Media post: The real reason the Plymouth Superbird’s wing was so huge
One of the wildest vehicles to ever come out of Detroit was the Plymouth Superbird. With a wedge-shaped nose and a monstrous rear-mounted wing, the Superbird was a very unusual looking car. Today, it is still the subject of frequent conversation and a common topic involves the size of the rear wing. Car enthusiasts have wondered for years why the rear wing was mounted so high on the rear trunk and the conventional answer to that question is “so the trunk can be opened.” As it turns out, that answer is wrong. Before we explore the real reason that the rear wing was mounted so high, let’s take a look at why the Superbird was made.
Many people don’t know that the Plymouth Superbirds really existed for one reason only and the folks at Patrick Autobody of Schaumburg, IL, a factory-certified body shop, nailed the answer. It was to win Nascar races. Back in the day, winning at Nascar was a massive promotional event that could sell a lot of cars. Most of the big manufacturers wanted to race there. However, in order to compete at Nascar the rules stated that you had to drive a car that was “available to the general public.” The Superbird was basically a Plymouth Road Runner that designers added an aerodynamic nose-cone, smoothed out the body, and added a rear wing – a very large rear wing – and you could buy it from any Plymouth dealer.
If you take a look at a photo of an original Superbird, you can’t miss the huge wing mounted high off the trunk. Today a popular “fact” is that the rear wing was mounted so high so the trunk could be opened. This concept is even repeated in the Wikipedia article on the Superbird. However, the designer of the car and its companion car, the Dodge Daytona, says it had nothing to do with the trunk being able to open. Myth busted.
The designer of the Plymouth Superbird and Dodge Daytona was John Pointer. Pointer was a genuine rocket scientist who came over from Chrysler’s missile division (Yes, Chrysler had one) and was asked to make the 1968 Dodge Charger “go faster.” When told he could do anything he wanted, he drew a picture of the car and added two items: a nosecone on the front and a giant wing on the trunk. Pointer was also the engineer tasked with making the first prototypes of the wing, and he spent quite a bit of time at the Chelsea Proving Grounds refining it.
Years later when Pointer was asked why he went with such a tall wing, he said it was simple, “To put it into clean air.” When asked him about the trunk-opening theory, he stated, “Who cared about the trunk? They had asked him to make the car go fast.” So, the Dodge Daytona and Plymouth Superbird wings were not placed absurdly high simply so the trunk would open fully. It was simply put there to get it into clean air. The fact that the trunk also happened to open at the height is happenstance.
