If there was one cardinal rule for Dodge Division in the 1960s, it was, “Whatever Plymouth had, Dodge dealers wanted.” Not long after Plymouth introduced the Road Runner, a budget-priced muscle car with a cartoon mascot, Dodge rolled out its own imitation: the Coronet Super Bee, with the same warmed-up 383 engine. Car Life tested a 383/automatic Super Bee in February 1969 and conceded — with tongue firmly in cheek — that it was “a honey of a low-budget Supercar.”
The photo caption above reads, “BALANCE is the word for the Bee’s handling. Slight initial understeer easily turned to neutral steer with a little throttle. Road performance benefited from F70-14 Polyglas tires, and good weight distribution and performance axle group (Hemi suspension).”
Dodge had arrived late to this particular party in more ways than one: In the previous issue (January 1969), Car Life had run a feature on budget Supercars, but while that article had mentioned the new Super Bee, Dodge had been unable to provide a test car in time to make the cut, so CL had tested a Dodge Dart Swinger 340 instead.
Like its Plymouth Road Runner cousin, the Coronet Super Bee was a B-body intermediate, available only in two-door pillared coupe or hardtop form, stripped of all unnecessary frills to provide the highest performance at the lowest possible list price. Car Life explained:
The package is nearly complete without options. The engine is the high-performance 383-cid V-8. strong in family car form, but fitted with the big-valve 440 cylinder heads, hotter camshaft, shaped cast iron headers, dual exhausts and windage tray. An instrument panel with real dials and real numbers, a four-speed manual transmission with specialty equipment shifter, big drum brakes, and stiffer springs and shocks are standard.
As with the Road Runner, the Super Bee package was identified by a cartoon mascot. Unlike their counterparts at Plymouth, Dodge Division wasn’t keen to license another preexisting character (Chrysler-Plymouth hadn’t been any too comfortable with the Road Runner deal to begin with), so they created their own, the Super Bee.
This was a risky choice in an image-conscious segment: The Road Runner had pulled it off because that kind of cross-brand promotion was novel in 1968, and the choice of the Road Runner character managed to blend audacity and irreverence in a way that was very In at the time. Aside from being a me-too response, the Super Bee was cutesier, and it smacked of trying a little too hard.
The test car had some extras. … The standard four-speed costs the factory money, so the optional TorqueFlite lists for only $39. The 3.90:1 axle group has the acceleration gears, plus a limited-slip differential, the stiffer-yet springs and shocks from the Hemi-engine cars, a viscous-drive fan, bigger radiator and a radiator shroud.
One of the dilemmas facing this breed of “econo-racer” Supercar was that it was easy to price your way out of the budget league. The base price of a 1969 Dodge Coronet Super Bee pillared coupe was $3,059, which wasn’t bad at all in terms of bang for the buck. Ordering the A31 High Performance Axle Package fitted to the CL test car added $102.15, but its features were all high-protein extras, recommended to any performance-minded buyer; TorqueFlite added an extra $39.30. If you stuck with just those options, you could have a formidable 383 Super Bee for as little as $3,200.45, which was still a bargain. However, the Car Life tester was the more expensive hardtop ($3,121), which was then laden with extras like power steering ($100) and power windows ($105.20), bringing the as-tested list price to $4,036, which was no longer so cheap.
Nonetheless, there was no question that even with the 383, the car delivered the promised performance:
The Bee was as quick, as most, and quicker than many. The test car covered the quarter-mile consistently in the high to mid-14s, with a best e.t. of 14.56. Trap speed varied from 94.40 to 97.19. … The TorqueFlite transmission, too, did everything well. On the strip, it shifted positively, and quicker than the CAR LIFE testers can shift Chrysler four-speeds. At part throttle, in traffic, it was still quick, but with only a trace of the slamming we usually find in performance cars with automatics.
The combination of engine, transmission, final drive and [F70-14] tires couldn’t be better for the strip. The car could be held at the line by the brakes, under power, until the green, then wham! Out of the chute with a trace of wheelspin, shifting by hand at red line, with the transmission making the change as the engine peaked. The engine peaked in high at the first trap, but wasn’t quite to valve float (5800 rpm) at the end of the run.
Predictably, the Car Life editors were not enthusiastic about the test car’s 3.90 axle:
The rear axle gearing was less than perfect for regular driving. The factories say, and reader mail bears them out, that Supercar buyers insist on high numerical ratios, and don’t mind the extra engine wear, noise and lowered fuel mileage. For buyers who do mind, the optional 3.23:1 would make the Bee less buzzy (sorry ’bout that) on the highway, without taking away too much of the sting (this can’t go on) off the line. The 3.90 axle group, with the beefy suspension, limited-slip and extra cooling capacity, is worth having with either ratio. The factory was surprised at the suggestion, but said yes, a buyer could get the 3.90 axle group with a 3.23 ring and pinion.
According to the 1969 salesman’s pocket guide, you could order a 383 Coronet with the A36 Performance Axle Package, which had all the same pieces as the A31 package, but a 3.55 axle rather than the 3.91; the $102.15 price was the same. It doesn’t appear that a 3.23 was a factory option with a 383-4V engine, although the Bright Green Metallic car in the color photos has that ratio, so it was apparently not out of the realm of possibility.
Car Life explained:
The suggestion is made because the Super Bee is a first-cabin road car. It isn’t especially light, and the 383 engine isn’t especially heavy. The weight distribution, with full tank and driver aboard, comes closer to 50/50 than any other Supercar we’ve tested in some time. The Bee is balanced, and the ride firm without being jiggly. Properly tired, as the test car was, the car could be driven over mountain roads at unspeakable speeds, safely. There’s moderate understeer, easily corrected via the quick power-boosted steering. Horsepower, too, is balanced; enough to put the back of the car in line with the front on turns, but not enough to convert forward motion into sideways motion during vigorous driving. The Bee could be thrown into dirt-track oversteer, and held there, but the driver has to want to do it.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that few of the buyers who were interested in the Super Bee or Road Runner at this time were at all interested in building a well-rounded road car. The name of the game was acceleration: on the dragstrip or stoplight to stoplight.
Besides, with their taxicab interiors and rock-hard suspensions, the Road Runner and Super Bee weren’t very comfortable for long journeys, as Car Life admitted:
A good road car is not necessarily a grand touring car. The Super Bee has the power, and the space. There’s room in back for full-size people, and the trunk will swallow at least a weekend’s worth of luggage without trouble. But the bench seat, even the optional bench with $8 worth of added padding, won’t do for long trips. It’s convex where it should be concave, and vice versa. A Super Bee buyer might do well to persuade a Fat Albert-size friend to spend some time behind the wheel, squashing the seat into a reasonable facsimile of the human form. The concavity should help keep the driver in place, too. There is no lateral support, and the enthusiast driver spends more time keeping himself behind the wheel than he does keeping the car on the road.
The caption of the top photo reads, “BEST BRAKING so far among ’69s (30 ft./sec./sec.) can be attributed to well proportioned disc/drum combo and good tire adhesion.”
Their test Bee had front disc brakes, which were optional. The salesman’s guide lists these as a $50.15 option, but they also required a power brake booster, which was an extra $42.95. However, the results were worthwhile:
The Super Bee’s brakes kept our faith. Disc brakes have been described as the best way to stop for years, in these pages and elsewhere, but sometimes they don’t work as well as we said they would. The Bee’s brakes did. The first hard stop from 80 mph nearly sent the decelerometer off the scale, with a rate of 30 ft./sec./sec. The first stop, with any car, is really more a test of tires than brakes. Most cars can lock all four wheels all too easily. But the Bee kept its rate high, stop after stop. The rear drums faded, slightly, so the driver compensated by pushing harder. The deceleration rate never went below 26.
This was welcome progress for Chrysler, whose early disc/drum setups had suffered poor front/rear balance that made it easy to get sideways on a hard stop. Car Life had experienced that with a 1967 Fury III convertible, whose braking tests they described as “a memorable, vividly traumatic experience.”
Although the text doesn’t mention it, some of the test car’s excellent braking performance could probably be attributed to its extra-heavy-duty rear suspension, whose stout 150 lb/inch wheel rate was much higher than most domestic cars of this era. It wasn’t ideal for keeping your fillings in place on a bumpy road, but the stiff rear springs did squelch the axle hop to which contemporary Chrysler products tended to be susceptible in hard braking.
The captions of the photos at the top of the above page read, “REAL INSTRUMENTS for real drivers — except for clock shrouded tach (left) panel is one of best we’ve seen,” and “LARGE by anybody’s standards, trunk made Bee ideal for staff traveling, family or performance.”
Among the features of the Super Bee was complete instrumentation. The editors were pleased and flattered that these had actual numbers, rather than hedging to avoid alarming drivers with the higher coolant temperatures Chrysler had adopted for emissions control, which now ran around 190 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit in normal operation:
Rather than let the driver know what the temperature is, and try to explain that 200 is perfectly safe, [most manufacturers] fit gauges reading C — N — H. Dodge assumes the Super Bee buyer has kept up with things, and won’t panic if the needle rides at 200 all the time. The temperature gauge starts at 120, with a normal range of 170-230, and a high point of 250. The ammeter, too, has real numbers, and so does the oil pressure gauge.
Here are some highlights of the performance figures from the data panel.
- 0 to 30 mph: 2.8 sec.
- 0 to 60 mph: 6.6 sec.
- 0 to 100 mph: 17.6 sec.
- Standing ¼-mile: 14.73 sec. at 95.5 mph
- Top speed: 110.2 mph at 5,800 rpm
- Test average fuel consumption: 10.2 mpg
This wasn’t the fastest muscle car you could get in 1969, but given the base price, being able to run the quarter mile in less than 15 seconds (with two aboard, in showroom trim) was on the right side of respectable.
The photo captions above read, “TIRE ADHESION exceeded driver’s grip on bench seat, and prevented full exploitation of its first class handling,” and “383-CID ENGINE had bags of torque, but no more than chassis could handle. It added final touch to a well integrated package.”
A different 1969 Super Bee demonstrating the awkward tachometer situation / Mecum Auctions
Their praise for the Super Bee instrumentation did not extend to the tachometer, a $50.15 extra that was foolishly combined with a clock mounted over the center of the dial — an infuriating gimmick suggesting that the interior designers were not clear on the tachometer’s actual purpose. Car Life complained:
The optional tachometer has numbers, but the tach comes with a clock in its middle, and the tach numbers peep coyly from behind it. The driver can use the tach, but he’d better know before he starts his run where the important places are. The tach reads to 8000 rpm, wasted space with an engine that floats its valves at 5800. Worse, the factory painted the red line at 5000, for an engine with a rated power peak of 5200. After we looked up the engine specs, we assumed the tach was super-cautious, and shifted at 5200.
Still, the Super Bee was an impressive performer, and the price was right:
This Super Bee was a fine package without any options at all, and the buyer with some extra money would be able to spend it in useful ways. (One optional item that the test car didn’t have, and which would have made the performance even better is the new cold-air scoop.)
The “Ramcharger” air scoop hood was a $73.30 option on a Super Bee with the 383, and was included in the $830.65 price of the optional 426 Hemi engine. This required three-speed electric windshield wipers, which were a $5.40 standalone option on the 383 Super Bee, and were included with some of the accessory groups.
Incidentally, at this point, you could not order the 440 engine on a Super Bee, presumably in an effort to distinguish the Bee from the more expensive Coronet R/T, where the 440 was standard. The 440 Six Pack became optional later in the model year; Car Life tested a Super Bee with that engine in July 1969, dubbing it “the terror of Grudge night.”
In the meantime, they thought a budget-minded buyer was well-served by the 383 Super Bee:
He’ll also get some intangible benefits. One CAR LIFE tester drops his kids off at school on the way to the office. He goes past a junior college en-route. One morning, in traffic in front of the college, knowledgeable No. 1 son asked, “Is this car a souped-up car?”
“No.”
“Then why are the college guys, with their souped-up cars, staring at it?”
The Super Bee was not a big seller — 1969 production totaled 27,846 cars, 14.1 percent of Coronet production. By comparison, the 1969 Plymouth Road Runner sold 84,420 cars. The Super Bee was in a rather crowded corner of the Dodge intermediate line: For $304 more, you could have a Coronet R/T hardtop with the 375 hp 440 and your choice of 4-speed or TorqueFlite. The more stylish Charger also overlapped the Coronet in price while offering a broader range of engine options. This was a lot of variety for a second-line player in a niche market, which is great for modern collectors, but was somewhat confusing for a contemporary buyer.
However, the Super Bee cost Dodge almost nothing to offer (unlike its Plymouth counterpart, there were no licensing fees to worry about), and it was fast enough to be taken seriously — no easy feat for a car covered in cartoon bumblebees.
Related Reading
Vintage Car & Driver Comparison Test: 1969 Hemi Roadrunner, Chevelle 396, Ford Cobra, Cyclone CJ, Superbee and GTO The Judge – “Six Econo-Racers” (by Paul N)
Curbside Classic: 1969 Plymouth Road Runner Hardtop — Spring Is Here! (by Mike Butts)
Curbside Classic: 1969 Dodge Coronet 440 – No, Not That 440 (by Mike Burns)
Curbside Find: 1969 Dodge Coronet – Streetside Racer (by Rich Baron)
Curbside Classic: 1969 Dodge Coronet 440 – Bread and Butter B-Body (by Mike Burns)
COAL: 1969 Dodge Charger – Musclecar of a Lifetime (by Chas Glynn)
COAL: 1969 Dodge Charger – Not Trying To Be What It Isn’t (by LT Dan)
This coming on the heels of yesterday’s piece on the 390 Mustang feeds my fascination with comparing Ford’s 390 and Chrysler’s 383. Both were old, products of their corporations’ late 1950’s engineering, and both became workhorses of their respective makers. But Chrysler could really make the 383 scoot when it wanted to, whereas Ford struggled to field a 390 that was competent in something other than a big station wagon or LTD.
The older I get the more I like the Mopar B body of 1968-70. It was just a good car, whether in performance trim like this or as a family hauler.
I think the Chrysler B-body of this vintage benefits in retrospect from the fact that it continued the notchback profile of the previous-generation GM A-bodies. At the time, it looked like Chrysler was yet again reheating GM leftovers, but the notchback style has aged better than the 1968–1969 GM intermediates, which have the typical big fastback problem of looking good from certain angles and awkward from others. The Coronet and Charger look like further revisions of the 1966–1967 Le Mans/GTO, but today, a lot of people look at them and say, “Yeah, that’s what’s so great about them.”
Aaron spot on the GM intermediates were the striped bell bottoms of the day vs. the Mopar B bodies were Levi 501’s.
Jay Leno had a ’61 Polara CHiP car on his Garage show with basically the same 383. Mopar made that 383 high performance version pretty much from day one. The Ford 390 could have been made into a performance version ala 428 Cobra Jet but they chose the higher displacement and that is with Bob Tasca pushing it.
I drove or rode in many period musclecars back in the day but a ’69 383 Roadrunner with B&M modified Torqueflite, 4:11 gears and the typical hot rod tricks (cam, headers, Edelbrock manifold) was the quickest car I ever drove 0-60.
JP, the 390 was essentially a bored out 352. The intake and exhaust ports along with small valves were the first problem as compared to the 383. Another was the camshaft timing was conservative on the 390 while it wasn’t on the 383. It really wasn’t a drag engine and so whether a Mustang GT of Fairlane GTA they would get clobbered at the track by a Mopar. Top end though was Ok and cruising on the highway they were excellent. Ford did get it right, though, with the 428 Cobra Jet.
Now I am a Ford guy but have to say I really like this Mopar B body and would take it over the Fairlane.
Interesting that Dodge actually offered three muscle cars for 1969 – the Super Bee, Coronet R/T and Charger R/T. And in 1971 added another, the Demon 340. Just shows how popular this market segment was at the time. By 1972 the party was over, a victim of crushing insurance premiums as these cars were wrecked or stolen at alarming rates.
Really like the dash on these. A bit plain and basic, but with full round gauges.
The Super Bee’s gauge package that was lifted from the Charger was worth the extra coin over the Road Runner’s basic strip gauges, alone. I think it got the Road Runner’s better, extra cost seating material as standard, as well.
On top of all that, the Super Bee, if ordered with the silly bumble bee stripe delete, was just a more serious musclecar. But, then, I guess that’s why it didn’t sell nearly as well as the Road Runner, either. In short, the little bee emblems just didn’t have the same panache of the Warner Brothers’ bird decals.
One of the fascinating stories about the reason for the Super Bee’s mid-year 1968 introduction is that Dodge leadership, like much of the rest of Chrysler management, didn’t think the Road Runner would be a success. Because of that, when the assembly computer card stack of the equipment needed for the Road Runner over the Belvedere on which it was based (like using the GTX hood but with ‘383’ callouts instead of ‘440’) was being created (back then, a rather cumbersome process), Plymouth offered to create a similar stack for a Dodge version. Dodge declined, but then had to scramble later when it became clear the Road Runner was a hit.
Another interesting tidbit is that Chrysler’s first, purpose-built ‘aero’ NASCAR special, the 1969 Charger 500, used the 1968 Coronet grille, but pushed out to the leading edge of the hood with exposed headlights.
They also had the Dart GT and GTS in ’69 that went with the 340, 383 and even the 440 so they had 4 musclecars. Drag racing only 426 Hemi in ’68 as well.
There was also the Swinger 340 which for 69-70 preceded the Demon 340, there was also the Dart GTS with the 383 and even 440.
I wonder if we could add the 1970 Challenger to the list since it’s more of a pony-car than a muscle-car?
Plymouth was lucky then Dodge didn’t ask for their version of the restyled Barracuda for the 1967 model year as if the Dart GT/GTS wasn’t enough! I guess some car fans would like to imagine and photoshop some pictures of a 1967-69 Barracuda to imagine a “phantom” 1967-69 Challenger. 😉
That scenario was the one instance Plymouth won out in retaining exclusivity, Dodge absolutely wanted a ponycar in the wake of the Mustang, but since the Barracuda wasn’t proving to be a hot seller to begin with, further cannibalization by Dodge shifted Dodge’s “ponycar” effort to the B body based Charger instead.
The whole ponycar/musclecar distinction that doesn’t really make sense today with recent Camaros, Mustangs and Challengers all being what’s socially and commercially accepted as “modern muscle” arguably starts with the E-body Challenger/Barracudas, which at their core are short wheelbase intermediates rather than stylish compacts like the original Mustang and Barracuda. Dodge had it right with the Charger by complete accident/compromise, the 66-67 was more or less a flop but the 68-69 did numbers the Barracuda could only dream of in sales with nothing more than a thorough reskinning of the basic B body body structure that ultimately resonated with buyers for a few years(and in spite of them being considered lesser, taking on the Coronet coupe role, 71-74s absolutely killed the E-body Challenger too).
I’d argue with the magic power of hindsight Plymouth/Dodge never needed a mustangesque ponycar in the first place. The Roadrunner and Charger ended up successfully tapping into the same market they were shooting for with the Barracuda and the E bodies with way less effort.
That pessimistic speedometer (65.3 indicated at an actual 70?) looks like trouble.
Since it’s mentioned, I’ve always been curious about the license fees paid by Plymouth for the Roadrunner. I’m sure many are familiar with the hilarious accounts of the bird’s development from the late Jack Smith (production planner). In one retelling (https://www.hotrod.com/features/hatching-the-plymouth-road-runner), he recalled that the TOTAL license fee paid to WB was only between 40 and 50 thousand dollars (very briefly, he’d thwarted much of WB’s negotiating leverage through exploiting the AMA’s “name register”). That’d be a serious bargain.
It’s a very entertaining account, but as such I tend to question some of the details. Anyone have any insight?
What a handsome car. Back when they were new though, the GM tidy fastback intermediate coupes were considered more stylish by the guys that I went to school with. Even then, there were Mopar guys that were total fans who couldn’t wait until they would be old enough to buy a car like this. Today, it’s easy to see why these cars are so desirable and coveted by collectors. I really like the green color of the featured car and think the little cartoon bee character is totally cool.
It is interesting to see so many of the cars of this era being delivered to the car magazine with short gearing. In my opinion, short gears are a waste of the potential of a big V-8. A car like the Super Bee featured here should have gears in the 3.08 ballpark. That would allow for lazy cruising and great acceleration at highways speeds. Heck, I’d even go for taller than that!
Aaron, another great car review analysis.
I especially love your supporting imagery here! Beautiful Dodge.
I find the stodgy coronet lines to be very pretty .
My old buddy David, after graduating high school in the 1980’s discovered a ’69 Super Bee in the back row of one of those buy here pay here junker used car lots, the rear end clanked like a stone crusher and they gladly let him tow it away for $300 .
He was a tow truck driver for the LKQ “Pick-A-Part’ self service junkyard chain and was able to land a good rear end for $100, stuck it in in his father’s driveway and was off to the street races where it comported itself very well indeed .
-Nate
Re: The seating
“Lateral support”? Hah!
In the 1960s, the priority, among U.S. automakers and buyers was comfort, at the expense of all other considerations. I personally don’t drive in a fashion that would require Recaro-level side bolstering, so the cushy buckets of a mid-60s Skylark or Mopar would suffice for me.
Well, Car Life didn’t find the seats comfortable either, so null points all around, then.
I didn’t realize there were two different forms of tick tock tachs until now, the 8000rpm one isn’t that bad IMO, but the one 6000RPM one I was actually struggling to recall which section was the tach and which was the clock! Still I love that dash layout, if there’s one reason to go for the Bee over the Roadrunner it’s that!
I don’t know how true it is but if Super”bee” actually refers to B body as I’ve heard forever but somewhat doubt, I do find it clever even if its just a coincidence. One way or another even if the Bee wasn’t the success the RoadRunner was it was an enduring name as Dodge has recycled it dozens of times on Rams and Chargers in the last 20 years, and I don’t think it’d be a controversial statement that it’s a more endearing branding than the Coronet R/T was. Just like the Roadrunner ultimately overshadowed the GTX, the cheaper Superbee does the same to the R/T. For me personally I simply like the styling of the Roadrunner better, the 68-70 Coronet in general always looked like the front and rear ends were styled by different teams and hastily grafted together (a 69 front and 68 rear would be quite attractive, but reality didn’t allow that, they almost look deliberately compromised to elevate the universally loved Charger from these years) but the Plymouth just looked cohesive. Its not the most beautiful muscle car of the 60s but it looks clean purposeful and cohesive to what in comparison makes the Coronet look contrived.
I admittedly didn’t look closely enough at the instrument panel shot of the green car to grasp that the left binnacle was just a clock — I substituted a shot from a 440 car instead.
It’s possible someone at Chrysler-Plymouth made the B-body/Super Bee connection, but I’m pretty sure that the Super Bee name and character were the product of an intensive brainstorming process with the division product planning and marketing people and the ad agency, and that they probably came up with at least a dozen suggestions, many of them undoubtedly quite stupid. (Having been in those kinds of meetings in the past, it makes me a little queasy just to think about it.)
The brilliance of the Road Runner deal was that it was that rare case of a cross-brand licensing deal where the combination of character and product was actually completely appropriate — it wasn’t just a matter of sticking Chewbacca’s face on the Wheat Thins box or something like that. Since the roadrunner is an actual bird, “Roadrunner” wouldn’t be a terrible name for a sporty car even if the cartoon character didn’t exist, and the cartoon character was a completely suitable mascot for a muscle car, with his exaggerated speed and mocking car horn “hmeep hmeep.” I hate buzzwords like “synergy,” but it seems apt in this case.
And then there’s this.
I feel really silly I didn’t realize that that was the clock’s second hand I was referencing until now, I thought it was a 6000rpm tach with the 0 starting at the 12 o clock position! Turns out to me the tach is actually less confusing to look at than the standard clock is to interpret!
I always figured it Super B(body) was an enthusiast spin, frankly with Dodge using bumblebee stripes on Coronet R/Ts, Charger R/Ts, and Dart GTSs in 68 it wouldn’t surprise me if Superbee was just spun off of that affectation.
Beautiful car, I love it when a Mopar does well in a road test.
But even with the better instrumentation of the Dodge, (but how many guys who bought cars liked this, wanted a clock planted in the middle of the tach.) I still prefer the Plymouth B body.
To me the Plymouth looks like it was styled first and the Dodge made to look different just because.
The W shaped front of the Plymouth is just perfect to me anyway.
Regardless, they both have the best configuration of exhaust outlets of any car.
And the 383 numerals have a perfect look to them as well, I would have a 383 engine over a 440 just because of the way those numbers look.
Thanks for the story. In 69 as a 12 year old I thought the 69 Road Runners and the Super Bees were beyond cool. As fate would have it my first car was a 69 Bee, 383, Hurst 4 speed, buckets, all the options.