Al Boughton paid $135,000 for his 1970 Plymouth Superbird seven years ago and what a kick it was, driving the most high-winged, cone-nosed, eye-popping, breath-stealing muscle car ever fashioned in Detroit, with its 450-horsepower V-8 and beep-beep Road Runner horn. In fact, last September, he realized it was so good, he had to make it perfect, and perfection meant returning it exactly to original form, just as it had left the Lynch Road, Mich., assembly line in 1969.
With the stripped chassis trussed to a rotisserie at Davies Autobody in Etobicoke, he pointed to the firewall as an example of measures taken over these last nine months. "Looking into the engine compartment, the firewall looked fine," he said.
"As soon as you lay down on the floor, you could see where it had been patched where the air-conditioning had come into the car. If you're a purist and you see a patch hacked like that, 'Mmmm,' you think, 'what else has been hacked?' We replaced the firewall."
The Superbird's 15th owner is a sleuth for details, which makes him confident that the 31,250 miles showing on the 45-year-old odometer is an accurate reading. Likewise, he knows it's a true story, that the eighth owner of the car suffered from narcolepsy to the point he feared falling asleep at the wheel while running 150 miles an hour.
"This is probably the best-documented Superbird in the world," he said, leafing through a six-inch-thick binder.
Mauro Brocca serves as project manager. Once painted in original Tor-Red acrylic at Davies, the Superbird would be assembled at Brocca's Performance Car Restorations in Oakville.
Runs in the underbody paint must remain, Brocca said, the paint needs to be dull. "What the factory did, with all its imperfections, we restore," he said. "That's a true restoration. Everything else is just a paint job."
Boughton estimated work will total $100,000. Mechanical components, perfected earlier, $35,000. Interior, $40,000. "So you've got $300,000 in it, but one sold for $575,000 in Florida last year, and this car is better-documented. If it's not the best in the world, it's certainly in the top three."
To think there were no takers at the $4,804 MRSP in 1970. Too fast on the race track, too slow in the showrooms was the sad, short story of the Superbird and its Dodge Charger Daytona twin, banned by NASCAR after it dominated the 1970 stock car championship and axed by Chrysler for lack of customers.
But a 17-year-old Boughton was blown away watching them race on Wide World of Sports, and encountering them at an Etobicoke dealership. "So ugly, it's beautiful," he said.
Unsold, this car collected dust at Brinkley Plymouth Chrysler in Thomasville, N.C., from December, 1969, through May, 1971, until wily Bobby Brinkley transferred ownership to his daughter's fiancé, Robert Paxton of Winston-Salem, collecting a sizable sales rebate from Chrysler without actually having made a sale. Four years and 16,804 miles later, the winged warrior returned to Brinkley's books.
He parked it in a tobacco barn. And maybe Brinkley was playing the long game, for the dodo bird of 1970 was increasingly in demand and Rob Boston, of High Point, N.C., paid $6,000 in 1983, to become the first real owner.
Then Garry Garren, of Welford, S.C., showed up at Boston's store with $18,000 in cash in 1988 and, from that point on, the Superbird's value took flight.
Last summer, Boughton drove to cruises, not worrying about paint chips or wear. Now, it'll be trailered to the Mopar Nationals at New Hamburg, Ont., in August, Cobble Beach Concours d'Elegance near Owen Sound, Ont., in September, and major American concours to follow.
"My wife would say I'm anal; I'd say it's attention to detail. Boom-boom-boom I can source a hard-to-find part – in business, I'm the same with my trailers."
His Trailcon Leasing Inc. leases or rents 7,000 trailers and manages another 8,000. A new head office on Spar Road in Brampton, Ont., opened last month; Trailcon also has offices in Calgary, Edmonton and Cornwall, Ont.
"I like the car's rarity," Boughton said. "Only 1,920 were made, they say maybe 660 exist today. In collector cars, rarity equals value.
"And know what, I've got nine cars in my garage but the Superbird is the one that starts conversations."
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