearance. Even more distinctive however, is the gigantic fin on the rear of the car, a spoiler mounted high in the air, higher than anything else of the period. Ostensibly, the reason for the height of the wing was to allow trunk clearance, but there were other, aerodynamic reasons for placing it at that height as well. It also featured retractable headlights and a smoother and sleeker body than previous Plymouth cars.

These aerodynamic innovations in the Superbirds design were not by chance. The car was designed to be a racing car, and to be a challenger to other preeminent racers of the time. Due to the goals that were in mind when the car was being designed, it was among the very first automobiles to be designed using a wind tunnel to gather data on the aerodynamic effect the shape of the cars body was having upon its performance. That testing is what is responsible for those distinctive nose cones and rear wings that make the Superbird so easy to identify.

1970 was the Superbird’s only production year. Due to NASCAR regulations at the time, and car that was to be raced had to have a predetermined amount produced for sale to the general public. Plymouth produced the absolute bare minimum of Superbirds possible, only doing so for the privilege of putting their engineering work to the test on the track. In fact, due at least in part to the Superbirds unpopular styling as well as its exclusively race oriented engineering, the car remained quite unpopular in its own time. So unpopular in fact, that several of the cars were never moved off the lots, and were only ever owned by the dealers who originally took delivery of them from Plymouth.

Despite the car being unappreciated in its own time by the public, it is a collectible car today both for its rarity and its uniqueness of design.