Rest in peace Bruce.................

OMG - the Superbirds!

Just snipped it so others wouldn't have to do a download (NOT complaining!)

I wonder how many of those cars are still around? Now, where's that time machine?

An Dr. acquaintance at that time had a 71 Hemi Cuda 4 spd loaded to the gills ( pun intended) 39K original miles, never touched other than by the dealer, couldn't give it away for 5500.00. I think he finally sold it for 4500.00. I often wonder where it wound up.

I was 19 in 1979. I worked at a Plymouth dealer part time doing new car prep. On the back of the lot was “ gas guzzler row “. I pickup up a 69 GTX for 1100 and a 71 Charger R/T for 750. I remember seeing a wing car locally selling for 7500. Might as well been a million to me. That was huge money. So they were just as unattainable then for me.

Yep..in some respects it’s all relative, and nobody had a crystal ball. There is a well known Seattle transmission guy that bought quite a few hemi cars in the 70’s for very little. I didn’t have money to speculate like that back then, and I doubt I would have brought them then anyway. Just like when I didn’t load up on MSFT in the late 80’s.

Interesting seeing the ad for the 2 hemi Superbirds. I remember one of those phone numbers from ads I’d see in the classified section of the Chicago Tribune in the late ‘70s (the 312 area code number, that was the Chicagoland area code).
He’d advertise a Superbird for $6500. If memory serves he advertised another car too for the same price, maybe an A12 car. The ads ran for a long time.
That was huge money for any muscle car at that time, I thought he was nuts.
I was actually looking for a hemi E body in the ‘82 timeframe when I was in college. I had a budget of $5000 or so, and with college and 2 part time jobs I wasn’t in a position to travel all over the country looking. I was limited to something I could drive out to go see and return in one day. Only one car turned up then I was able to see. A hemi Challenger in Wisconsin with a mediocre quality paint job, mags and some other minor flaws, I offered $5000 for it but the guy got a better offer.
Contrary to todays folk stories, cars like wing cars, hemis and T/A-AARs were not just “used cars” you could find parked at corner gas stations with for sale signs in the late 70s and early 80s selling cheap, they already were of interest to collectors. At least that’s how it was in my area. I was always keeping my eyes peeled for cudas and Challengers then. I looked for months before finding my T/A in late ‘78.
I bought a Challenger V code in 82 for $1250 that had a 383 in it, in primer and missing a lot of parts, that I ended up not having the time or resources to restore. And a loaded 71 cuda 340 in 83 for $1900, low miles original owner but had been repainted and had a lot of bondo in it. When I took it to a body man to fix up and repaint it, he told be to get rid of it after looking it over. Floors were rusting along with frame rails. The original owner used it to commute back and forth to the train station daily and even though it only had 29,000 miles, the salt it was exposed to had already ruined it!

Yep, I started HS in 79, those were our HS cars. The second gas crunch was at that time and everyone was dumping gas guzzlers. The summer job I had at the time paid me $1.00 and hour, my paper route paid me a dollar a customer a month, I could afford a bicycle, lol.

The week I turned 16, in October 1979, the MD/DC/VA Want Ad had two Superbirds listed for $7000 each. Might as well have been a million. I paid $300 for my first '67 Fury a couple of weeks later.

A good friends dad's good friend sold his over the phone in the mid or late 80's for $65,000. It was white, I dont think it had billboards or roof, just all white.

Anyone else notice that AAR in the ad was being sold by Bruce Lietski, the pro golfer?

I came across a old news paper from 1970, It had the classifieds and i looked threw it. There was a ad for a Superbird/Daytona(don't remember witch) but the guy was selling because he was going to Vietnam. Wonder if he made it back alive?

a buddy of mine gave me an add around this time frame, from the pittsburgh, post-gazette [r.i.p.] for a 63 or 64 max wedge car, complete, ran 11's, and had a spare aluminum nose.
"asking" price : $2500.00, O.B.O.
like the duma$$ i am, i didn't follow through.................

In 82' I paid $4650 for my 78' SE Trans Am. Next year tripped across a very nice 68 RR and the guy wanted $4500. Heck, it might as well have been $45,000. Those prices don't look bad today and we think, wow. But at the time, most of us didn't have that money sitting in the bank. Heck, I could buy 4-5 of them now at that money but guess what, they ain't selling for that today.

I remember seeing the ad in Hemmings back in 1979 & seeing the Lietzke AAR ad. I had also noticed the Magnum ad with his AAR in the background a year earlier. I didn't have the $$ for his AAR, but I REALLY wanted to give him a call & just talk with him! It seemed unreal to see him list his phone and the ad! He was a bigtime PGA winner back then, & became my favorite pro golfer. A few years ago, sadly he succumbed to brain cancer. He was a real gearhead.