Sure, the side panels look a little wrinkled, but the valuable original metal is located elsewhere on this dry 1969 Dodge Coronet Super Bee, located in Denton, Texas. It’s listed for sale here on eBay, but there’s not much time left in the auction, so make sure you check it out now! Currently, the high bid is only $5,100, and you will understand why I wrote “only” when you look at some of the pictures below!
I’ve seen plenty of ’60s and ’70s Mopar muscle car finds, and usually the major question is can you move the car without pieces falling off due to rust! Although this relatively rare (25,727 produced in 1969 with the 383 cubic-inch V-8) car has more than it’s share of small dents, and some corrosion, it’s really solid in most of the places that matter! The Super Bee was Dodge’s answer to the Plymouth Road Runner, a lower-cost muscle car with some cosmetic flash and a catchy “mascot” name. While it didn’t match the Road Runner sales-wise, the Super Bee featured some higher-quality components from the Mopar parts bin (for example, the dash cluster from the upmarket Charger and a Hurst shifter on 4-speed cars) and cost a little more than the Road Runner as a result.
One of the great things about classic Mopars is the sheer volume of information that’s out there on the internet about them. For example, the free MyMopar VIN decoder yields this information from the car’s fender tag (note, if this is your first time reading one of these, you go from bottom to top):
WM23:
Dodge Coronet, Charger
Medium, Super Bee
2 Door Hardtop
H9C: 383 330HP OR 335HP 1-4BBL 8 CYL
1969
Jefferson Avenue, MI, USA
153448: Sequence number
E63: 383 cid 4 barrel V8 H.P. 335hp
D21: 4 Speed Manual Transmission
Y2: Yellow Exterior Color
Y2: Trim – Unknown, Vinyl Bench Seat, Unknown Color (the seller states black)
H2X: Unknown Int. Door Frames
X9: Build Date: 9
A22: Order number
A62: Unknown Top Color (the seller states black)
L31: Hood/Fender Mounted Turn Signals
M21: Roof drip rail moldings
M46: Simulated ¼ Scoops
R11: Radio Solid State AM (2 Watts)
V1X: Unknown
V8X: Tranverse Stripes, Black
END: End of Sales Codes
Did you notice the 4-speed manual?
You can see the need for new lower rear quarter panels. But other than that, the car appears like a great candidate for restoration!
The seller reminds us that you will have to come up with a complete interior. Which begs the question; if this were your car, would you find an original bench seat, or replace it with buckets as I would? While the serious money in these cars is restoring them to exactly stock specifications, I don’t think I could resist improving the interior a bit. What would you do?
How do you like those rear spring location mods? I remember lots of cars “jacked up” like that when I was in high school.
You will need to replace the trunk floor. The seller also mentions that the deck filler area will have to be patched. But think about it — that’s not a lot of sheet metal replacement to do compared to what these cars normally need!
The seller does not state if this is a numbers-matching 383 or not, but it and a four-speed transmission are included in the sale. So what do you think about this Super Bee? Is it time to place a bid?
If your intent is a concourse restoration for investment purposes, then go for original specs. If, however, you are buying this car because you had one, and it’s a “love thing”, then do with it as you wish.Just my $0.02 worth! :-)
Cost a lot more to restore than it’s worth. This is a major project that’s going to cost a lot of cash. If you did manage somehow to get the sheet metal finished the interior would cost thousands to replace. But there was a guy on BF that said he could completely restore a car for 12k this would be a great car for him. The last time I restored a car and it was a B-body mopar it cost almost thirty and the car was mostly rust free and I did most of the work but it was at a high standard.
Its always been amazing to me how parts of the car can be clean as a whistle and other parts are rotten. Guess its where the ironworms want to eat. Possibly the owner launched a boat a few times and got the quarters wet. Love the hi performance shackles. Like Arthell64 said, lots of sheckles to do this one and its better than a lot of mopes that we have seen here. Good luck and stay safe.
Cheers
GPC
I needed to get a tetanus shot just reading the story…looking at the pictures close up, you can see the body has been reworked at least once…lots and lots of bondo…deserves to be restored, but just thinking about how much work it will take gives me a headache….
I want to “rock out” with that 2 watt am radio.
Not a sustainer.
I’d save myself the money and time and buy one already done if I wanted one that bad. You’d never get the money and time back out of restoring this to any presentable standard.
We have one here in Oregon that is MUCH worse. Guy paid 8k for it in 2014, and I would call it a donor at best. People have no idea what it would take to redo this one or the one here.
Wrong quote decoding again: A62, Rallye Dash. Charger dash, but you never asked for a rallye dash in a Charger. No such request.
H2X, Vinyl bench, black.
V1X, black vinyl top.
Never was interested in These or their sister, Road Runners.
Dont know why, just dont.
Looks like it was a parts car before.
The roads back then were one lane, and rain always muddied the highways.
New, the trunk mat, being a hard rubber mat, never let it dry out.
Trunk floors rotted first, even if you never drove on salt
So wrong decoding..
Hmm maybe its why the three on the tree shifter is present on the steering column?
Check the pictures or that’s one hell of a turn signal device 😂👀
Fyi. If this had the original engine then it would be listed for more cash
That’s actually an automatic column shift. The entire steering column is twisted. You can see the turn signal stalk on the top. I wouldn’t go near this warped POS.
miss my 69′! No ram air hood…no interstate’s from me. Hope it gets restored. Love those Bee’s. Save the Bee’s!
I don’t mean to be critical because I like this car. But I am curious how the sides could get so many dents and creases. This looks beyond the normal dings you get at the supermarket parking lot.
Its probably been sitting in a junkyard for years and got banged up getting moved around . This one isn’t as rusty as some thats been posted on this site.
I guess no one notices ,but there are some really stripped out rusted to sh*t Chevies and Fords posted here too that go for big money , but if its a Mopar its always called junk and never worth the money to restore.
The only thing that’s going to get stung here is the winning bidder’s wallet. Yes these rusted fast. My grandparents had a 1969 Coronet 500 and the trunk floor was rusted to the point where water was getting in and my grandma had to put the groceries in the back seat by 1974 or so.
I personally wouldn’t take this on. You’re going to be about the car’s value when you just finish up the paint and metal work. That’s before you start getting into the suspension, tires, wheels, brakes, engine, electrics, and interior.
I don’t want to restart a debate that’s been had many times on here but many question what’s going to happen to the value of these over the next 10 or 15 years. So if I had to have one of these I would get one already done so I could enjoy it right away.
D21 code is 4-speed
Can you explain the steering column extra gear shifter discussed above?
Its a manual no its an automatic no its s POS with nom motor..
But hey if you got real deep pockets and don’t mind bastardized numbers then one can have the rustic car with something drive train to move the car .
Neil Young was right: it’s better to burn out than it is to rust
My oft repeated advice ;
Not even if there is 20 grand in the glove box !
Junker-up dude would cherry this out!!
its a factory built 4 speed car, see D21 on data tag. Too far gone. Buy a nice one for 35K and enjoy, this one will cost north of 100K to redo plus you loose 3 years of your life!
For whatever reason, people don’t seem to understand this. I’m currently doing a light restoration on my 1997 M3 and holy cow things get expensive in a hurry! I mean small stuff, like a little tube of Loctite costs $10. Multiply stuff like that many, many x over during a resto.
I think a hundred thousand is a fair estimate for the total honest cost to restore this. What does a decent road-ready one cost? 40k?
I do not know who decoded this body plate but no Super Bees were built at Jefferson in 1969. The “G” on the plate stands for the St. Louis assembly plant Plant Code 4090,
I don’t believe that any B-bodies were built at Jefferson Avenue, ever. That was always a C-body plant, mostly Chryslers and, when still in production, Imperials. Plymouth and Dodge C-bodies came from Newark, DE and Belvidere, IL.
In 1969, B-bodies would have come from Lynch Road, Hamtramck, St. Louis, and Los Angeles.
It’s too far gone to purchase,then empty a bank account to fix,restore or restomod it in any way. If I had the kind of $ it would take to “complete” this project.id by one already done.
Side note: what’s the status of the other B Body looking car, off in the corner (in 2nd pic ,of this article). Looks like a brown (or primer coated?) Road Runner /Belvedere or GTX style body (?).
Whatever it is. Is visibly in better shape than the Featured SB .
And I’d be more interested in that one, myself.ijs…
When I see a car a car like this I am struck by the fact that it looks like nobody has spent $5 on it for 35 or 40 years! Someone considered it special enough to store it and not scrap it (bless them), but why not make an attempt to get it back on the road, like…20 years ago maybe?
I often hear the argument that it requires a “complete” or “total” restoration, and I suppose if you wait long enough that’s true. This car is worth saving to be sure! If you can’t afford to restore it then buy it and make it better…spend something towards getting it back on the road for God’s sake! Start with the 383 and 4speed. Later, brakes and tires. I have saved cars like this…it is rewarding in more ways than one.
I don’t remember that year having Thermoquad carbs.
You’re right, Thermoquads didn’t come until ’71. A ’69 should have an AFB.
If you buy this car and soda blast it to get to bare metal your going to have a lot more work than you think!! We have seen a lot worse here and we all know that being a budget mined individual on a build doesn’t work to good but it’s a lot easier to drop a couple of hundred or thousand a week that 50 grand all at once!!
love the Bee’s….but this poor example is too far gone for me…and whats with that twisted auto on the column, yet the 4 speed hump looks factory….my condolences to the new owner, its one hell of a journey back 🙄
Again, unfortunately another greedy dealer who should be happy with the few grand he’d make flipping the car at the top bid of $6900.
One comment on what Jefferson Plant 4010 built not only C bodies but they also built Dodge Pickup Trucks in 1979 and Omni and Horizon was the last stop for the L Body tooling in 1990/91