The Petty 'bird clone before decals

[nitrometal]

I finally have some pic's of my Petty clone after it was painted & before they decaled it.
Take note that it had OEM wheels & tires on it at this time.  The promotion company thought that it didn't look "racey" enough and had the restorer change them out.  The restorer told he had a hard time finding a set of those wheels (are they that rare?)

I think that it looked pretty good in stock trim (I am kinda biased though) 

[nitrometal]

Here's another one...

[nitrometal]

and one more...

I have the full size pics (I had to resize these to fit the post) if you want them.  I can e-mail them to you if you PM me.  They're about 1 meg each.

[daytonalo]

Nice car , is the nose -cone homemade ?

[THE CHARGER PUNK]

how bout some pics of the roll bar?-MATT looks wicked w/o decals but better with em, all u need now isa HEMI

[hotrod98]

I like it...very much. Makes me realize that my car will look just fine with the stock back glass.

[THE CHARGER PUNK]

that car if u added a vinyl top and stock bird decals would look dead stock cept 4 the rear window-MATT

[nitrometal]

Nice car , is the nose -cone homemade ?

I dunno 

I've never seen another clone so I'm not sure what to look for.  The way it's mounted it doesn't seem to be a kit. It's looks like it's kinda rigged with whatever they found at the hardware store.  Actually, I haven't checked a real bird to see how it's mounted and compare it to mine. 

I can tell you that it is fiberglass and it came out of a mold for sure.

[nitrometal]

I like it...very much. Makes me realize that my car will look just fine with the stock back glass.

I actually get a LOT of comments about the back glass.  Like, "That wavy glass is so unique, you just don't see that anymore" and "I'd hate to try to find a replacement for that!" are some I hear all the time.

[hotrod98]

Phil,
That stock back glass is not rare, in fact it's quite common since they were used in almost all 2 door b-bodies both dodge and plymouth from 68 to 70 except the charger of course. It's the same glass that's in my 69 runner and my 69 superbee. I personally prefer the stock back glass over the bird glass.
hotrod

[THE CHARGER PUNK]

those rims u have on ur car aint that rare, they are common aftermarket 4x4 truck wheels that you can get from LMC truck catalogue or whereverthat give it a very nascar look and feel-MATT

[nakita7]

In my opinion, the stock rear glass looks way better than Superbird glass/roof.

[Howie]

Phil, That looks great. Now you need to get a set of A pillar stainless covers.

[hotrod98]

I agree with Howie. It's the one thing that will wake that car up. A nice set of correct reproductions will run about $500. I plan to make my own for my bird clone. We'll see how they turn out and I might make an extra set for your car if they look nice enough. Mine won't be as nice as the $500 versions, but they should be close.

[Howie]

I ordered a set of chrome D spoke wheels like the black one there from summit with a different backspacing and they really change the look. They are 15x8 with 4.5 bs and have the 27x12x15 nascar tires mounted.

[LilRedDave]

Guess you won't be doing much night driving? Does it not have any headlights? Great looking car by the way!

[Howie]

They are U.S.Wheel steel truck wheels series 87 chrome daytona. They are 15x8 and $57.88 each. You will need to tell them the b.s. I ordered 5 of them and they had them built and shipped to me from cal. Shipping was $8. My total was a little over 300. I believe hotrod has a picture with a wingcar wearing these style of wheels. I ordered them frome summit.

[nitrometal]

Phil, That looks great. Now you need to get a set of A pillar stainless covers.

Posted by: hotrod98
I agree with Howie. It's the one thing that will wake that car up. A nice set of correct reproductions will run about $500. I plan to make my own for my bird clone. We'll see how they turn out and I might make an extra set for your car if they look nice enough. Mine won't be as nice as the $500 versions, but they should be close.

$500.00?!   
Wow! I'll wait for Larry's repro's.  Even at half that price they'll be a bargain!  Either that or I'll tape some tin foil up there!!! 

[Howie]

Did they decal the nose. I keep looking at that nose without the headlight doors and it looks 

[nitrometal]

Guess you won't be doing much night driving? Does it not have any headlights? Great looking car by the way!

It actually has headlights tucked into the turn signal bays.  You can't see them in those pics.  It's a bit dim at night because they're mounted so low but you can drive after dark and it passes Texas inspection (after I installed turn signal lamps in the grill).  I'll see if I can find some pics and post them later.

[Howie]

Hotrod has a picture of a bird with the headlights mounted that way and it does look sharp.

[THE CHARGER PUNK]

how come no one makes a nascar 68-69 charger and not a daytona justa plain 68-69 charger??? id liek 2 make a clone of the #71 1969 charger nascar-MATT

[Brock Samson]

Your gonna make a clone but you can't spell like.. 

[hemigeno]

how come no one makes a nascar 68-69 charger and not a daytona justa plain 68-69 charger??? id liek 2 make a clone of the #71 1969 charger nascar-MATT

To my knowledge, Bobby didn't race a "regular" 1969 Charger.  In NASCAR the #71's racecar progression went: 

1968 Charger --> start-to-finish through the 1968 racing season
1969 Charger 500 -->  from the start of the 1969 racing season full-time, and on all short tracks (<1mi.) until  5/15/1970
1969 Daytona --> from the 9/69 Talladega race through the end of the 1970 racing season only on tracks 1 mile or longer
1970 Charger -->  on short tracks (<1mi.) from 5/15/1970 through the end of the 1970 season

The 1969 model year cars were not eligible to race in NASCAR until after 1/1/69, so the first race they could run was at Riverside in February of '69.  I have seen pictures from that Riverside race, and they did run Charger 500's then.  To my knowledge, in every race after Riverside, the drivers running Dodges (in NASCAR) ran the Charger 500 until the Daytona came out in September at Talladega. 

That doesn't mean other people in different racing series didn't race with the '69 grille configuration (since that's about the only difference in a racing version between a '68 and a '69).  However... If you're just talking about the #71, I don't think a "regular" '69 Charger was raced by Bobby.


Geno

[Charger_Fan]

Your gonna make a clone but you can't spell like.. 

He can't help it, he's stuck with the keyboard he uses on teeny-bopper chat rooms...

[charge-it]

that car if u added a vinyl top and stock bird decals would look dead stock cept 4 the rear window-MATT

And change out the rear tail lights to the Road Runner style.

[THE CHARGER PUNK]

Posted by: hemigeno To my knowledge, Bobby didn't race a "regular" 1969 Charger

then what is this?

[THE CHARGER PUNK]

notice the grille and no plug in the rear-MATT

[hemigeno]

notice the grille and no plug in the rear-MATT

Ummm, yeah, I do know the difference between a regular Charger and a Charger 500.  Thanks for the tip anyway!

You are certainly right, that is a #71 Charger in "regular" trim.  However, all the stuff I have read still points to Bobby always driving a C500 when he wasn't driving the Daytona in 1969, and even for the first 1/4 of the 1970 season.

Check here.  That table (incidentally from the same site you found that picture on) doesn't show a regular Charger at all, but the C500 is all over the chart.  The race historians do admit that there is no definitive way to prove that they have accurately recorded each and every car type, especially when it comes to the subtle differences between a Charger, a Charger500, and a Charger Daytona.  Most of the race record books just list them to be a"1969 Dodge", and they have to rely on other documents such as newsclippings or other sources to determine for certain what they were driving.  It's all explained on the aerowarriors.com site.

As a result, I can't (and if you read my initial post on this subject, I didn't) say that he could never have driven one.

Think about it logically for a second, though.  It doesn't make sense that his team would change a car out from one style to another, especially considering the window plug work that would be involved.  It would be fairly labor-intensive to remove the plug, put it back in, take it out, etc.  The Charger500 was legal at ALL the tracks, so what would the advantage be to switching back?  Purpose-built Aero cars were not "outlawed" until 1971, and even then they were within the 3 year limit imposed by the rules and could have been raced if it weren't for Bill France's decree.

My guess (and for Matt's benefit, it is ONLY a guess) is that this could have been one of the 3 '68 Chargers that was lowered by 2" for the 1968 Firecracker 400.  NASCAR deemed those cars illegal after that race, which would have rendered the entire chassis obsolete.  They could have dolled it up and trimmed it out as a '69 Charger for the show car circuit.  The change from a '68 to (regular) '69 would essentially have involved changing out the grille, so it would have been an easy swap for them with a car that was otherwise unuseable.  Don't forget that Cotton Owens had what would amount to a show-car race Daytona (the one that was sold on eBay last year for $800k+), which definitely looks like it was constructed from a chassis with track history even if there was no record of that car racing in Daytona trim.  Once again - that is just a guess...

Doug Schellinger probably knows the history of that car, if anyone on this site does.

Geno


P.S.  Sorry for participating in getting this thread so far off topic, Phil!!!

[hotrod98]

Here's the pic of the car with the chrome stock car wheels that Howie said that you can buy from Summit.
I'll try to take a good pic of Howie's daytona clone with those wheels.

[THE CHARGER PUNK]

lets see sum upd8's wit howies tona ,hot rod -MATT

[hotrod98]

The only thing that we've accomplished lately is the alteration of the trunk lid. We decided to wait until my new building is finished to start on the molds. I have a small building behind my existing shop that my son keeps his 70 gran coupe in along with a lot of his personal stuff. When the new building is finished we're going to use the existing shop to store a lot of our cars in and use the small building as a stand alone fiberglass shop. Fiberglass work is extremely messy and we decided that we just couldn't do that kind of work where we're building or storing cars.