Engine Color on Superbird

[taxspeaker]

Hi-new member here

We showed our 70 Superbird in the Louisville Car Show this weekend for the first time. I had been told when I bought it was unrestored and the reason the engine was turquoise rather than orange was the rush to make the required output number for Nascar at the end of the production date. A knowledgeable Bird owner from Florida was at the show and told me he had never heard this before. I went back and looked at my documentation which I thought verified the turquoise, but it does not mention the engine color. I am ok with the authenticity of the Bird, but now I am questioning whether the engine has been rebuilt (#'s do match). Not a problem if it has, but I want to know if anyone else has seen a turquoise painted engine or has heard this story.

By the way-the Bird was the hit at the show and I highly recommend you do something like this-20,000 people who had never seen a Superbird!

Thanks for any help or comments.

[hemi68charger]

440-Hp's and 426 Hemi's in '70 were all street hemi orange.

Sounds like you're having fun with the 'Bird....  

[nascarxx29]

Street Hemi orange available in Spray cans from Plasticote #226
Chrysler sells it to in a spray can 

[68X426]

Welcome to the site.

I would want to know immediately from the former owner (s) how turquoise found its way onto my motor. I'd want answers fast about the history of the engine

[Alaskan_TA]

The 1969 model year was the last year for turquoise on the low performance engines. For 1970 they switched to blue.

All 1970 'bird engines should be orange.

Do you have photos of your top pad & VIN stamps?

[Arnie Cunningham]

Never, and I mean NEVER, have I seen an original Superbird engine with any shade of blue paint.  It sounds like the person who you spoke with has confused two stories - the Superbird rushed production story and the 68 HP engine color story.  I have personally inspected a 1968 RT Charger with the original drivetrain and it is turquoise.  So yes, there are cases in previous years where an HP engine would not be orange - note this is an automatic car with air conditioning.  Everything is original.

As for this happening on a Superbird - VERY VERY VERY unlikely.

[taxspeaker]

OK thanks everyone for the comments, you have confirmed what I feared. To bring closure here is what I have found:

The original Govier documentation (which I misread) shows the engine to be orange. The Bird had sat in a museum for many years, and when some idiot started it they did not pre-oil anything or check any levels and the camshaft lobes were worn down to nubs. They then pulled the engine (it is numbers matching and I checked again today to be safe!) and rebuilt it. They read that 440's were turquoise, but missed the part that said high performance 440's were orange!  The car would never keep running after that and they could never figure it out. When we finally traced everything back we found something I had never seen in 40 years of working on them-the rod between the fuel pump arm and the camshaft had worn too much to keep enough fuel pumping. I just assumed it was one of those things and went on. They apparently never replaced the rod either by not knowing about it or not thinking about it, and the rod wear is now explained by the bad cam after about 30 phone calls today. When they pulled the engine they dinged up the nose cone, so they removed it and repainted it but failed to note how to correctly re-attach the nose cone gasket, which alsxo explains why that gasket was on backwards!

So in summary, still numbers matching, still unrestored, but I can no longer say it has never been worked on. I own a Superbird so how could that upset me? Oh, and I am going to paint the engine this weekend, orange I think.

Thanks again everyone.

Bob Jennings
70 Superbird, 40,000 (rebuilt) miles, but numbers matching, and
70 Charger R/T hemi

[472 R/T SE]

Welcome to the forum Mr. Jennings. 

I'd love to see pictures of both of your cars, please. 

[LeeBoy]

Welcome to the forum Mr. Jennings. 

I'd love to see pictures of both of your cars, please. 

Ditto. Lets see some pics

[taxspeaker]

Here is the car show picture of the Bird-Charger in background. I don't have a small enough picture for the Charger

[taxspeaker]

Here is a link to a YouTube video we recorded of both cars-turn down the sound unless you want tax advice!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmgvQ82lOsw

[FJ5WING]

My favorite color on a bird!

[no318]

Never, and I mean NEVER, have I seen an original Superbird engine with any shade of blue paint.  It sounds like the person who you spoke with has confused two stories - the Superbird rushed production story and the 68 HP engine color story.  I have personally inspected a 1968 RT Charger with the original drivetrain and it is turquoise.  So yes, there are cases in previous years where an HP engine would not be orange - note this is an automatic car with air conditioning.  Everything is original.

As for this happening on a Superbird - VERY VERY VERY unlikely.

To my knowlege, ALL 68 440's were turquoise.  The orange on an HP didn't start until 69 model year.

[472 R/T SE]

Is that an original 999 paint Charger?  They look good. 

[The70RT]

Great looking car. My 440 fuel push rod mushroomed out on mine at like 35,000 miles.

[LeeBoy]

Here is a link to a YouTube video we recorded of both cars-turn down the sound unless you want tax advice!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmgvQ82lOsw

The cars are stunning 

[taxspeaker]

Thanks for the kind comments guys. The Charger was originally a banana yellow code car. We bought it as a rusted out, shot up (23 bullet holes in passenger door and no, I don't know that story) 30 year conglomeration of crappy work combined with bastardized parts and cobbled together junk. Since there weren't any matching numbers left except for the wiper motor, we decided to paint it something else. Going through the 1970 paint charts my wife spotted that rare color and said this is it. I decided after 35 years of marriage that she was correct in this matter. Three and 1/2 years later, my son and I rolled this thing out. The guy who did the paint (Phil Lakes) was an absolute perfectionist, but is now retired or deceased as his shop is closed, so no more restorations for us.

The Superbird was, like for most guys, a life long dream that we were able to buy through a roundabout way. It was originally in the Kruse auction in December 2009 as a dispersal from the Gordon Sprague museum out of Daytona. He also sold a 69 Daytona that, if I remember right, was driven by Bobby Allison at Daytona. Anyway, the lady that bought it at Mecum bought it sight unseen and brought it home. I don't know the whole story but it was on EBay not soon after that and I tried to buy it but could never hit the minimum. In December 2010, apparently this lady's marriage had come apart and we bought it, sight unseen, off EBay and made a real quick 1,000 mile drive with a covered trailer to haul it home over a weekend because of some rush to pick it up. You can read between the lines here.

We live in cold Indiana, stuck it in our garage, and tried to get things running and cleaned up. The Carl Casper Car Show in early March was its first trip out after getting it running literally that morning!. The exhaust is a mess, but they don't see that at a Car Show, and it runs like crap, but they don't know that either. We have the original carb we are putting back on it after sending it up to Canada for rebuilding, then we are going to get the rest of it back to running right. My son, (the camera guy on the YouTube clip) has some ideas for filming the Charger and Bird driving down the highway and passing each other that I guess we will post whenever he figures out what to do. He wanted to do a starting line clip, but the Charger would smoke the Bird off the line and I don't want to take any chances on drifting one into the other, but it might happen anyway.

And Yes, both of these cars are drivers-we drove them to the Car Show in Kentucky from Indiana, and drove them home in a rainstorm when the show was over.

Thanks again guys, I love the stories and questions and answers on the site.

Bob