The Indy World of Wheels certainly has a lot of cars but it has even more car stories. Classic Auto’s Drew Yagodnik hits the floor to collect these tales that recall the funny, incredible and touching memories of what the cars and their owners have seen. It usually paints a very colorful picture. Like this interview with Bob where Drew gets the scoop on his awesome yellow 1969 Dodge Daytona and an intriguingly shiny 1970 Plymouth Roadrunner Superbird.
Surfs Up!
Despite the canary yellow paint job, the 1969 Daytona is a muscular-looking machine. Bob buys the Daytona because of its low mileage, not to mention – Dodge only makes 500 of these Chargers back in the day. Everything about the car is original – the engine, tranny, body parts, everything. Quite the find. He also meets the original owner – a lady who tells him stories about heading to the beach in this beauty with surf boards hanging out the back. Imagine how groovy this vibrant yellow car looks against the background of the bright blue ocean …
Sammy Hagar Couldn’t Drive 55 Either
Bob is thorough about cleaning his cars and makes sure to leave no part untouched. One day while cleaning his Daytona, Bob reaches up under the dash and pulls out a piece of paper. What does he discover? “It’s a 1970 speeding ticket her husband never told her about,” Bob tells us, “and I still have it.” The husband could have hidden it from his wife. Can you blame him?
Sweet Home Alabama, Indeed
As Bob is fond of pointing out, he doesn’t just collect cars to have them sitting around in his garage or to fix them up just for a sale. He collects them to drive them. He is known to take these eye-catching cars on cross-country road trips, even as far as Alaska.
Shortly after restoring the Daytona, Bob decides to hit the road and head to Mobile, Alabama. While there are certainly stories about Mobile, the best story is told while on the way home. Bob stops at a filling station to gas up, which happens about every 100 miles with cars like these. A man approaches and asks him if he would stay just a little while longer – he wants to run home to get his son, so he could see the Daytona. Bob simply couldn’t refuse. Turns out, the man’s son is autistic and doesn’t speak. But the boy runs his hand over the wing of that big yellow car and begins to cry. “I’m not a real emotional guy, but I will tell you, so did I,” Bob remembers. “Mom and Dad and me and the little boy are just in Heaven. That’s what makes these cars fun.”
A Superbird of Many Colors
For now, Bob’s 1970 Plymouth Roadrunner Superbird looks like a shiny silver bullet. This is not always the case. It is originally manufactured with a vinyl top and is a Lemon Twist yellow. The people who buy it demand that Plymouth replace the vinyl top and paint the car Petty Blue. After a year, they paint the car dark blue. The Superbird goes through several more owners before becoming the pace car for the Birmingham International Raceway. It is owned by a guy named James Cash at the time, who sells it to Terry Sevener –known as The Hippy Drag Racer-who races the car in Arkansas and Missouri. After Mr. Sevener’s passing, Bob buys the Superbird from his estate.
You Can Do What You Want
The car is in pretty bad shape, including the paint, and Bob wants to make it his everyday driver. So, what does he do? He has the entire ’Bird Plasti Dipped, which is an air-dry rubber coating, giving the car its strangely shiny, rubbery appearance. The collector community purists howled. “Although I catch a lot of garbage, I’m willing to take it. It’s my car,” Bob explains. “It’s got to be the only Plasti Dipped Superbird in the world.” And it certainly looks like one-of-a-kind.
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