MOPAR JOHNS B5 DAYTONA RESTORATION!!

[Aero426]

John, the fellow in the far left of the photo is Monroe's late son-in law Ralph, and his oldest boy Mike.    Ralph was the guy who gave Monroe (my dad) the lead on the green Bird we still have.   Ralph worked at Hub Chrysler-Plymouth and told Monroe that a young guy had brought the green Bird in to trade it and the dealer did not want anything to do with it.  So Ralph got the boys phone number and the rest is history.

[pettybird]

Hey John I think you and dad were standing next to each other at the domes   

[Mopar John]

aero426,
Thanks for the details of who was in the picture! In addition to your family members in the picture that's me on the right holding my oldest son Mike on my shoulders.

[Mopar John]

                                                      WHAT'S A DAYTONA???
So I'm at my first SUPERBIRDS OF AMERICA national meet and in addition to all the Superbirds there are other cars there! I see a Dodge Charger pull up with a wing and a nose on it and I say out loud what the heck is that thing?? I had never seen one in my life!! I also must not paid much attention to the pictures in my Hot Rod magazine either! There were never any for sale ads for one but one of the bird ads I posted called that Superbird a  "DAYTONA-SUPERBIRD" and I never caught that one either. A couple of the more knowledgable members informed me that the Daytona came before the Superbird but there was only 500 of them compared to almost 2,000 Superbirds. The more I heard about those Daytonas the more I wanted one. I was putting the word out that  if anyone heard of one for sale at a decent price to get in touch with me. I also learned that there was a Charger 500 that came before the Daytona and it's production was 500. In addition to the Mopars present some Mercury Cyclone Spoilers and Ford Torino Talladegas were there! They were also limited production cars for Nascar. This Superbird meet was dominated by older Nascar fans that knew a whole lot more about the sport and the cars that ran in it than me. My brain was like a sponge trying to soak it all up! A lot of these folks also bought their cars brand new or very early on! Sadly most of those older folks are gone now Monroe & Jean Schellinger, Ray & Rusty Bott, Barb Bowman, Betty Fleck, Tom & Sue from Florida and more! The one Daytona that really caught my eye was Elmer Duellmans. He had a matching Dodge hauler and didn't take the car off except once at the club display. The car was painted 1970 lime green! I found out later that it was an original black car but he wanted a lime green one and had the color changed when it was new. Speaking of new the signs on the hauler stated 304 original miles and it looked it. Elmer owned a salvage yard and also had a Superbird with advertising on the doors for the salvage yard. I have attached a picture of Elmers Daytona on the hauler! Enjoy!

[Mopar John]

                                                    MY FRIEND RICK CROXFORD!!
At my first national meet most of the members were older Nascar fans. There was another younger couple there by the names of Rick and Carol Croxford. Rick and I quickly found out that we were both from the same area and both owned 3 SUPERBIRDS!! I lived about a mile off the first exit of I-94 in Indiana and Rick was about a mile from exit 22 in Michigan! We could make each others house in about a half hour! With 6 Superbirds between us there was always something going on! Rick liked to go to junkyards like I did and sometimes we'd be gone all day looking for spare parts and the possibility of finding yet another bird or now a Daytona! Rick had the ability to come up with an idea as late as a Thursday night and put together enough cars to rival the non Talladega national meets of today!! We did everything with those cars, parades, wine tasting meets, cookouts and just plain get togethers. Rick would talk you into just about anything. I remeber a parade and Les Bowman was the first to do a burnout in the parade which was something that we wern't supposed to do! The crowd went wild and so did the rest of us! After the parade we fixed one guys broken motor mount while the ladies made lunch! Great times! Great guy! Unfortunately I lost Rick also! "GONE TOO SOON" Ricks widow Carol ( marty42 ) and their son Doug ( pettybird ) have done a fine job hanging onto Ricks dream and maintining the cars and presence at more shows and meets than most of us! I had a picture of a young Doug Croxford at Michigan but gave it to him when he saw it. I also had a picture of Rick at the Milwaukee mile but it's not as good as the one Doug got me for this important chapter! Attached is Rick as most of us remember him with his B5 blue Superbird! If there are any type of wing meets above Rick is already having them and we are the ones missing out!

[Mopar John]

Here is a picture of a wine tasting meet that Rick put together! Regulars were the Croxfords, the Borzychs, Al Collins, the Andersons, Jim Unger, the Higgs, the Partridges, the Bowmans and more!

[Mopar John]

                                           MY $50.00 1969 DODGE CHARGER 500 SE!!
Yes, you read correctly I purchased a 1969 Dodge Charger 500 for $50.00. But this story has a very sad ending! After going to the first national meet and finding out about all these other aero cars I was on the lookout for Daytonas and 500's now in addition to Superbirds. I remembered a funny looking B5 blue Charger that looked like someone wrecked it and put a 1968 Coronet grille and headlights in it. I thought it was just another guy like me with my 1969 RR/GTX creation. So I knew there was a Charger 500 in my area. Well, one day on my visit to BIG JACKS JUNKYARD ( same place where I got the $100.00 aluminum slots and tires ) I found the B5 Charger 500 in the yard! Boy was I excited! A Charger 500! The engine and transmission were gone along with the interior and wheels and tires. I looked it over real good and it still had the aero back window and all the trim. I went back to the office and asked BIG Jack how much would he sell me that blue 1969 Charger body for? He told me $50.00 and it was mine@#$%^&*(! WOW! I paid him and told him that I would be back on Saturday with my trailer to get it! I removed the fender tag and wanted to decode it while I waited for the weekend. When I arrived back on Saturday I went to the office and BIG JACK looked down at the floor and just shook his head?? BIG JACK always had his own semi tractors and various trailers to haul things with. He would move big equipment for people and also used it to haul things in and out of the yard. He also had a big crane with a large steel plate that they would use to crush the cars. Then BIG JACK would haul them to the shredder in Chicago. Well, while JACK was gone with a load of cars the yard guys took the drivers door off my Charger 500 and crushed it@#$%^&*(!! JACK took me back there and showed me the door if I wanted it and the crushed car!! That wasn't the only thing that was crushed! If it happened today I think I would have hauled it home anyway! JACK refunded my $50.00 and I kept the fender tag. I didn't know what to do with it. Finally I decided to give it to Galen Govier who was keeping track of all the Mopar cars. He soon got back with me and said the sad part of all this was that it was one of 7 known Charger 500 SE's at that time@#$%^&*(! I have attached a picture from Thursday at Tim and Pam Welborns where they parked a 1969 Charger 500 B5 SE car next to our Daytona! That could have been my own car! The owner of the B5 500 told me that there were about 12 known SE 500's now. Which brings me to the next point. With all the number crunching and car chasing going on why doesn't anyone deduct the known salvaged cars out of the totals? Like in this case we know that 1 1969 Dodge Charger 500 is gone. So if the correct production number is 392 then the survival count should be as an example 239 known out of 391 possible?? Just a thought.

[Mopar John]

                                           1979 NATIONAL SUPERBIRD MEET!
The 1979 national Superbird meet was again held in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I couldn't wait to go since I had just missed the 1977 meet there. This meet was the big one like Talladega is now. I wish we could make a connection and go there again. We had a day at the Chrysler proving gounds and then a parade lap on the Brooklin, Michigan race track before the Nascar race! What a weekend. At the proving grounds we were able to drive the test course and also the 5 mile oval! If I remeber correctly we had 80 wing cars there! The test course had everything from curves to bumps to salt puddles. The most fun was on the steep hills! On the five mile oval we got to do several laps and I got my yellow bird up to 130mph! The scarry part was when we came around turn #4 and everyone was stopping for a group picture @#$%^&*(! I have attached one of my group pictures and one of the yellow birds together. I'll have some more photos when my camera comes back to life.

[tan top]

 nother great  chapter  John & awesome pictures    damn  that C500 you missed out on     ,  thanks  again for sharing your memorys & stuff ,  looking forward to reading & seeing  more   

[Mopar John]

                                                             1980!
1980 was a year filled with a lot of major events in my life! My marriage was in trouble and ended in a short divorce! I used my time alone to work on the orange six pack bird. I had gone to my local Mopar parts department and purchased all the parts still available for the rust repairs at that time. I was able to buy both floor quarter extensions, rear cowl, wing decals, Plymouth decals and back bumper. I also found Dave Patik who was many years ahead of the rest of us on wing cars and parts. I was able to buy an NOS rear window plug from Dave! I also bought the black 340 TA style decals for my front fenders that read 440 SIX PACK from Dave. I liked them when I bought the car and wanted everyone to know it was a SIX PACK car! I could not find a trunk floor and used a hood from a 1971 Chrysler. I figured it was of the same vintage metal. I also couldn't find NOS quarters and found a nice set off a junked Road Runner. I also started dating! There was a very cute bank teller named Linda that I would see every day when I would go there for the store I was managing. She was the merchant teller and we got along well so we started going out. To make a long story short I dumped her and took my ex wife back @#$%^&*! I missed my two young children and thought it was the right thing to do. Linda was crushed and even though we would see each other from time to time she never forgave me for a long time!
   Over the last few years I have purchased both NOS quarter panels and a NOS nose for the orange bird! If all goes as planned Troy Angelly restorations who did the restoration on our Daytona is going to do the Superbird. We have an appointment for the fall of 2011 and plan to have it ready for Talladega 2014! I have attached a picture of the orange bird in the middle of my 1980 do it yourself restoration!

[Mopar John]

                                                            MICHAEL
My son Mike was born in 1977 and he was a happy young boy. He liked a lot of the things I did and he followed me everywhere. Like my dad and me, Mike helped me change the clutch and throwout bearing in the yellow bird. The big differance from when I did it with my dad was it was in the summer and we had a garage. I have a picture of Mike from that day helping me change the transmission. You can tell he was right in there! I also have a picture of Mike standing in front of the yellow bird. I have told you how I liked to make the rounds of the local junkyards and Mike liked to go along for those trips also. I have attached apicture of Mike inside a 1970 Charger that we had just removed the dash with air conditioning. The picture was of the extra cutouts in the firewall. At that time I was considering adding air to one of the Superbirds? I never did that and still have the 1970 air dash in the basement.
Mike is a Mopar guy also and owns several. He has a 1969 Dart 340, a 1968 Dart big block body that he is making into a racecar and a 1974 Dart for the street.

[Mopar John]

I had to resize the last two pictures!

[Mopar John]

I got my camera working again so here are a few more pictures of the 1979 national meet. The first picture is of the crest of the 14% grade!! The second is of a wing car going down the grade. The third is of the cars gathered in the lot at the Chrysler proving grounds. The last picture is of the Nascar drivers sitting on the wall in front of us. A car had blown it's engine and another competitior ran through the oil spun and hit the wall hard and ended up outside the track!! While Nascar worked on the wall ( guardrail back then! ) the drivers parked their cars and took a break. That's Richard and Kyle Petty right in front of us. Marty Robbins made the race and was standing on the middle of the track with a microphone singing for us. The car that blew the engine couldn't be worked on during the red flag but they got everything ready. When the yellow came out they worked on that car like mad and only lost 8 laps!! The poor guy that hit their oil wasn't so lucky after taking down the guardrail. His car was toast!

[moparstuart]

wow great stuff  love the pictures john . 

[Mopar John]

                                                THE ORIGINAL BIRDABLE??
This picture is for moparstuart. It is from the 1979 national meet and the first time I had seen this done. The owner told me that it was the combination of an original HEMI Superbird that had been wrecked and a 1970 Sattelite convertible. Could this be the original BIRDABLE???

[Mopar John]

moparstuart funny that you should post while I was adding the BIRDABLE picture! I hope you like it!

[moparstuart]

is this the same car maybe  ?     only one ive seen with all the chrome moldings on it


 check out this thread john one of my favorites on here     http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,12212.0.html

[Mopar John]

Stuart,
The name on the display board Gary Lazar sounds like the same guy. I hope Doug aero426 will catch up with the post and verify it for us. My picture is dated August 1979.

[nascarxx29]

That Gary Lazars car in the picture. He took a 70 Belvedere /6 ragtop and a real wrecked hemi superbird .Later after he moved from NY to FL .He was selling it but wanted $25K when I called him.Car was represented for years as factory made .But it ended up overseas now where it resides.Pictures I saved from Bruce L old post

[moparstuart]

here john , robin cleaned up the picture some for you

[69bronzeT5]

Hey Mopar John, did you get my email I sent with the picture for your signature?

[Mopar John]

Stuart,
When we get to the digital pictures things will get better! This picture of a picture stuff is difficult on you forum members.
69bronzeT5,
I got your e-mail and as soon as I can get someone here to help me I'll get that added to my signature.
Thanks!

[nascarxx29]

You might need a scanner for years before I got one I pictured on pictured.Now all I have to scan and sort through years of my and accumulated show pictures and photobucket them.Now if I can get my VHS and films transfered to DVD would be good for the archives

[Mopar John]

                                                       SUPERBIRD PARTS
Today when I got home I got stuck in my driveway! I just finished 5 12 hour midnights. I left it there and just got up from a quick nap and dug it out. This made me think of the Superbird nose I bought in the middle of December. I have a picture of it in the snow and then in my garage. The car was parted and no vin to be found on the top rail of the core support. In the picture you will see the Chrysler hood with the section I cut out for my new trunk floor. I also have a picture of Mike standing behind some NOS Superbird parts that I bought with the late Ray Bott. He had a second seldom seen Superbird that was either damaged in the front or had the fenders welded to the nose. I kept the NOS wing assembly since the white car was missing it when I bought it. When we bought these NOS parts the guy in the parts department told us that the major stocking dealers were all required to have a full set of sheetmetal. This included the limited production Superbird parts??

[learical1]

The pictures of Gary Lazar's convert. are from the Winged Warriors (Nascar street classics at the time) 1980 meet in Baltimore.