Give this seller the crystal ball award: this minty Superbird is one of 10 cars he claims to have purchased in 1973 and promptly socked away to fund his retirement years. The seller claims the Plymouth is not a restoration but rather a nicely preserved specimen with under 30,000 original miles. The condition is impressive as is the asking price – you’ll find it here on eBay with an opening bid of $250,000.
The seller claims his previous sale ended up on Jay Leno’s Garage, and indeed it did – a Vitamin C Orange Superbird went to comedian Jeff Dunham, who then oversaw that car’s restoration. An article on Motor Authority confirms that the orange ‘bird was purchased from a dentist who owned the car for decades; I’m guessing this is the same seller, if the story is true.
As far as options go, the seller did well to choose a Superbird with the 440 Six Pack and factory wood-rimmed steering wheel. The car is numbers matching, and as an added bonus, all body panels match, too, bearing no signs of previous accident damage. Of particular note is that this car has never been offered for sale, according to the seller, which should drive some interest.
I love the stance and the dish on the rear wheels, which looks like a staggered setup. The iconic wing and all graphics are present, and some very cool (and impossible to fake) stickers from different race tracks and events appear in the driver’s side rear window. For a car parked in ’73, this Superbird appears to be an amazing specimen – and one hell of a retirement plan.
they did not even take it apart before painting, last photo, and there is overspray allover in trunk. didnt that car deserve better? and durty in interior, is that how you sell a 250,000$ car? it is half restored, not a surviver, imo..
Hard to say- Creative Industries did the conversions. When the pieces were installed, they’d scuff the cars down, re-shoot them, then decal them. Sometimes, the painters would hold “Paint races” where they’d pair up and then see how fast each team could spray the car. Heard that years ago from a former employee who was speaking at the Nationals
a afternoon Workshop paintjob….
I was around when these winged pterodactyls were on the car lots. Austin got four at two dealerships. One sold to a friend via his dad’s money, the rest sat on the car lots for months and months, eating up the dealer’s money.
My buddy’s car had to be regeared in order to play at the stoplights because it came with a super high screw from the factory. We went cruising one night, and he got his rear kicked by a guy in a chevelle, so Monday the Plymouth went to the shop.
I understand they’re collector’s items, but….
Sloppy touchup was likely done back in the day, I restored a B5 blue Superbird that was parked in 1974 and it already had pop riveted patches on the lower quarter panels over rust holes. Car had a genuine 24K mi.
no ist done recently. try see last photo on eBay
I really like the stance and wheel arrangement also.
That left side tailight bezel looks as though it has been damaged, and the panel bottom edge doesn’t line up, it’s definitely not straight! I also agree w/ JBP, it’s not even detail clean inside, not exactly the best sales presentation (IMO).
It looks like it was siliconed in on left side of rear twilight.
Also overspray on left side of front window post. Likely touched up and amazing he wouldn’t fix these things before he sold it.
I think he took it to Maaco.
Smart guy, maybe his investment grew 75 times
A car is only worth what you get for it. I hope he gets all the money! He invested over 40 years storing it. As far as the fit and finish, it’s a mopar, that’s probably how it left the factory.
Detroit’s finest car, Mopar or no car.
My dad worked for Chrysler!!
Smart. Or lucky.
Ugh! “Original” clear down to the $0.10 paint and detail “freashing” up lousy backyard half restoration job. Sometimes it’s just better to leave it all original, rather than screw it all up with an amateur paint day due to a 2 for 1 sell on Krylon at the local hardware and hair care store. For heaven sakes…at least remove the back wheels before putting on a ‘freash’ coat of brilliant chrome silver on your wheels…and adding in the axle to boot! Clear example of exactly what not to do with a high end collector car.
Lavery,once again is seduced by his selective tunnel vison…Oh well.
I have a daytona and a 4spd superbird both better than this. For that kind of money i am a seller.
That’s one sweet ride I’ll take like it is and detail it myself 250 k is about right for those lottery winners that Jack up these insane prices
can I see pics??
Wait… these things had a bumper jack AND a scissors jack?!?
No bumper in the front.
Pretty sad, such rare & awesome cars – overspray all under hood , pile of rust on right inner fender under hood hinge – if you are going to ” fix the car up ” do it correctly – just plain sad ! Why ? Why ? I think I’m going to be sick , gotta go
Crystal ball award indeed. Who would’ve ever expected these dealer lot dust collector’s would of been worth six figures back in ’73?… Couldn’t give em away is what I heard.
Looked cool with Richard Petty racing one around in circles at darn near 200 miles an hour or more pissing off the Ford boys, on the street maybe not so much.
I think I read somewhere that after a while dealers were taking the nose off these cars, probably the wing also, and selling them as regular cars (not sure what model). One person even said as a kid he saw those parts in the dealer’s dumpster, if that can be believed.
If he bought it after the Arab-Israeli war in late September 1973 he probably got it for a song. I wonder how many of these were traded in for Pintos, Vegas, and VWs.
Yepper Dave, Sold my 1970 442 w30 Hurst 4sp late ‘73, $850.00….
My biggest red flag is the engine bay being black instead of body color. Forget the shoddy touch ups. It is a sweet car though with that stance. I normally don’t like these, and I love mopars.
Back around 1973 or so I remember reading an interview in Broadcasting magazine that featured a DJ named Rome Benedict. He had a mobile studio built into a Superbird. He was from either Memphis or Nashville. Anyone have any info?
Turns out all I had to do was Google it.
That’s the advantage to being old school, Dave- I don’t need Google, I have a sister-in-law that knows everything..! 🙄
It really is amazing how quickly one can find out information about Anything nowadays, a few words and a click of a button….bingo!! More facts.. pictures, and loads of social media commentary than imaginable.. It took a lot more work, some accidental knowledge to go along with it, to learn about stuff years ago. Word of mouth was always sketchy and magazines seemed to contradict fact at times. Seems everybody knows a lot about more about these darn cars then ever before… understandably so when lots of money is at stake, in this case a quarter of a million dollars. That’s huge…
“I believe this car is priced right for what it is.” Well, that’s enough for me. Where do I sign? Not!
Jeff Dunham has the Vitamin C Hemi 4-speed Superbird from Zanesville, Ohio. He had it rotisserie-restored upon purchase. The seller was Dr. Ralph Smith of Zanesville, Ohio. He’d looked at eight Superbirds before finding a legitimate one in Zanesville. The ebay listing by ‘ambersralph’ says the car is in Zanesville. It does seem like the car’s time on the road was pretty hard.
Cool car for sure and glad he kept it from the crusher! Way too high price for this level of quality. A jillion things wrong under the hood. Wrong wheels, tires etc. Correctly restored examples can be bought for 50K less. A super nice original paint survivor may bring 225-250 but I’m talking about a car that looks like it never left the dealership. It will be interesting to see the real sale price. I’d guess 75K?
Whis it was an open auction to see what market actually is.
Get the Butler to dust off the dash ?
In my freshman year at Mississippi State in 1976 one of my classmates (from a wealthy farming family in the delta) picked up a yellow 440+6 Superbird off a used car lot in West Point, MS for $1200. It looked great, but I understand they did a lot of modifications to it in later years. They also supposedly blew off a 911 on a top end run in the delta where they lived on the flat and straight roads.
I was wishing I had had the money to buy it, but it wasn’t to be. Even after I graduated I was still too poor to be able to buy a 66 Mustang K code coupe with rally pack, pony interior and rusty floor pans for only $325 (1981). Same for a K code 64 Comet Cyclone with front fender damage for $425.
I’m not a MOPAR guy, so don’t deride me when I say…those wheels don’t create a “stance” they simply proclaim “boulevard redneck” to me. Ala Milner’s Deuce from American Graffitti. And if I happened to have the money to buy one, the hell if I’d get it with a bench seat and column shifter. PASS! Okay, I’ll take my hazing now, fellas….
Overpriced mojunk
Nobody knew in 1973, that these would be a collector car. Sounds like stories to me and 2 sold on ebay 6/8 months ago, fully original, for around 160,000.00 each. Waaaaay too high at 250k
“Minty”? C’mon, @Jeff Lavery, you can find a more descriptive adjective than that.
I remember these cars new at the dealership in my town in the Poconos. Dealership long gone. They had a yellow Bird. It sat unsold for about 2 years. We called it the Stupidbird. We were the stupid ones.
250 thousand dollars!! It kinda hurts to spell that!! It’s a nice car even with overspray and body panels not lining up!! IMO it would be more likely to be priced that way with a 4 speed with pistol grip and buckets!! A hemi wouldn’t hurt either!! I guess you can ask whatever you want for your car but I would never pay that for what’s there!!! I think top dollar would be ( and again it’s my opinion) $100,000 which is far off from his price!!! All I can say to finish is that it’s still better than any investment he could have made in the stock market or a bank!!!
I knew a girl in high school whose father owned a local gas station . In the late 70s her older sister was driving an orange 440 6pk Superbird. It was abandoned by a sailor from the Navy base near the station, and it sat for a while before her father filed papers on it. A year or so later she spun the car into some guardrails , bending all 4 corners . It sat around for a few years in the back lot of the garage ; eventually the car was vandalized and the carbs and other parts were stolen off of it . I’m sure it ended up in the junkyard .
Or on Barn Finds forty years later for 5 figures instead of 6! Let’s count all the Superbirds, R/T Coronets, etc in the past year alone that look like they were abandoned in the woods or weeds and the seller slaps on a 5 digit price.
These cars were on Bill peoples dealership in Allentown and they couldn’t give them away… go figure?