Progress, super speedway 1970.
The old quarter mile stretched out to a mile, one and a half, two and a half miles of special
compound concretes.
The drivers dreamed of long, steep banked ovals. Detroit provided the super stock cars.
The drivers came along for the ride, all drawn into an upward spiral of speed, size and
money.
Progress.
Blemeths, Ford's, Mercury's, Dodge's are taken straight from the dealer's showroom.
And then specially engineered, tuned and balanced with spacecraft precision to one
specification. Maximum safety at maximum speed. The cost is in the millions. No driver
will afford it. Who pays him?
My name is Murray Markwell. I have a small American car restoration business in Pakenham
called Southern Customs. I should tell you that the reason I'm a rev head, as we call
it, or as the Americans call it, a gear head, is that my father was in the automotive industry
when I was growing up. And of course, I remember fondly how he worked for General Motors and
used to go to the US when I was in my formative early preteen years and used to bring back
all the memorabilia and literature from the states and six, nine Camaro color brochures,
you know, Chevelles and stuff. And I was pretty much hooked by that.
The Blemeths Superbirds were built in a limited run soon after what was called a Dodge Daytona,
which was a run of 50, 500 cars rather. It was less than 2,000 Superbirds built and they
were specifically built to homologate for NASCAR racing in the US. They were only built
for one year because once they creamed and won all the races, the NASCAR board powers
the B banned them. Essentially said, if you want to run the aero cars as they're called,
you can run a five liter. Well, of course, compared to running a seven and a half liter
Hammy versus a five liter, it's all about cubes in the US. They bit the bullet and got
away, did away with the wings and so forth. So, they're a special build that was designed
in wind tunnels to compete on the high speed loop circuits or the bank circuits in the
US. They were designed, as I mentioned, in a wind tunnel and they used the aerodynamic
aids to allow them to push past the 180 mile an hour mark, which is where the cars at the
time were limited by the physical design of pushing against the air. Of course, the aero
aids allowed them to break the 200 mile an hour mark and that makes them fairly special.
I was only watching NASCAR the other day, watching a good old boy Marcus Ambrose who
they referred to as a Tasmanian, by the way, not an Australian. I was a bit offended by
that. Anyway, they're only doing 200 mile an hour now, 40 years later. So, you're talking
about the Superbirds and the daytime has been pretty special in their day to be able
to consistently run as fast as they can now, 40 years later.
All right. Well, everyone, this is my genuine, 1970 GTX Plymouth. It's built for 40 years,
727 trans, reverse manual shift and started like, as I said, as a GTX. It's now a Plymouth
Superbird and it's awesome. Built by a dealer in the early 70s with all the original new
old stock parts and you know what, I don't care that it's a clone because I can do this.
All right. All right. 80 mile an hour, like that.
All right. And that's what Marmo Pa is all about. Thank you for coming. They got rid
of them because the body governing NASCAR term that they were too fast and therefore
had a competitive advantage over everyone else and therefore said, okay, no more wings.
So therefore General Motors and Ford were back on a level playing field. That's sort
of what the demise of the Superbirds and the Daytonas was. And what I understand, they
in the day were not very popular when they came out. They had to build X amount to brace
them and qualify and homologate them. And I've read stories where dealers were turning
them back into basic road runners and Superbees. So they would turn them over because the noses
and the wings were even then too outrageous for the outrageous Americans of the 70s, which
is a surprise. So they were quitting them at a cheap price to get rid of them. Same
time the insurance prices was going on. The US gas price was going through the roof and
there was a big mental change from that youthful 60s muscle car to a Conno boxes that became
the 70s cars. They really lost all of that, all the things that were great, which is one
of the reasons I enjoy them so much. They are a never to be made again. You'll never
see them again. You'll never see poor fuel economy like that again. You'll never see
poor handling, poor brakes, but you'll never see styling like that either. And you know,
some of the styling cues and the touches. So in many respects, they're time capsules
that you'll never see again of a bygone era.
