1970 Plymouth Superbird. Geoff Stunkard

version of the Galaxie XL with a restyled roof shape and sloped rear roofline. Although it was not a true fastback to the rear valance, this fastback execution was for the direct benefit of downforce at circle track speeds. Credit therefore deserves to be given to this Total Performance 1963½ Galaxie and the associated Mercury Marauder as the first true hint of what became the 1960s aero-wars between Ford and Chrysler.

      Chrysler actually had taken a different tack. The Dodge and Plymouth B-Body designs had been revised for 1964, featuring a narrower, lower, and shorter profile than the full-size Ford. They also featured flush grille work and a backswept rear cab design fitted with either slanted or curved glass. Because no other formal roofline was offered beyond a hardtop or pillarless coupe layout, there was no declaration of the car’s inherent aero efficiencies. However, the history of Chrysler in NASCAR for 1964 and the legacy of the new 426 Hemi might have been a bit different had these things not been coupled to that engine’s introduction.

       Don White’s newly released fastback 1966 Dodge Charger was perhaps the first to truly benefit from subtle changes learned by the Special Vehicles Group. (Ray Mann Photo, Courtesy Cal Lane)

      The differences became a source of contention between the companies as well as the sanctioning body. At the end of 1964, France decided to ban the Hemi as a non-production engine as well as force Chrysler to run full-size bodies. Householder called his bluff and boycotted the series for 1965. After France relented due to the Street Hemi’s upcoming release, Ford boycotted NASCAR for part of 1966. Nevertheless, the aero wars continued.

      In 1966, Dodge released a new fastback model called the Charger, which did take the rear cab slope literally to the back bumper. The problem was lift. Because the air sailed directly off this surface, the air wanted to pull the back of the car off the ground at higher speeds. The solution was a small deck-mounted spoiler that created enough downforce to address the problem. It gave Sam McQuagg’s Charger a victory at Daytona’s Firecracker 400 that summer and David Pearson won the 1966 Grand National championship. The Plymouth Belvedere, such as the one Richard Petty drove, appeared to be a box on wheels. However, it could be “raked” to help downforce, and held its own well. Petty won the Daytona 500 in the rain the previous winter.

       Richard Petty’s Belvedere won the 1967 Grand National title; shown here in restored form outside at the Petty Museum. (Photo Courtesy Quartermilestones.com)

      By now, Chrysler had begun studying scientifically provable aerodynamic ideas. Working in a Special Vehicles Group started in 1964 under Larry Rathgeb, John Pointer left the company’s missile group and government work to join them. Bob Marcell arrived from the aerospace research lab at the University of Michigan. George Wallace, who possessed a brilliant mind and who played a pivotal role in this era of Chrysler’s racing effort, was also there, along with Dick Lajoie, John Vaughn, and others.

      Even though the 1967 Belvedere did not appear as slick as the Fords or Dodges, with gentle massaging here and there, it was slick enough, and Richard Petty was plenty talented. He won 27 races that season, including a string of 10 consecutive, and sealed the legacy of King Richard in NASCAR lore. Petty won the championship, Dodge won 5 other race titles, and Jim Paschal won 4 more for Plymouth, giving Chrysler 36 wins on the 49-race tour.

WIND TUNNELS

      With superspeedway speeds now requiring more direct understanding, especially about what occurred during drafting (when cars were close together at more than 170 mph), the company decided to begin aero-testing in two facilities. The scaled-down wind tunnel at Wichita State University in Kansas and Lockheed’s full-size aircraft development tunnel in Georgia were rented, and the first cars involved were the 1968 models of the Charger and the Road Runner.

      The stylists were rightly proud of their new Charger, with its inset and blacked-out grille, which looked like a big spaceship intake. To make room for the trunk, the rear window slanted steeply off the roofline between two long roof-to-body extensions. From the side, they made the car appear to be a fastback. The wind tunnel work showed that the grille was indeed a big scoop, and gave the Charger a lift rate of 1,250 pounds as air tried to escape from underneath the car. Meanwhile, the back window, with its flying buttress edges, caused air to shoot upward off the surface, working (quite literally) to pull the rear wheels off of the ground.

      Bob McCurry, who headed Dodge at the time, wanted a winner. The stylists were not happy with seeing their work changed, but in spring 1968, McCurry approved a redesign called the 1969 Charger 500. This used a 1968-type Coronet grille to make the front of the car flush and a plug along with a much smaller deck lid to angle the rear window to the same angle that the bodyline flowed from the roof. The name was given for two reasons. The first was for its debut at Daytona for the 1969 season. The second was that the Automobile Competition Committee for the United States (ACCUS), the governing body of motorsports rules making, stated that a minimum quantity of 500 units of a given model must be built to be legal.

       The new 1969 Charger 500 with its fastback window was announced in mid-1968 for a debut at the 1969 Daytona 500; the Fords proved to be a bit quicker and Dodge returned to the drawing board. Tim and Pam Wellborn formerly owned this Hemi example. (Photo Courtesy Quartermilestones.com)

       The 1969 Ford Talladega was the reason Richard Petty made a one-season switch to Ford blue. Otherwise, Plymouth would not have committed the resources in late 1969 to build a truly competitive race car. (Photo Courtesy Quartermilestones.com)

      For Richard Petty, 1968 proved to be a somewhat bittersweet follow-up to his dominating 1967 season. Ford released a new fastback called the Torino; Mercury offered an associated model named Cyclone. With less frontal area than Chryslers, they were slick enough to dominate most of the year. The wind tunnel work on Petty’s 1968 Road Runner showed that it was competitive thanks to its own flush grille and rear window. Therefore, when the Charger 500 was announced in June, he asked Plymouth what they planned to do for 1969.

      The response was, “Nothing.” Plymouth felt that the Road Runner was already a good fit and believed that Petty could still win in it. Ford, meanwhile, had just announced and received ACCUS approval for a newly designed aero styling package for the Torino called Talladega, named for a new NASCAR track Bill France was constructing in Alabama. This car (and companion Cyclone Spoiler) took the functionality a step further, with a deliberately dropped and extended nose and smoothed-out rear cab design.

      Petty was now more alarmed and requested to move to Dodge to run a Charger 500 for the upcoming season. Neither Dodge, who had enough big-name drivers already, nor Plymouth, who frankly had no other big-name drivers, were interested in this change. Phone calls were made to Dearborn, contracts were let, and at the end of the 1968 season, Petty Enterprises announced that the number 43 would be on a Ford for 1969. Plymouth had no back-up plan for this consequence.

WINGS AND “THE SUMMER OF ’69”

      For Bob McCurry, it was the hope that Dodge could finally win the Daytona crown. He had a car, the Charger 500. He had four drivers: Bobby Isaac in the Harry Hyde #71, Buddy Baker in Ray Fox’s #3, Cotton Owens’s #6 driven by Chargin’ Charlie Glotzbach, and Paul Goldsmith in Ray Nichels’s shop car #9. Alas, LeeRoy Yarbrough, in a Torino Talladega owned by