Super bird clone, cost to build?

[66FBCharger]

I know there are some members that have built Superbird clones.
My 14 year old wants a SuperBird.They are too expensive for him ( and me also) to buy. I have a '70 Satellite 2 door hdtp. that I bought about 25 years ago for a parts car for my 70 RR resto. Now that AMD makes all the sheetmetal, I am looking at the parts car differently. I am thinking it could be a good father son project. I was thinking about making a 70 RR clone since I have a lot of extra parts. Then, I thought about building a SuperBird clone.
So, with that being said, how much (ballpark figure) would it cost for the wing, bracing, fenders, hood and nose and other misc. parts to turn the Satellite into a Super Bird? The parts could be reproduction if they are decent quality and less expensive.

[BPTRacing]

Complete Janak fiberglass kit is 8K-10K, which is in my opinoin the best compromse between price and quality. There are a few parts I would not order from Janak. Like - I think most on the board would recommend using steel headlight bucket/pivots and steel z-braces. I would use a fiberglass hood from Glasstek before trying to convert a steel coronet hood. You would still need Coronet fenders. Usually another $500+ at swap meets. Fiberglass replacement from Glasstek are $600. Rear window trim is almost non existent, but soon to be reproduced I heard ($1200??)

[moparstuart]

I know there are some members that have built Superbird clones.
My 14 year old wants a SuperBird.They are too expensive for him ( and me also) to buy. I have a '70 Satellite 2 door hdtp. that I bought about 25 years ago for a parts car for my 70 RR resto. Now that AMD makes all the sheetmetal, I am looking at the parts car differently. I am thinking it could be a good father son project. I was thinking about making a 70 RR clone since I have a lot of extra parts. Then, I thought about building a SuperBird clone.
So, with that being said, how much (ballpark figure) would it cost for the wing, bracing, fenders, hood and nose and other misc. parts to turn the Satellite into a Super Bird? The parts could be reproduction if they are decent quality and less expensive.

unless you want to drop 30- 50 k to build one right and complete , i would  do it in stages for a son so young . Maybe restore the car as a road runner clone and put the superbird wing it . Then slowly make it a superbird from there . 

[hotrod98]

I hope Janek has improved his noses. The Daytona nose that I'm assembling now has the z-brace tabs in the wrong place. It's making it very difficult to assemble. I'm having to make spacers for the z-braces to work. The tabs are all of the way up underneath the headlamp buckets. This is an older Janek piece so he may have made improvements since this one was made.

I sure wish that I had spent the extra money and bought the Dayclona nose. I did buy the Dayclona Superbird nose for my Superbird clone and it's a much, much nicer piece. At this point on the Daytona clone build, everything that I bought from Dayclona has fit perfectly. All of the stuff from the other dealers has needed a lot of work.

Bottom line is if you don't mind spending hundreds of extra hours making the cheap stuff work, go fo it. If you go with the cheap stuff, you'll both wish that you had spent the money for the better stuff and will be hoping and praying that your car doesn't shake apart.

So far, I've gotten rid of everything that I had bought previously for the Superbird clone and went with the Dayclona stuff. My time is worth far more to me than the cost difference between the junk and the good stuff.

I've seriously thought about going one step further and buying a Gean Gregory steel nose. I already have a real bird wing. If I use all of the good parts, the car will be a very nice car that should hold up well over a long period of time.
Or, I may just sell the whole project to Howie. He needs a Superbird clone to go with his Daytona clone.
I'll just keep my real bird and not have to do all of that work.

For a Superbird clone, the cheap parts should run you less than 10K if you're not going to alter the back glass. Another 1K if you do.
The good stuff will probably run around 20-25K for a total transformation.

You might want to just build a Roadrunner.  

[1969chargerrtse]

I hope Janek has improved his noses. The Daytona nose that I'm assembling now has the z-brace tabs in the wrong place. It's making it very difficult to assemble. I'm having to make spacers for the z-braces to work. The tabs are all of the way up underneath the headlamp buckets. This is an older Janek piece so he may have made improvements since this one was made.

I sure wish that I had spent the extra money and bought the Dayclona nose. I did buy the Dayclona Superbird nose for my Superbird clone and it's a much, much nicer piece. At this point on the Daytona clone build, everything that I bought from Dayclona has fit perfectly. All of the stuff from the other dealers has needed a lot of work.

Bottom line is if you don't mind spending hundreds of extra hours making the cheap stuff work, go fo it. If you go with the cheap stuff, you'll both wish that you had spent the money for the better stuff and will be hoping and praying that your car doesn't shake apart.

So far, I've gotten rid of everything that I had bought previously for the Superbird clone and went with the Dayclona stuff. My time is worth far more to me than the cost difference between the junk and the good stuff.

I've seriously thought about going one step further and buying a Gean Gregory steel nose. I already have a real bird wing. If I use all of the good parts, the car will be a very nice car that should hold up well over a long period of time.
Or, I may just sell the whole project to Howie. He needs a Superbird clone to go with his Daytona clone.
I'll just keep my real bird and not have to do all of that work.

For a Superbird clone, the cheap parts should run you less than 10K if you're not going to alter the back glass. Another 1K if you do.
The good stuff will probably run around 20-25K for a total transformation.

You might want to just build a Roadrunner.  

Interesting info.  What has to be altered with the back glass from a RR to a SuperBird?

[hemigeno]

Interesting info.  What has to be altered with the back glass from a RR to a SuperBird?

A window plug, just not on the same scale of the one used on C500s and Daytonas.

[hotrod98]

The Superbird has a back window plug that uses a different back glass and different back glass moldings. There are also small diamond shaped finish panels at each side of the window plug. You also have to change the headliner and package tray and weld in limiters on the trunk hinges to keep the deck lid from opening beyond the wing.
To do this properly, you will spend about $6500 just for the back window alone.
To make it look correct, add the cost of adding a vinyl top.

Tom left the vinyl top off of my Black Ice bird the last time he freshened up the paint and I'm going to leave it that way for now. On a black car it looks pretty good without the vinyl top. The down side is many people think it's a clone since it doesn't have the vinyl top.

[Howie]

Yes larry but we know different. I wouldn`t change a thing on that car. Enjoy it for a while. I`m workin on clearing out a spot for another wing car.

[moparstuart]

Yes larry but we know different. I wouldn`t change a thing on that car. Enjoy it for a while. I`m workin on clearing out a spot for another wing car.

i think howie has his sights on black ice 

[41husk]

I don't think Larry is giving up his Bird

[hotrod98]

No chance of me selling this bird.
I waited too long for the opportunity to buy just the right car. I've always wanted a bucket seat 4-speed with black interior. I also didn't want to pay a premium for the matching numbers thing. I want to drive it and pretty much have the freedom of doing whatever I want to with the car and not have the fear of hurting the value. I won't be worrying about date coded hoses, belts, etc. I'll buy the best quality stuff that the local parts store has and slap it on and go.
I just ordered new seat covers in black vinyl with the silver welt. I was going to go with leather but decided that I might worry too much about damaging them.
The only thing I have to worry about is damaging that long nose that I can't even see when I'm driving the car.

As for Howie, I keep teasing him about letting him buy out my Superbird clone project. I really want to restore my 71 Cuda and need the money and the time to do it up right.
Howie just sold me his 70 Barracuda street machine project last week so I guess I owe him one.

Building a Superbird clone takes the "do whatever" aspect to the next level. You can really do whatever you want and not really hurt the value. The only thing is, to build a really, really nice Superbird clone, you're going to spend 40-50K in my opinion. For another 20 or 30 you might find a decent real bird.

[nakita7]

There is someone on the board here who built a Daytona clone for approx. $13000 including buying a 70 Charger. Yes, he did all the work himself. I've worked in a body shop myself, and that sounds about right. There is no way on this planet that a clone would cost you $50,000 unless you're really, really bad with money.

For the Superbird clone, I would leave the rear glass alone. You'll save yourself costs, you'll have a bigger back window and IMHO, the standard glass looks better.

[Bob T]

No chance of me selling this bird.
I've always wanted a bucket seat 4-speed with black interior. I also didn't want to pay a premium for the matching numbers thing. I want to drive it and pretty much have the freedom of doing whatever I want to with the car and not have the fear of hurting the value. I won't be worrying about date coded hoses, belts, etc. I'll buy the best quality stuff that the local parts store has and slap it on and go.

Building a Superbird clone takes the "do whatever" aspect to the next level. You can really do whatever you want and not really hurt the value. The only thing is, to build a really, really nice Superbird clone, you're going to spend 40-50K in my opinion. For another 20 or 30 you might find a decent real bird.

Quite right hotrod98, Im of a similar opinion, the cost of the real thing is realistically out of the question but I would love to build a superbird clone, have always admired them for the right reasons. The only problem with that is my wife is not too keen on me selling the 68 to fund the project. And to top it off, a chap I know is trying to sell his 70 383 4spd Runner that another guy put a deposit on a long time ago and then made no further payments. it would be a great starting point , just waiting for a few more big contract jobs to come in - usual story across the car world 

[DonC1]

You could spend up to 50k if you didnt have the time to work on your bird clone...if you wanted it built right that is.

[moparstuart]

You could spend up to 50k if you didnt have the time to work on your bird clone...if you wanted it built right that is.

agreed is you want it to look athentic and right you can easily spend 50k

   13 k wont even buy you the parts to build it now 

[hotrod98]

People say that you shouldn't use a real runner to build a bird, but I think differently. Everything is correct such as the dash and the taillights. Besides, it's not that difficult to switch it back if you ever wanted to. Even the rear window plug can be removed if needed.
I tried to buy a 70 runner a couple of years ago. If I had bought it I would have removed the stock stuff, stored it away and started the conversion.
If done correctly, you would have to know which vins were bird vins to know whether it was a real bird or not.

[Howie]

 :icon_smile_big:I`m sure I could get larry to sell me the black ice bird but I don`t think I could get that past sandra!

[dreamcatcher]

I think you hit it pretty much on the head.I did the whole janak thing.I am tryint to build mine right and have at this time about 38000.00 in the car.I am getting close but still will have to buy odds and ends.I collected parts for two uears before starting.But it is worth it for a nice driver bird.Good luck.There are a ton of us to help with advice.

[nakita7]

People say that you shouldn't use a real runner to build a bird, but I think differently. Everything is correct such as the dash and the taillights. Besides, it's not that difficult to switch it back if you ever wanted to. Even the rear window plug can be removed if needed.

I agree, nothing wrong with using a Bird to start. In 20 years someone's going to restore it back anyway!