L Seddon posted shots of this 1970 Super Bee Trubute, and left some comments that describe it in more detail:
Mighty Mopar! – A Very Rare Sight On An Old Cobbled Market Town Street In Northern England.
This Bad Boy Is A 1970 Dodge Coronet 500 2-Door, 5-Passenger Hardtop Coupe, Model [WP23], One Of 8,247 Units Produced, U.K. Registration “ALG 285J”. Despite The Period-Original “Super Bee” Emblem, This Car Is Not An Authentic Super Bee Model, But Actually A Performance Model Clone Build/Tribute Car, Although A Very Good One, At That.
Fitted W/ A Huge 7.0-Litre, 440-CID “Magnum” V8, W/ Holley Carb, And An Automatic Transmission Which I’m Assuming May Be An Original A727 “TorqueFlite”, Plus Aftermarket Auxiliary Performance Gauges Fitted To The Dash. Painted In Period-Correct “Flat Black” W/ “Brite Red” Tail Stripe, Has A Black Vinyl Roof.
This Particular Dodge Was Spotted Up In Kirkbymoorside, Ryedale, North Yorkshire U.K., In July 2017. The Car Is Owned By A Local Craft Butcher Who Owns/Runs A Long-Established Family Business. I Have Seen And Photographed This Car At Several Other Times Whenever And Wherever I Have Seen It, Including At One Time At A Local Classic Car Show Where I Was Lucky Enough To Hear The Magnificent Roar Of The Meaty V8 Engine While Driving Behind It.
It Is Always A Real Treat To See This Beauty Of A Brute Up Close In-Person! – Coolest Car On The Entire Street!
I would imagine that this blatant American would cause a stir anywhere in the U.K.! Compared to the cars around it, finding parking for it is not an easy thing. Hip, Hip, Cheerio! to the owner, and hope that it’s still in good health and on the road in 2021! 🙂
“hope that it’s still in good health and on the road in 2021!”
Well it seem that it passed its annual British MOT test in August 2021 with only a couple of advisories. Mileage was 24399 miles (currently averaging around 500 miles per year).
Excellent.
It’s certainly come a long way; lookit the laundry list of failures on 7 July 2008 (which is weird, because it passed 13 months and 36 miles earlier):
• Horn not working (1.6.2a)
• Hazard warning lamps not flashing in phase, with ignition on
• Hazard warning lamps not flashing in phase, with ignition off
• Nearside Rear Direction indicator incorrect colour
• Offside Rear Direction indicator incorrect colour
• Nearside Front position lamp(s) incorrect colour
• Offside Front position lamp(s) incorrect colour
• Nearside Headlamp does not operate immediately when selected on main beam
• Offside Headlamp does not operate immediately when selected on main beam
• Nearside Headlamp does not operate immediately when selected on dipped beam
• Offside Headlamp does not operate immediately when selected on dipped beam
• Nearside Headlamp aim beam image kick up to the offside
• Offside Headlamp aim beam image kick up to the offside
• Nearside Stop lamp not working
• Nearside Rear Direction indicator adversely affected by the operation of another lamp
• Registration plate lamp not working
• Steering column movement between the shaft and steering wheel
• Nearside Front Exhaust has a major leak of exhaust gases
• Centre Exhaust has a major leak of exhaust gases
• Nearside Front Brake hose bulging under pressure
• Nearside Front Seat belt anchorage prescribed area is inadequately repaired
• Nearside Front Suspension component mounting prescribed area is excessively corroded
• Offside Front Ball joint has excessive play
• Nearside Rear wheel bearing has excessive play
• Offside Rear wheel bearing has excessive play
• Nearside Rear Tyre fouling a part of the vehicle
• Offside Rear Tyre fouling a part of the vehicle
• Parking brake lever has no reserve travel
I bet it was a different testing station. They are private garages and there are massive inconsistencies. Because those lighting issues didn’t just spring up.
Geesh, I guess you really mean it when you say “massive inconsistencies”, because all those faults look entirely likely. I guess the 2007 shop didn’t bother looking at the car, just collected the money and issued the pass.
I remember a newspaper taking a doctored Golf to ten different MOT stations 20 odd years ago, and got ten different failure certificates.
All missed things, some found things that weren’t actually wrong, and one shop failed it for things that needed repair but weren’t actually part of the MOT test.
There was a place near me which was known to pass any car for a fee.
This kind of corruption and incompetence ruins the effectiveness of a vehicle inspection program. But how do you rout it out and prevent it? I don’t know for sure, but my sense is the German TÜV tests are much less riddled.
I have a friend [now retired] who ran a vintage car repair garage in Andover, Hants, and he told me there is a wide discrepancy in what inspectors will and won’t accept when it comes to vintage cars, as there is often no reliable specification lists available for unusual or older vehicles.
Plus there are laws against changing light lens colors, where the law says you must keep the lens colors as the car came with it when new. Yet other inspectors will point to the regulation that says various lenses are to be specific colors, that don’t match with original US lens colors. So this Dodge had red brake & turn signals, and white lens front turn signal lenses from new [with yellow bulbs], yet UK specs in 1966 call for all of them to be yellow turn signal lenses!
So an experienced inspector who has encountered this in the past, will have no problem approving the lenses as they are, and a young inspector not familiar with the older cars will fail the lenses.
I don’t claim my knowledge of UK vehicle lighting regulations is encyclopædic, but there aren’t many holes in it, so if you’ve found some here, I’d like to plug ’em if you can lend a hand with some pointers to these lens laws you describe.
So far in all my diggings and sloggings through the relevant UK laws and regs, I’ve never come across one requiring original-equipment lens colours, nor requiring _lenses_ (per se) to be any particular colour. What’s required is that the various _light functions_ be specific colours, however that might be achieved. There was some recent discussion of related matters here.
The apposite section of the UK MOT vehicle inspection manual is pretty clear about this, and includes an unambiguous specification for older vehicles. It says Direction indicators must be amber. Vehicles first used before 1 September 1965 may have white front indicators and red rear indicators, if the direction indicators are combined with stop lamps or combined with front or rear position lamps.
Daniel,
Thanks for the clarifications, as I mentioned, I got most of the info from that “Speedreg.uk.co” website, and from various friends who may or may not be accurate.
Years ago I was a passenger in a vintage RHD Chevy built in S. Africa, when it was pulled over by WMP members after leaving a big car show, and they gave him a hard time about various lens colors, and the car was bone stock. No citation, just 15 minutes of listening to the policeman blather about.
Similar situation here multiple interpretations of the codes even at the government operated testing stations and some of the private repair shops just want the work to correct the ‘faults’ they find.
Can someone tell me which is offside and which is nearside? Why can’t they just say left and right?
John,
Because America and England are 2 countries separated by a common language!
As an American I found it to be confusing at first. Think of it this way so you can remember it. They drive on the left side of the road. When parallel parking alongside a curb, the left side [or near side] is nearest to the curb. The right side of the car is furthest from the curb, and is known as the “Off side”. The off side is where a typical UK vehicle’s steering wheel can be found.
It’s that simple.
Left and right are dependent on which end of the car you are looking from.
To eliminate the ambiguity, use driver and passenger side. Of course, in the UK, they drive on the wrong side of the road, so the steering wheel is on the right (driver side). That means their driver side is North America’s passenger side. I hope that’s all perfectly clear!
And LHD cars are unusual in the UK, but far more common than RHD cars in the US. Then there’s the McLaren F1.
Also because left and right aren’t any better than nearside and offside. You know and I know these mean “…as determined while sitting in the car facing straight ahead”, but they could just as easily mean “…as determined while standing outside the car, facing it”. You just have to know (i.e., you have to ask or look it up the first time)—just like nearside and offside).
“Port and “Starboard” aren’t any better; you have to ask or look those up, too.
“Driver side” and “passenger side” don’t work where either-hand-drive cars are allowed, as they are in most countries.
Interesting. For some reason, the details around this Cohort Pic rang some cinematic bells in my mind…and sure enough, this car is apparently a tribute to the car and character in a rather obscure American movie — The Butcher. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0997038/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_4
Here’s additional verification that car (a Charger actually, of similar vintage) figures in the movie – https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_1100889-Dodge-Charger-1971.html
It could be coincidence…but….
I’ve said before that Chrysler’s switch to loop bumpers, although originally just another aping of previous GM models (Pontiac), was a happy coincidence since this was the timeframe of the NASCAR ‘wing cars’ and the loop bumpers nicely facilitated the attachment of those vehicle’s nose-cones.
Particularly in the case of the 1970 Coronet. The story goes that the wing cars were supposed to be the exclusive province of Dodge but Richard Petty, who had been told, in no uncertain terms, he was driving for Plymouth, rankled at not getting one and made his infamous switch to Ford for 1969.
So, to get him back for 1970, there was a quick change of plans and the more NASCAR-friendly doghouse of the new Coronet was hastely tacked onto the Road Runner, just to create a Superbird for Petty to race. At least, that’s my theory.
It’s worth noting that, in order to get rid of the slow-selling Superbirds, there were actually Plymouth dealers who took the nose-cones off and replaced them with standard Road Runner front ends; not an easy task since it included changing the fenders and hood. In fact, it was nothing short of mandatory in Maryland, a state that (correctly) did not recognize the nose cone as a front bumper.
Rudiger,
I grew up, and still reside in Maryland. I have vivid memories of a Superbird in the showroom of Maryland Motors Chrysler-Plymouth, located on what was then known as “The million dollar mile” of route 355.
There was a stand-alone chrome sign frame next to the front of the car. The sign in the frame advised that as it was displayed, by Maryland state law it couldn’t be titled and driven on the street. The sign also said if a buyer wanted to be able to drive the car, it could be modified by the dealership at extra charge, and the owner would still keep the original parts [probably the entire front clip].
I was at a car show about 15 years ago and met an owner of a blue Superbird that was sold new in Maryland, and it had a rubber strip at the front peak, about 3 feet across. He said it was a factory approved strip that was created by MoPaR, to be added to the front of the car, for a few states like Maryland that required a bumper. He also said the strip was available to any “wing car” owner who requested one, at no charge.
Bill McCoskey,
The first part of your comment sounds accurate. I’m just wondering what, exactly, was involved in making a Superbird able to be registered in Maryland and what it would cost.
I’m skeptical of the second part, though. Every legitimate Superbird I’ve ever seen has had the rubber ‘bumper’ strip. It doesn’t appear that it was an optional piece. In fact, it might even explain the blacked-out headlight doors, something done to coordinate with the black rubber bumper trim strip.
The bottom line is that Maryland didn’t recognize the Superbird nose-cone, even with the rubber strip, as a bumper, and to make them legal for sale, it would have had to have a legitimate bumper, i.e., converted with an entire Road Runner front end.
But there is one thing I’ve always wondered: how, exactly, did Maryland enforce the bumper rule on the Superbird (or any car, for that matter? Was there a database that excluded the Superbird for registration without some sort of inspection? Or were all Maryland vehicles inspected for a bumper that met their standards?
As to converted Superbirds, I seriously doubt any of those exist, anymore, as they’d all be infinitely more valuable with the nose cone returned as originally equipped.
Maryland had a periodic vehicle inspection program—and still does. Each vehicle has to pass inspection before the registration process can be completed, and back then it might have been more often (yearly, for example).
Daniel Stern,
Maryland enacted the vehicle inspection requirement in 1966, to make it difficult to sell cars by owner. It put the onus on the seller to put the car thru inspection before it could be advertised for sale. This was meant to help car dealers in the state, most of which were happy to do the inspection in their own garage.
It’s still this way, however as a result of threats of court challenges, the requirement of inspecting the car before the sale has rarely [if ever] been enforced.
Please note that the only requirement for a vehicle inspection is for selling/buying the vehicle. You MUST have a recent inspection certificate saying the vehicle passed. THERE IS NO YEARLY OR ANNUAL INSPECTION IN MARYLAND with the exception of commercial passenger vehicles like taxicabs, limousines, and busses.
It’s a very difficult inspection to pass. More along the lines of European requirements. For example, I sold a Ford Taurus wagon I bought new. It didn’t have very many miles on it. The tie rod ends did not pass because they had 10 thou in play. The factory allowed up to 65 thou play, but the Maryland inspection rules says NO play is allowed in tie rod ends, so I had to replace them with new tie rod ends that had [you guessed it] 10 thou play. Because the inspector replaced the parts with new parts, the car could now pass the inspection! [And Maryland got it’s 6% on the parts sales tax!]
Bill, that’s an interesting history. When I moved to Maryland in 2000, I was perplexed that the state required an inspection before I registered my car, but then never again unless I sold it (I crossed the Potomac to Virginia in 2003, so that’s my only experience with Maryland inspections).
I couldn’t figure out what benefit that was… but now I see. Easy to understand how this sort of thing would morph out of the Dealers’ lobby in the 1960s.
The only thing I recall about my car’s Maryland inspection was that they ripped me off for a new set of wiper blades. I guess I got off pretty easy.
Eric,
You really got lucky and found an honest inspector.
When I bought my first car, it was in 1968, and the car was a 1950 Packard Eight sedan, with only 11,000 miles on it, and I bought it from the original owner. It was an older used car back then, one that most people didn’t want or care about.
I was advised to take it to an ESSO station in Rockville to an inspector named Eck. He was a former Packard mechanic and was “forgiving” for any Packard, as long as it wasn’t a serious safety issue like a leaking brake cylinder. His only concern was that the car still had the original tires, and they were showing their age.
Back when the DMV advisory board was meeting, I brought up the new safety inspection requirement that did not allow ANY cracks in the steering wheel. As the representative of various car clubs in the state, I wanted to know why this had been adopted. The State Police rep at the meeting said they requested it because it was possible people could get clothing or jewelry stuck in the crack. So I asked him for the statistics and just how many people had reported this happening. He admitted there was no evidence of this occurring, BUT IT COULD HAPPEN! [Emphasis mine.] It’s still on the inspection list today, 30 years later, with no evidence of what they suggest, ever happening.
Many years ago, the University of Michigan created a survey and a serious look at the benefit of the annual vehicle inspection in regards to traffic accidents and fatalities. The comprehensive report, researched over many years, found that the vehicles with defects that were the cause of the accident or fatality, happened even though the vehicle had been thru the yearly inspection, and it found that drivers of unsafe vehicles did so without regard of the inspection.
The final part of the report suggested the state run program was very costly, yet had almost no positive results concerning accidents and fatalities. So the State of Michigan ended the vehicle inspection system. The accident and fatality rates stayed the same.
Unless I’m mistaken, to this day Michigan does not have an official vehicle inspection, but it does license inspectors to perform a private inspection if the owner or buyer wants one performed. But the DMV section on safety inspections, does not indicate an official safety inspection is required.
No it was never done years, just at change of ownership, except for emissions, which were, and are, required yearly… I’m a Bawlamer native.
Technically the law requires a vehicle owner to have the car inspected AND PASS the inspection before offering the vehicle for sale. The only way you don’t have to inspect it before selling is if you state in writing the car is “sold for rebuilding and not to be driven on the highway”, and in theory those words are supposed to be on the bill of sale.
As the inspection was only valid for 30 days or 1,000 miles when the law was first passed, the state DMV was inundated with threats of lawsuits because if the car didn’t sell within that time frame or mileage, it had to be reinspected. So the DMV simply agreed in writing not to enforce those parts of the law. It’s still the same law, just not enforced. Later on the timeframe and mileage was extended to 90 days and 3.000 miles, I’m told this was because dealers often had cars sitting on the lot for more than 30 days.
Also of note, except for brand new cars still on certificate of origin paper, all cars for sale on a dealer’s lot must have the inspection certificate displayed in a side window. If it’s not got that certificate, only a licensed wholesale car dealer or another dealer can buy the car. That said, cars without certificates are sold every day!
As to converted Superbirds, I seriously doubt any of those exist, anymore, as they’d all be infinitely more valuable with the nose cone returned as originally equipped.
I don’t doubt that they don’t exist anymore, but am curious as to what they looked like in the day, IE did they look like a regular Roadrunner with the wing on the back and big “Plymouth” lettering or did they get dressed down so much the only tell was the reshaped back window? Given how much interest there’s been in the wing cars over the last several decades and the proliferation of the internet you’d think there’s be a barn find of a converted one somewhere. I believe that they existed but all it ever seems to be is third hand anecdotal accounts when mentioned.
As for value given their already inherent rarity plus the historical noteworthyness of the conversions I actually could imagine a well documented 1970 Superbird converted to Roadrunner specification by the original dealer could actually be worth quite a bit. People pay big bucks for dusty patina’d rot box Daytonas in as found “do not touch the dirt” condition afterall, not to mention dealer conversions like Yenko, Nickey, Baldwin Motion or Grand Spaulding.
I agree that a converted Maryland Superbird, in its original, converted state, might be more valuable than a typical, non-Hemi one. It would largely depend on the buyer, particularly considering how up-and-down the values of the more mundanel, 440-4v powered ones tend to be.
What a converted Maryland Superbird might look like is a great question. My guess would be, since they’d have to repaint the front fenders and hood to match, it wouldn’t take much more to remove the wing and ‘PLYMOUTH’ quarter panel lettering.
The thing that ‘wouldn’t’ get changed is the smoothed-out rear window with its filler panels, and would really be the only way to know if it was a legitimately converted car.
And it doesn’t seem like it would be as hard to find one as one might expect, either. The number required to be built by NASCAR was two per dealer. I don’t know how many Maryland Plymouth dealers there might have been in 1970, but I can’t imagine it being all that more than, say, two dozen? That means a potential total of no more than 48 Superbirds allocated to the state. And, with any luck, there’d be Chrysler archive information showing which VINs got shipped to Maryland.
Rudiger,
The info I have on the rubber strip comes from a Superbird owner, so It’s not promised to be accurate!
I’ve always said that the MVA operates in mysterious ways. Back in the 1980s I was part of a new advisory board for the MVA Administrator [Elwood Johnston?], but most of the people who were on the board left within a year because we never got answers to questions like yours. Several of the members felt the only reason the board was created was so the MVA could show how they were listening to the public, when it really wasn’t. I doubt you will ever find the answer of how they made the bumper decision.
Back then, the Maryland DMV was a place to be avoided at all costs, and one could get a different answer for the same question, from 10 DMV emloyees. For all it’s shortcomings today, it has improved greatly over the last 10 years.
I do know it had something to do with body damage issues. The reason the GTO urethane bumper was approved was that in a mild bump there was no damage. I doubt the Superbird front would remain undamaged in the same bump, but I don’t know what the specs were in the test. That’s simply my own guess.
I have always assumed that the sign in the showroom suggested that once the conversion was done [probably an entire front clip], then the owner could do whatever they wanted with the car, as the original front clip was included. And as even to this day we don’t have a yearly inspection, as long as the owner didn’t get in trouble with the police, he probably was going to be able to enjoy his Superbird in all it’s pointed front end glory, for many years.
The Maryland Superbird story sounds like the sort of automotive esoterica that only avid CCers would find interesting.
For starters, it’d be great to see the actual document forbidding Maryland Superbird registrations and who, specifically, it was sent to. I’d guess Chrysler Corporate and the Maryland Plymouth dealers. It would certainly explain the need to display the info at the Superbird display you saw.
But, from that point on, the whole thing might have been moot if people were buying Superbirds and were able to get them registered, anyway. Seems like the only trouble someone might get into is if, somehow, it was discovered and the owner would be charged with improper registration.
So, in the end, the whole MVA ‘you can’t register a Superbird’ might have amounted to nothing and none of them were converted back to a standard Road Runner (as the placard threatened). It’s not like Superbirds were flying off the dealer lots, as it was.
That’s the other conversion story, that there were non-Maryland Plymouth dealers converting the cars, simply in an effort to sell a car no one wanted. But, whether it’s a Maryland car or not, no legitimate, documented converted Superbird has ever been found.
Rudiger,
“. . . But, whether it’s a Maryland car or not, no legitimate, documented converted Superbird has ever been found.”
That’s fascinating to me, I’m a serious gearhead and car collector, as well as having operated a restoration shop for decades. I can’t even begin to think about how many people have mentioned converted Superbirds and Daytonas over the last 50+ years I’ve been “in the business”. I suppose had I been tasked with restoring one, or owned one, I would have figured it all out when, I did the pre-restoration research.
As a Packard guy who has owned & worked on several pre-WW2 Packard Super Eight limousines, I am familiar with all the stories surrounding Packard providing the Soviets with the dies to make the Postwar ZIS 110 and ZIS 115 limousines. The truth is, the Soviets DID copy the overall look of the ’42 Packard, but no body dies and press machinery was ever sent. That said, I have examined several ZIS cars, and believe the Soviet ZIS factory bought small batches of actual small Packard parts, likely because it was cheaper than making small batches of the parts in the USSR.
Rudiger,
I did some investigating in old Chrysler paperwork, and I think I can give you a fairly accurate accounting of C-P dealerships in the state. Each County got at least one for the county seat/city. That’s 23 dealerships, plus 3 more for the wealthy Montgomery county, 2 more for Prince Georges county, 2 more for Baltimore county including Baltimore city,
That’s a total of 30 dealerships for the state. So it looks like we had to sell 60 cars.
The 4 for Montgomery county were Rockville, Gaithersburg, Bethesda, and Silver Spring. 3 for PG county were Laurel, College Park, and Suitland. 3 for Baltimore county were Towson, Ellicott City, and Bel Air.
Whoops, I added that up wrong, add 3 more for the 3 big counties, for a total of 33 dealerships or 66 cars.
Something curious that is never mentioned about the Maryland Superbird story is what the state did about the 1969 Charger Daytona which had ‘nothing’ on the leading edge of the nose cone. Frankly, it sounds as if the possibility exists that, initially, the Superbird didn’t have the bump strip, but due to Maryland’s requirment after they let the Daytona slide, it was quickly added prior to production, and it made the Superbird saleable in all states.
This would actually fall in line with the story told by the Superbird owner. Maybe the Superbird was initially designed to have a similar nose cone to the Daytona (one unadorned), but the bumper strip was added specifically because of Maryland, and it was just easier for Chrysler to attach the rubber bumper strip to all of them.
If correct, it would explain why a dealer-converted Superbird has never been found, at least one sold in Maryland.
I’ve always heard of these converted superbirds but have never seen any pictures of one ever, were they near fully converted to roadrunner spec, losing both the nose and wing or just the nose retaining the rear wing? It stands to reason it’d be cheaper for a dealer to swap a front clip than plug and paint the wing mounting holes on the quarters, but both ends seem equally polarizing if they’re trying to move them off the lots quicker
Atlhough the theory sounds good, I’m actually rather dubious that ‘any’ Superbirds, Maryland or otherwise, actually got a converted front end.
In fact, on further thought, I’d wager the whole situation is quite similar to when Chrysler sold very high compression, early sixties ‘Max Wedge’ cars, then the 1968 Hemi-Dart and Barracuda Super Stock specials. Those cars all came with disclaimers that, although technically street-legal, they were not intended to be driven as such, and came with no warranty.
The Superbirds would seem to be in the same boat. LIke the earlier Super Stock Mopars, although technically street-legal, actually driving them on the street would be problematic.
So, Chrysler and the dealers got instructions from the the MVA saying they couldn’t be registered to drive in the the state, but I would imagine no one actually paid any attention to it, and Superbirds were registered in Maryland just like any other car.
Considering how hard it was for Plymouth dealers to sell them, it makes for good reading to speculate there ‘were’ converted Superbirds. It also provides something of an explanation for the unicorn 440-4v Road Runner. Technically, up until 1972, that engine was not available in the Road Runner. But if someone had a converted Superbird (which came standard with a 440-4v), well, there you go.
I was doing some bedtime reading about this on one of the various mopar forums that members had similar conclusions, not specific to the Maryland cars but the conversions as a whole. It’s very possible what ones did happen happened not because they didn’t sell well but simply recieved damage to the nose cone on the lot or during transportation, or accounts of conversions were misremembered observations of used Superbirds that had a regular satellite(or Charger)front clip added after a fender bender. Makes since since the front ends were basically one offs and the cars themselves driven hard by their early owners.
The other really good point made is no matter how much they languished on lots the dealer will most likely discount them heavily to move them, not throw money at them for the parts and labor to convert them to a RoadRunner that had a lower sticker than a Superbird in the first place. I can believe conversions happened for various reasons in the early 70s but the whole convert them to move them seems like in all likelyhood urban legend.
All of the urban legend elements are there. Hard to sell, custom factory cars, Maryland registration problems, tough to replace body parts (not only the nose cone, but the fenders and hood were specially modified Coronet pieces, too). And then the cars that were driven hard and got their front ends inevitably punched in and replaced with stock pieces.
As stated, it just wouldn’t be practical for a dealership to spend the money to put a Road Runner front end on a brand-new Superbird. Then they’d just have another Road Runner to sell, which were being replaced with a brand-new model very soon. It’d be throwing good money after bad, and if there’s one thing dealers don’t do, that’s it.
But let’s say it’s true. How would it be verified? There’d have to be paperwork that specifically stated the parts were swapped on a new car (and not a collision repair) at the dealer.
It’s like any urban legend. All the elements point to an inescapable conclusion. IOW, 2+2 have to equal 4, right? But with zero proof after all these years, it’s doubtful it ever happened.
Check out their Facebook page. It makes you homesick and hungry.
I’m not a B-body expert, but something about that tail panel was bugging me. A quick bit of digging around suggests it was originally painted semi-flat black, but the one on this car has been stripped.
Interesting rear number plate on this car, too; doesn’t look like an official UK-issue item, but I guess it passes.
I’m with you on that tail panel, Daniel.
And I’ve noticed that style of plate on other US cars in the UK, so it must be ‘a thing’. The characters are there, and it fits in the space. Whether it’s a legal plate or not, I don’t know.
I think the plates are illegal, but illegal plates are pretty common in the UK.
If the car was originally sold in a market with different sized plates, you’re allowed to have plates made which will fit into the space, which are generally too small and technically break rules on font and spacing.
As a pre 73 model it is eligible for white on black or silver on black plates, but they are obviously replica US plates, which are common on classics but presumably illegal. Cops have been known to ticket people with tiny plates on superbikes which are obviously an attempt to evade speed cameras, but I can’t see anyone bothering with this is the colours are correct and it has an exemption for sizing anyway.
There are far more egregious examples of dodgy plates out there.
Tonito and everyone,
As I understand the issue, when these cars were new and imported into the UK, they were supplied with 2 level number plates that would fit into the space allocated for the North American plates. So cars brought over later, can put number plates in the bumper, and it’s my understanding that as long as the plates are black with silver numbers, it’s approved. I’m also told that Swansea has a limited availability of vintage numbers that have 6 or less spaces, just for these types of situations.
And for those who don’t live or visit the UK, When you get the certificate showing your new number assigned to that car [and trailer if required], one does not get a physical plate, only the paperwork. You then go to a shop that makes number plates and have them made to that specific number.
The older plate numbers are actually the property of the car owner, and can be transferred to another car if desired. This is not the case with the new “Age related” number plates that started in 1983.
The history of the UK registration numbers is complicated at best, but here is what Speedyreg.co.uk says about them. It’s the best explanation I have found yet.
The first plates issued were dateless, that is, there was nothing to denote the year of issue. This system lasted for an incredible 60 years.
Initially, the marks were made up of a local council identifier code of up to 3 letters, followed by a random number, e.g. ABC 123. In the early 1950s, as numbers started to run out, the components were reversed, giving rise to registrations in the format 123 ABC.
By 1963, a number of local councils had run out of registrations, even by adding extra digits and reversing them. As a result of this, the Suffix system was introduced, a letter indicating the year of registration being added at the end of the plate, which until then had comprised only 3 letters followed by 3 numbers. Thus, 1963 plates had the format AAA 111A, 1964 plates AAA 111B and so on. This was the first change to a system that had been set up in 1903 when there were far fewer cars on the roads. Since then the administration of the system has turned into a massive task. Everything was done manually and locally.
Police checks on vehicle records were time consuming and labour intensive. There were also delays with registrations and the public were not happy with having to wait. So in 1963, as well as a revamp of the system, thought started to be given to utilising some modern technology, namely, computers to create a centralised system. This system would be nine years in the planning!
Since 1903 the design of the physical plates had gone through a few changes but the most significant was in 1973 when all newly registered vehicles were required to have reflective style number plates, with black letters on a white background at the front, and on a yellow background at the rear. Older style plates, with white or silver letters on a black background, remained legal for vehicles already registered.
Eventually, in 1974, the centralised DVLC system was up and running, no longer were local councils responsible for vehicle-registration.
Prefix 1983 – 2001
The Prefix system started in August 1983. This saw the letter indicating the year moved to the beginning of the registration mark, thus doubling the lifespan of the number plate system.
Prefix registrations can be broken down in three sections:
First Letter: The year the car was registered and put on the road, hence its age. A for 1983, B for 1984 and so on
Last two letters: An area code that indicates where the plate was registered.
The three numbers and the first of the three letters at the end have no meaning, only providing a variation for identification.
This system continued until the end of August 2001, and a large number of these registrations were held back for later release or for personalised registrations.
The letters I, O, U and Z were not issued at all as Prefix letters, and Q was used only where the age or origin of the vehicle could not be identified.
Of course the lifespan of this system could be guessed at. It had taken just 20 years to exhaust the suffix system, souring the 1990s a lot of thought was given as to what to do when the prefix system had also run out of combinations.
Current Style 2001 – Now
The current style started in 2001. Police evidence suggested that witnesses, particularly in hit and run incidents, remember the letters of a registration mark much more easily than the numbers. As people read from left to right it made sense to put this information, the local code, at the beginning rather than at the end of the number plate. As the result the current system for registrations is made up of 3 parts, as shown below:
Local Region:
This represents the place where the car was first registered. Vehicles registered in Birmingham, for example, begin with the letters BA – BY; those registered in Chelmsford begin EA – EY.
Date ID:
This indicates the date of registration of the vehicle, and changes every 6 months, in March and September.
The system started with the use of 51 to denote the 6 months from September 2001, with 02 replacing it in March 2002. 52 then denotes September 2002, 03 denotes March 2003 and so on. This continued until March 2010 when 10 and 60 had been reached and so it goes on.
Random:
The last three letters are random and can now include Z.
This current system is far more future-proof that than the previous plate styles were. This system can cater for up to 12.6 million new registrations each year. It is believed this system will run smoothly until at least 2049, when it can simply be reversed.
And yes, this is the most simplified explanation I can find that is accurate!
–Bill McCoskey
Bill – age related plates started on 1963, with an ‘A’ suffix, ie ABC123A. Prior to that, ABC123 was more typical and didn’t denote the year of first registration.
The owner of any car can sell the registration number assuming someone wants to buy it. The pre ’63 plates are generally more desirable, whereas a non descript modern plate is essentially worthless. Northern Irish plates are non age related and you can get one for about 99GBP. The UK record price is 518,000 for 25 O. If you import a pre’63 car they will issue you a non age related plate, but it’s non transferable. I owned a 1958 Minor which had an ‘A’ plate, denoting it as a ’63, because a previous owner had sold the desirable non age related original number.
Your reference to black and silver plates is a red herring. They could also be white on black, or they could be reflective plates, white at front, yellow at rear. Black plates are illegal on any car manufactured after 1973, but reflective plates were common from the 1960s onwards and black plates were rarely used after 1969. Any car from 1971 on would have been supplied new with reflective (black ‘n yellow) plates.
Plates are indeed purchased independently and not supplied by the government, and a personal import which would have had eg Australian or American sized plates can be fitted with plates which don’t meet the normal rules, which dictate plate size, letter size, and spacing. The plate on this Firebird would be legal on any car, and square plates like this are used on motorcycles, and were often found on air-cooled Beetles. Note however, that it inelegantly sticks out.
The plate on this Corvette would be illegal if you put it on a first series Renault Twingo imported from France, as the Twingo was intended to have UK sized plates although it was never officially sold in the UK. The letter size and spacing don’t meet the regs.
It’s legal because it’s on a Corvette.
Just interesting point to note, in Portugal they used to issue the month/year of the first registration on the license plate. Then you can easily spot the vehicle age, sometimes makes me wonder really its that old?
Such a system would be cherry on the cake for car producers in 50/60s in states 🙂
Some states in the USA , including Pennsylvania, required that the official year of the car, as listed on the title and registration, was determined by the year it was first sold. This was in effect until the 1968 Federal title regulations stopped it.
I’ve bought many cars sold new in Pennsylvania, where the official year was 1 or even 2 years later, if the car sat unsold that long. My favorite example was a 1959 Packard sedan. At least the PA title said it was a 1959. When I went to Maryland to register the car, I had to bring multiple proof and evidence Packard stopped building cars mid year 1958, and the car was a 1957 Packard Clipper. Vin matched the car, just the wrong year.
That reminds me Bill of the reverse situation in Pennsylvania. My aunt bought her 1961 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 as soon as possible after the ’61s came out in the fall of 1960. Her car was registered as a 1960 model; always thought that was odd,
The plate issued to any car when new stays with the car until the end, unless it is swapped for a personal plate (as long as that plate does not make the car look younger than it is) or if the plate (not the car) is sold to be someone else’s personal plate, in which case you’ll get an original date relevant replacement.
The size and shape are covered by minimum dimensions, and square (2 line) and regular (1 line) plates are both legal. See Land Rover Discovery and most semi-trailers for more information. There are rules about the typeface though, which is where this Dodge may be vulnerable.
Current standards have black on white at the front and black on yellow on the back, both with reflective characteristics. The white on black went out around 1970, but is it OK to run a car originally supplied with black on white on them, but not to fit them to a later vehicle.
To buy a set of plates you need proof of registration in your name and proof of ID, and the shop providing the actual plates must record their name on the plate as well, all in the aid of preventing cloning and the use of false plates.
Roger you’re right that you get an age related plate if you sell yours, except if it’s pre ’63, in which case you get a 1963 plate. If you import a pre ’63 car you (should) get a non transferable pre’63 plate.
Black plates don’t have to be original fit. Look at photos of late 60s Britain and see how many reflective plates there are then go to a show and very few pre 73 cars will have them. I imported a 1972 Beetle and put black plates on it despite the fact that no Beetle would have been supplied with them in 1972.
The law is 1973 and prior, but if you can prove a 1973 manufacturing date you can put them on a car first registered in 1974, so you will see M plates in black, although that is not original. Of course you also see later cars just flouting the law, especially old fashioned cars like Minis and Beetles.
A haulier near me used to run black plates on 1990s ERFs but stopped at some point, presumably after the fuzz had a word in their shell-like.
If I were to guess stripping it bare was an attempt to make it look more like a SuperBee which used a bright panel between lights, it looks particularly off here because it’s a Coronet 500 panel rather than the base Coronet one Superbees actually used
The one on the butcher’s car looks like too much bright metal in one place, to me.
Yeah I have to agree, I’m surprised the owner chose to clone a Superbee rather than a R/T, it would have been more convincing since the latter used the Coronet 500 taillights and panel
Rudiger,
You seem to be familiar with these cars. For years I used to be a major vendor at the big DC Flea antique show in Chantilly, Va. I used to live on my farm near Frederick, and drove US Rt 15 down thru Leesburg to get to the show. About half way from Leesburg to Rt 50, there was a large piece of property on the right, and the mailbox was painted as a blue Superbird, and the mailbox even had a high wing on the back. I’m wondering if you knew the person who lived there & did they own one of the cars?
Never heard about the Superbird mailbox in Virginia. My knowledge is just from reading about the cars through the years. There were two books published in 1995 and 2016 that have a good bit of detail about them. I’ve read the first and it’s where I learned details on how they were constructed and how difficult it was to sell the Superbirds. The quote was something like, “Chrysler discovered there was a market for about 500 of the cars, and those people had all bought Daytonas!”. There were even photos of documents from Chrysler regional sales managers imploring Plymouth dealers to sell the cars.
Another interesting tidbit was how the diameter of the Superbird decal on the rear wing support was determined. Supposedly, someone grabbed a nearby trashcan, put the base on the support, drew a circle around it, and proclaimed, “There you go”.
Or how every Superbird got a vinyl roof since it was cheaper than finishing and smoothing the welds for the rear window filler pieces.
Another thing I recall was an old Peterson book on modifying Mopar engines that had an article about a land-speed Superbird that said they had bought it new in 1972 for the same price as a Valiant. The dealership was glad to get rid of it.
Was one of those books authored by Steve Lehto? I’ve been thinking about getting his book on them.
I bought his book on Tucker cars, as I had a connection to the cars thanks to Dave Cammack, and I’ve driven all 3 of his Tuckers, but only a few inches, to rotate the wheel bearings and seals!
Yeah, that’s the 2016 one. The one I read was published in 1995 by Frank Moriarty.