Richard Petty retired early in the 1970 Daytona 500, but Petty Blue still carried the day as Pete Hamilton scored his first Grand National victory in a Plymouth Superbird.
For the 1970 Daytona 500, all the NASCAR aerodynamic specials from the Motor City were gathered to do battle: the Dodge Charger Daytona, the Ford Torino Talladega, the Mercury Cyclone Spoiler, and the newest member of the club, the Plymouth Superbird. NASCAR stockers never looked so wild, before or since.
The Road Runner-based Superbird was essentially inspired by one man: Richard Petty. When Plymouth couldn’t provide a winged car for Petty in 1969, the King switched to Ford for the season. Plymouth managed to lure Petty back in 1970 with a wing car of its own, the Superbird, with an aerodynamic package similar to its Mopar sibling, the Charger Daytona.
As luck would have it, Petty’s Superbird blew its engine only seven laps into the race, but his teammate, young Pete Hamilton driving a nearly identical Petty Blue Superbird, carried on. Cale Yarborough then dominated the early laps, and while his Wood Brothers Mercury wasn’t nearly as radical in appearance as the wild-looking Mopars, it certainly didn’t lack for speed thanks to its muscular Boss 429 engine.
But Yarborough’s engine blew as well, and the final battle at the end came down to Hamilton’s Superbird versus David Pearson, giving it his all in a Holman Moody Ford. This fine old video footage with announcing by Keith Jackson and Chris Economaki provides an excellent view of the final 20 laps. Watch this.
The 1970 Ford must have been a slug. None of the top teams raced it.
Yeah. That is why they ran neck and neck with the winged Mopars. Think what it would of looked like if the premier Ford race engine (427) hadn’t been outlawed due to the whining of the other manufacturers.
I had almost forgotten those days when you could tell at a glance what kind of cars were doing the racing.