RUST TO RICHES SUPERBIRD RESTORATION

this time on graveyard cars mike hill and his son michael are going on a 4 000 mile road trip in their newly restored 1970s super bird but not before mark and the ghouls finish the job see the complete restoration as they document tear down rebuild paint assemble detail and drive taking this legendary nascar from broken down feeder to bird of prey and see the unprecedented reveal when the whole hill family and the original owner see the completed superbird for the first time on this episode of graveyard cars [Music] i'm mark warman and together with the most critical man in the world darren kirkpatrick give me a gun my son-in-law josh oh yeah and my best friend roy we bring dead muscle cars back to life to exactly the way they were on the day they were born if we don't kill each other it's gonna be a bloodbath [Music] the hills are in the office it's always stressful mike and jan and michael and the original owner of the car for the first time we're going to roll around the corner and show them this beautifully restored all original ew1 plymouth superbird last time they saw this car it was completely rotten from the frame rails up meaning the body panels the outer skins it was in a disarray that was barely even able to recognize that it was a super bird we expect a great reception as long as the car doesn't let us down when we go around the corner but right now if all goes up well and we continue on the way we are we should have an amazing reveal monkey where are i'm ready to you it yes sir hold on i've got to go a long time now here comes the cops it's been a long time oh wow nice i spent quite a bit of time on the phone with mike hill talking about the super bird i had a pretty good impression of what i was going to be getting when it showed up somebody had stripped it early in its life maybe back in the mid 70s and that's what caused all the decay on the outer part of the the body panels like the quarters and the doors and the fenders that kind of stuff the super bird first arrived here graveyard cars i was happy that it was all intact and it was complete but once i started looking at it i see the overall condition the cart was very part it's a very rustic rough car but looking around it and like looking underneath it it looks like the structural part is not in bad shape like the inner frame rails front frame rails rockers things like that look like they've survived good that's probably because they didn't get stripped to bare metal and set in a field like the outer part of the car did i get a lot of phone calls from people all over the country i get a lot of emails talking about the cars that they have the compelling part for me on the super bird was hey it's a real life super bird that it's a real live nascar it's in the registry of 1920 super birds that were made but the story behind it that this super bird and the other super bird that the hills have sat side by side in this field for all of their lives practically these cars to me were my ultimate muscle car mike had wanted a super bird from the time he was a little kid there was an urban legend in town that a guy had one whenever i would pass by this gentleman's house from the road you could just see the tips of the wings as you were coming by it was one of those things that where i said if i ever get a chance i was gonna to go over there and see if i could buy these cars however the urban legend also said that the guy that owned the car was a lunatic who would stick his dog on you and kill you if you went up and so much as knocked on the door and asked about them so mike never did we decided to build a daytona clone they got quite a ways on the daytona they got the rear body panel replaced on it from the 68 to the 69 they changed the side markers out so we get our parts together on the tail end of the car when it comes to the front of the car i have no idea how to hang this fiberglass nose on it so i discussed it with a guy that i met at the post office there's no gearhead buddy of mine he said you know what he said why don't you go around to the guy's house and show him that you're actually working on a wing car by taking your parts and you might have a chance to get in the look of his car and he did just that he collected the few parts that he had questions about got his son in the car and they went over to the guy's house sure enough he met me at the door he comes under the door says can i help you i go around to the back of my truck and i quickly grab the fiberglass nose cone hold it up to show him hey i've got parts here he says what can i help you with after mike explained to him it was a father-son project that they were working on together i think that softened the blow to the old man and he says yeah if you want to take some pictures go take some pictures we get out of the truck we start heading back to the woods and as i look back in the woods i see two super bird wings just as plain as day here yeah at the year 2007 and these cars are still in this guy's backyard undiscovered unrestored just sitting there i guess the guy that owned the cars really took a liking to michael and to his dad and the idea that they were working on a project together and i think they began to form a friendship out of that you know when we went to the truck i thanked him for his time i reached across the dash and i got one of my business cards and i also got a ten dollar bill that i had there in ashrae and i handed them both of them and i said hey i want you to keep this he said what's what's this for i'm giving you that 10 so you don't throw away my business card because i know these are your children and i know that they're you know they're yours and you want to keep them but if for any reason you ever decide you want to sell them i know that you know what you have here and i know what you have here those cars are very rare and they're worth a lot of money i'll be willing to give you your price for them and that's all i said we didn't talk price it was just i'll give you your price for them so after a few months out of the blue mike gets a phone call from the guy that owns the car saying are you still interested in these things i've considered selling you these cars under two reasons number one you don't take these cars and resell them he says because my second condition is you guys being a father-son team he says i want to see you end up with one bird and i want to see him end up with one bird mike made the promise and kept the promise and ended up getting the cars from him to this day he and i come to be really good friends he and michael and i go riding motorcycles together and we've developed a really good relationship so it was a really good feeling to come away from all of that not only with two superbirds but to know we've made a new friend here and that he's gonna see his kids come back to life all in all i'm glad that mark agreed to restore the super bird for the hills because they had such a heartwarming story behind the car not only about themselves but with the original owner of the car you know stories like mike's these are the fabrics that make up our life at least my life and the generation of the people that i hang out with and i grew up with i love that graveyard cars can go now and tell these stories and bring to life other people's history and other people's memories here's where all the big stuff is big stuff oh wow this is now going to be part of their lives for the rest of their life [Music] we've seen the superbirds arrival and learned of the incredible backstory behind this legendary muscle car the hill shared their story and why the car is so important to them next we need to document everything before we disassemble it [Music] today we're disassembling mike hill's 1970 plymouth superbird the guys won't be here for about an hour so that'll give me a chance to raise it up in the air do all of my documentation without being interrupted by them and their foolishness there's two things i'm looking for underneath there one is lynch road assembly line procedures and unique procedures for just the plymouth superbird and up here at the front on the k-member you see an x it's always nice to really go over these cars with a fine-tooth comb and see what exactly what markings and what not some of these cars have on them like finding a buried treasure you dig dig dig and find a little pot of gold or something then later on when the car is complete we'll actually duplicate those factory markings that we find and add the ones that are also missing that that x right there let somebody know something on the assembly line whether it was that the steering gear was in place or whether everything had been torqued or checked that x meant something having this knowledge being able to use this knowledge for my own use is very important but when somebody calls me up out of the balloon says dude i got a super bird and i got a big x on the cross member on the on the k frame you know what the big x is i don't actually know but i can document that mine has it too but maybe the super bird down the road didn't have it now we can say well why would one have an x and one not we might be able to go back and find options that would have supported why that x was there here's where all the big stuff is big stuff see the paint on the inside of that nose cone is running down that means it was upside down when they painted it and then here's the rivets those are great to know what the exact size of the rivet is so once we get that nose cone piece off of there we'll be able to determine what the width and the diameter and the exact length of those are and that would be the last two digits of the factory part number for the correct k-member for the 1970 plymouth superbird there's been a lot of documentation of all the cars over the years the super birds road runners kudas you know satellites gtx as you name it there are people dedicated to documenting guys like dave weiss who have dedicated an entire life and write books about the documentation of these cars but for me i want my own first-hand knowledge of it i want my own little database of it that's the fun part of my job what's happening chief are you good guys are on time right now we're going to disconnect everything on top of the engine that's needed so we can drop the engine transmission out one unit attached to the k-member like radiator hoses wires etc if someone can take the we could take that radiator out of there right now if somebody can disconnect the lines on the bottom you need a five-eighths and a half inch wrench it's been pretty cool so far it's been a handful putting up with darren well let derrick do that he hasn't done anything get down there derek we're we're getting through it we're going to live through it it's all good darren's a narcissistic lunatic okay he goes out and picks on my top guy derek starts beating him up saying you haven't paid your dues you haven't been around long enough you gotta you gotta be here longer who who are you look at me i'm the great aaron i'm part of the team and you're not and then i find out from the camera guys that he's taking a little siesta in the back darren apparently has a headache or he's playing the game so he's laying down in the office uh but that's fine uh us three guys can rock and roll and get the rest of this car apart i think the disassembly superberg went just fine um there's always a couple things that hang yet but all in all it went good you know i was training dairy geese and every step of the way he was getting better as he went on for as rusted out as this thing is i can't believe how fast we got the brake line and the gas tank out and it's all intact well so basically we just finished taking the car apart uh i still have to have the glass guys come out and remove the windshield in the back glass derrick's got a few more things he has to take off of it but i wanted to get it moved out of that area we're on a roll the 1970 plymouth superbird was available from the manufacturer in seven different colors true or false two of these colors were actually at no extra charge the answer coming up after the break so were two of the seven colors available on the 1970 plymouth super bird at no extra charge the answer is true the standard color was alpine white that meant all the birds were that color unless you ordered otherwise another color b5 blue fire was available at no extra charge that left corporate blue or petty blue lemon twist yellow limelight tour red and vitamin c if you were willing to spend the extra money visit graveyardcars.com to learn more the disassembly on the hills 1970 plymouth super bird went perfectly the body can now go up to the dipper the engine can go over to the machine shop and darren can go back to sleep now we gotta focus on bodywork panels and paint i work very closely with the body men as to what panels need to come off and how i want them taken off how i want them replaced and so in the case of the superbird i can get together with derrick and lucky and say listen this i need to have off i need to dissect it this way just going to put this part of the panel back on or we're just going to put this section in what we're working on today is putting a brand new door skin on our 70s super bird door shell this is a brand new auto metal direct door skin this is a replica of the original door skin you would have got from chrysler josh just gave us back the door shell it was media blasted down to the original bare metal all the rust was removed we have it treated on the inside and out and so he starts it folding over and then he once he has it starting to lean then he can get more aggressive and he's going to carry that on all the way around the door full 360 until that skin is married to it like it's supposed to be in the right shape then he's going to do his spot welds at that point that door will be united with a brand new door skin an original shell and we will have saved a good portion of that door you know one of the things that happens out here at a shop like ours is we don't have all the equipment the manufacturer had we can emulate the way it looks when it's finished but we fit it on there fit the quarter panel on there we put it in place we set a couple of set screws in it then we do the trunk trunk floor extensions kind of mock up all of the sheet metal get an idea if everything's square then we start pulling the pieces back off at the outer leave that one in that we know was good the trunk floor and that's where we start welding then we start putting the extensions on it wheel house is on it quarters on next thing you know you built out the car it's starting to look like a floor now that big one piece this again is the new auto metal direct floor it's a exact duplication of the factory one with all the factory provisions including the drains the hump for the shifter such an improvement over what we've had in the past to use on these cars they look good and they fit good of course they need work afterwards you know darren your bogart in the mic don't bogart the mic when it comes to one of the single stage colors like our ew1 alpine white on the super bird any of these colors that don't have metallics in them you can panel paint them that means that you don't have to have all the panels on the car and walk around it at one time and do the paint you have to with a metallic because metallics fall differently so in the case of the super bird that allows us whatever panels are done first we can start painting them yeah it's really important to me that the car leaves in just immaculate condition it's right because it's got my name all over it as well as everyone else here at graveyard cars a little while ago derek came and got me i needed to sign off on the jamming of the deck lid the doors and the hood so i did that he went ahead and painted those they came out really nice we've got them out here now now the car is in the booth i go in there and make sure that all the holes that are supposed to be there are there all the ones that aren't supposed to be there aren't there we got our squirter bottles and voltage regulator all our normals he doesn't know every hole that's supposed to be there and back in the 70s when these cars were driven people add a hole for attack wire they had one for an oil pressure wire so now's the time to fix it so that you're not going back and spotting in the paint actually what you should do is get a good bolt go into the mr moparts room and get the correct bolt and put it in there and go ahead and put bolts in here to keep these threads clean but they actually get painted with the battery tray you could even put the battery tray in it if you had it but it's so much easier to get paint everywhere right now but at least the fasteners if you put those in i would think you'd be doing it pretty darn right and they're pure painted and we're good to go yeah got my blessing buddy right on see ya final top had to be peeled back and the imperfections fixed michael you ready to hit the road yes sir our 70 super bird from mike hill is getting really close to paint work on it so i want to go over it with the guys go over the body inch by inch or you're talking about painting a car doing all the body and the paint work on a car it's a big motion it's a lot of money in materials it takes a lot of time to do it and so if something's wrong now is the time to find it before you actually do that paint work so i want you to look at frame rails floorboards inner and outer aprons upper and lower deck filler panels inside the roof cow panel inner cow panel firewall outer deck extension everything i got a spot that's darren's forte finding something wrong with something that's what he does that's his meal you if you will i'm good at this you know i seem to pick up a lot more imperfections than most people do but if they're pretty blatant imperfections i don't know why a lot of people can't see them you know you know wavy panels bolts missing mismatched misaligned panels and whatnot i think actually that's one of my better traits is looking for you knows doing the qc so we're good um you actually found a couple of things darren actually found a couple things that he didn't know about so so i mean eight sets of eyes 10 sets eyes 20 set sides more people look and the better it gets right [Music] the clients usually want the body and paint to look nice my kill i talked to him about this i said you know that these were really edgy not good from the factory because i don't want that i want it to be the nicest body and paint that you can do i want it to look in that one aspect better than it did at the factory because the factory really missed the mark they were mass-produced cars but now we can improve on it i think that we should [Music] so far we've looked at how the superbird came to graveyard cars the incredible story of the hills acquisition of the car and how much this super bird means to the father and son team the car has been disassembled documented panels replaced and or repaired to factory oem specs and now that most of the painting is done we can focus on the most iconic super bird pieces the wing and the nose so now that our super bird is all painted we're off to the booth to do the wing and the nose cone the plymouth super bird started life as a road runner okay and so certain conversions were made at a company called creative industries that's who did the nose cone conversion that's who did the hood conversion that's who added the wing and did the back window plug so the car was already painted when it went over there what they did over there was they tried to match it but what they used was a lacquer paint where the car was painted in enamel they used the lacquer paint so all of the time like on tony's car tony degascino's got a b5 blue uh super bird and his nose cone doesn't match the rest of the car even close so with the superbird what we try to do is make all of the paint good quality but tip our hat and make the nose and the wing and the scoops that go on the fenders off just a hair i think to the unknowing person it shows them what not you're going to say oh wow look at the paint it's a different color on the wing and the nose cone they don't know the people that don't know that i think it's going to be a bad thing you're going to have people at car shows that don't know what they're talking about you do it the right way and then if somebody hopefully asks instead of implies you've got an opportunity to educate that particular person today the guys and i are getting ready to marry together the engine transmission drive shaft torsion bars basically the drive train for the 70 super bird first we have to get it moved outside and washed the compound that we're cleaning off the super bird is uh is the product that we use when we do our wet sanding and our buffing when you finish painting a car has little imperfections in the paint has orange peel or texture to it and what we want to do is we want to wet sand all of that out so we usually start with like 1000 grit wet dry paper you flatten out the paint you get those impurities out of it and then you start massaging that out to about 3 000 with sandpaper so you start 1000 you go to 1500 2025 and then 3 000 then you buff it it's that compound that you use when you're buffing it that gets stuck in every door jam in your eyes all over your clothes inside the engine compartment trunk compartment so what we're doing is removing all of that compound before we come back inside with the car and start doing the polish on them reuniting the drivetrain in the super bird installing it is no different than if we were working on a cooter or a road runner or a charger we're getting ready to lower the car down onto the motor they're always a tight fit but with the shocks on there it's just something else we got to watch as it's going together it's always a pain when they're an rb engine the 440 is about an inch and a half wider at its widest point than say a 383 and considerably wider than a small block la engine like a 318 or 340. i got a problem with this manifold and the steering gear it's almost like the motor's got a roll to get it to fit up in there they're literally in some cases no room at all between the two shock towers and you have to manipulate the engine just a little bit to walk it past the shock towers i think can go to the right is what i was gonna say i think it's gonna be inevitable to scratch it it's not inevitable i just think if this comes over it'll clear okay well now it's clear that's why i was saying it just needed to come over this way um that's exactly what we'll have to do on the super bird that's what we've had to do on all the cars with the rv engines in them right here there's a lot to do in a complete restoration we can't be experts at everything that's why we have larry come do headliners for us larry he's been doing it forever so he's really good at it and even him inside that car can pull his hair out all day long trying to get a good tight drum type fit on that headliner so for me i would rather stick with what i really know like the body and the paint and making sure the the engines are right and transmissions are right make sure that they're dressed out right making sure the right parts are on it doing the history doing all those things that's why we sub it out the superworks take a plug that goes in the rear window opening and when the vinyl top was put on the car there was quite a few imperfections around where the plug was put in so the funnel top had to be peeled back and the imperfections fixed we couldn't tell exactly what the shape of that opening's supposed to be it's a metal plug that goes in fills up a portion of the upper deck filler panel smooths out and drops the back of the top off a little bit slower than the original one did you get the final top on it you can see that the upper edge around it is too sharp i got hold of tony d'agostino he sent me pictures of his survivor super bird and i could see that that area where ours is a real crisp line needed to be a bullnose line need to be a real soft transition so that meant peel the vinyl top back off reshape it primer it paint it and roll the vinyl top back down it sucks but you have to do it especially if you're picky about what you do you don't want to send something like that out and we'll still get her done as planned on time to be delivered so just a few extra hours a few extra nights a week no big deal i'll be in here slaving away making sure it gets done it's all about zen it's it's wusa you know what i'm saying relax don't do it put your body into it famous nascar driver richard petty made the plymouth superbird a household name back in the 70s what was the number on the side of the king richard's car was it 13 23 or 43 the answer is coming up after the break and don't go google or anything just you should know this so what was king richard petty's number on the side of his plymouth super bird the answer is number 43 known famously for the stp is one of his sponsors in the 43 the blue petty blue plymouth super bird became a household name back in the early 70s okay google when did richard petty retire visit graveyardcars.com to learn more the super bird is really coming together the body and paint are beautiful the rear window plug issue has been addressed along with the vinyl top now all is left are a few decals and this bird is ready to fly i mean you know obviously once we get it running it'll be ready to fly right now we're getting ready to put some pieces and parts on our super birds my guess would be and i don't have the exact answer but i would imagine that creative industries is the one that applied the large plymouth decal and the standing road runner bird because all these were unique to the super bird if they weren't i think the manufacturer would have done i think over at plymouth they would have probably put them on like the back deck lid stripe that goes on a 70 road runner that was normal on all the road runners that were coated with it right now i'm getting to do the most difficult part which is the blackout that goes on the headlight doors and around the headlight doors that's very unique to the super you know on the mopars it was weird some of the stripes were painted on some of them were decal the superbird they chose uses decals on the nose cone i think that's a way to save time and money it's always been a mystery to me what made chrysler decide when they were going to paint something on like on the 70 road runner you take the v21 hood blackout paint it on take a 70 charger paint it on but on a challenger the v21 is a big final graphic but i don't know what makes them decide when they're going to do it and when they're not going to do it in the case of the super bird why not do one of the other if you know you're going to have this reveal around where the headlights go that are going to have to be blacked out and the headlights are going to be blacked out why not just mask off the rest of it and shoot the whole thing on there so i don't know all those answers but i know that when it comes to the actual vinyl graphics the reason they couldn't take a full vinyl graphic and wrap it and fill that area that needed to be painted that i had to paint is because you'd never gonna get the side of that graphic to go up to the opening and roll down a quarter of an inch and actually stay there [Music] right now we're getting ready to fire up the super bird that means we've got to top off all the fluid levels transmission oil uh antifreeze we're putting fuel in it we just got a new uh line of fuel here from renegade gonna give it a try it's 98 octane so hopefully the engine runs like it should back in 1970. cars back in the 60s and 70s were made to run on a higher octane fuel they had a higher compression ratio the technology the car's not as good at that point in time the cars now they detonate they don't run as good on the lower octane fuels the ethanol stuff that's in the fuel now i usually compensate as much as i can in the engine to make sure that it can handle today's fuels and still run well but you can't you know you'd have to drop the engine down eight and a half to one from the original ten and a half to one to really get it to run the way they want it to on today's fuel uh it's just easier to do an octane booster and a premium gas i think fire no tire you'll see these cars when they first start them up on a lot of these car shows they start them up and they run them and the car's barely idling you're not supposed to idle a car when it's first started you're supposed to run it so long for that cam breaking and whatnot they don't want to show that it's out of time they've got spark plug wires on wrong it's not getting fuel or whatnot we try to show really what goes on when you start an engine let's just double check the firing order to be sure i just like to be sure because if it backfires like hell and you blow something out of it all because you were too lazy to double check the firing order that's the wrong reason [Applause] when mark got it started it sounded really nice i couldn't even hear it i was in the other room i couldn't hear it when it started you know i've had a lot of people comment over the years on my dance moves out there frankly to be honest it wouldn't surprise me if dancing with the stars got hold of me and asked me to be on there i probably would accept if that's if that's what you're wondering but would require to dance with cheryl burke i think we'd probably be you know i'm sure you people have realized by now that mark's not right in the head and when he starts this crazy dance when he thinks something has went well for some reason his dancing ends up turning into boxing and he usually wants to box me for some reason i have no idea why he does that except he's not right in the head it bursts out of me like tourette's do you remember last time when uh mike hill was here you told me you were going to be really good shape yeah and i'm not in the greatest shape of my life okay i could still knock a lung loose i hit you so fast you don't see it coming you see it coming back that's all you see it's pretty bad he gets tired shadow boxing himself when you're winding down the last few steps on these cars there's always a lot of little detail i would imagine that there was a department at the assembly plant that did all the fine tuning all the making sure that the doors open and closed the way they're supposed to make sure that the fit and the finish was right making sure the the hood pins were adjusted right and the gaskets were in place and if they didn't leak water and they didn't leak oil and all those little things so that's just something we do we just do it manually here they may have had a whole system implemented there because they were turning out you know hundreds of cars a day but that's just a natural part of finishing one of these cars is having a punch list going through it making sure everything meets your standard and moving on to the next step when it comes to putting on the label kits there's a range of places that these decals can go like the vin label on the door you could probably take a photograph of 20 different superbirds and it ranges up and down it probably by inches i mean maybe in some cases six inches if you put it on in an area that as long as it is within the perimeter of where it should be then there's no really there's nobody that can say it's wrong it's just your photo would show that it's not in the right place you still have the human error the human element when these decals are put on the cards we're not all put on exactly the same because if this guy put on a little bit crooked this guy put on crooked this way i used photos i called guys like tony diagocino say can you take a picture of your mission label underneath the hood so i can look at that to me i think that the decals are the funnest part of the whole job i mean driving them and enjoying it and seeing all the water works from the owners when they come and they're bawling all over the place telling you you're the man is all fun but to me putting those last few decals on the jacking instructions the ethylene glycol warning label the door vent the emission decal the stuff that goes up underneath the dash hanging that little thing on the end of the turn signal your starting instructions or the sleeve that goes over the visor that tells you how to start it all these things i think are the finishing touches almost like that that cherry on the top of the sundae that makes the whole entire package beautiful right now we've got just a few more things left on it not much at all like i say derek has a little bit of paint touch-up to do under the hood the main thing i want now is this car's completely drivable it ran through the gears on the hoist i'll just feel good if i can go around the block and back in it make sure that everything's basically functioning then we can wrap it up in the morning and wait for my kill to show up it's like a brand new car like the rusty car never existed in here it's brand new and just roll it off the showroom floor 10 days and 14 hours on the road almost 4 000 miles from rusted to resurrected this 1970 superbird has seen an amazing transformation and now it's time for the hills to lay eyes on their beloved 1970 plymouth superbird for the first time in two years and the first time the car has ever been seen with pain on it in over three decades i'm ready to see it yes sir turn hold on i've got a good amount of time here it comes here comes in a long time oh wow nice nice wow that is fantastic wow that is fantastic yeah that thing is going to look beautiful nice yeah man i'm going to tell you what oh amazing beautiful nice that's beautiful mark i'm going to tell you a whole wow what we were hoping for market is it is beyond my expectations that's fantastic it's way beyond my expectations nice nice nice that's good so what do you think baby love it baby mark that is great that's fantastic let me tell you about glad you're happy made me a happy man that's awesome oh it's beautiful yeah i see you sizing me up the whole time and and i think you actually have me in thickness if that's a good thing that's not fair now hey i told mike that the next time i saw him that i would be in better shape than i was and i think that i am i don't know what he expected to see okay he's back there in shangri-la south carolina living the life you know let's see him come run a collision restoration business i see him come over and run a television show let's see him handle 17 employees at the same time all trying to to poke the time clock you know very good looking good guys that's great awesome i really really am glad that car is so beautiful and mike loves it as much as i do he's gonna keep it forever and his son will probably pass off to his children and this it just means a lot to me no the car will last forever you know and the work that's been done on it it's just amazing what they've done it was a total disaster when they brought it in here and these guys made it like brand new and uh i was really happy for them really really happy yeah you got it oh my god i gotta get a picture i get one to have the 2014 state figure champion of south carolina set up on the on the spoiler just like they used to in the old days you know when mike put jen up on the super bird wing it reminded me of pictures from the old days where a lot of people actually take their girlfriends and put them up on the wings it was just a neat thing it was just neat to see that yeah home sweet home you look beautiful nice mark this is beautiful i'm going to tell you what are you excited about driving it i am ready i am holding i can tell by looking at you oh yeah nice well the keys are in the ignition my friend go for a little drive and tell us what you think come on guys bring the whole family harry included let's get this puppy to go for a ride all right guys you ready ready here we go here we go you can turn on the radio you'll hear me yoga sound good don't they oh yeah yes they do this is nice nice keep it in a little gear so it sounds good that's right what do you think michael you like it yeah you want one [Music] that's right oh she's running good [Music] okay or not always scary how'd it do oh it did great man it did great good really did fantastic what do you think pal excited it was truly a great moment here and i'm not just saying that to have harry the guy that bought the car brand new show up and look the car over and give it his blessing well i bought it back in late 1970. they were going for like 45 4 600 i got it for 38. you couldn't get insurance once nobody financed it they cashed so now i got that and i drove it back and forth from south carolina to texas when i was in the air force put a lot of miles on it and i went to vietnam and snapped a couple years came back started going to college my girlfriend was like 200 miles away back then gas was like 29 cents a gallon i still wouldn't make much money but still you know drove it and i really enjoyed it and then uh probably around 76 or seven i decided i was gonna do stuff to it cam shaft intake headers and pretty much made the car undrivable and that's when i pretty much parked it i mean it felt terrible the car looked so bad i mean i've had hundreds and hundreds of people come up wanting to buy them but people just bugged the heck out of you cause everybody wouldn't make a dollar off of it you know and so i just pushed you back in the woods i knew about these cars since i was in high school uh when i would drive by harry's house i could see the wings of these cars in the backyard or in his front yard and as we came by i always have loved these super birds i finally uh started working on a clone because i never thought i'd be able to afford one the friend of old drag race buddy of mine i hadn't seen for years told mike you know come over and mention his name so mike did it might was just a nice guy right off the bat you know he wouldn't act like everybody else my son and i took our parts around to harry's house and showed him that we were working on a wing car he says hey you know what he says come back and take a picture of the ones i've got you can find out how your parts go on my son and harry struck off a good conversation my son is very respectful good straight a student he and harry hit it off real well they started talking about motocross riding it's really good to see him in the sun together they had a great relationship and i really didn't have a good relationship with my father when i was coming up and uh it just did something to me you know seeing them like that mike told me he would never sell him he would always you know cherish him and drive him and he would take better care of him than i did when it was in the backyard it was really really rusty falling apart and and i felt real bad about condition i let the car fall down into and seeing it like this i'm just amazed at what they've done to it you know it's just it's like it's a brand new car like the rusty car never existed in here it's brand new and it's rolling off the showroom floor and they're tricking me or something i don't know it's just amazing two cars sitting side by side now just like they did for years sitting out in that field sitting out in the air conditioning shop i am 100 happy with the way mark and his team handled this car it is beyond what i expected i never thought the car would turn out this well i was almost afraid to drive it for what we've got here but it's just so nice but you know i bought it and brought it to mark to make the driver out of it and we're getting to take it three thousand miles as soon as we leave here yeah you ready to take that first leg buddy huh so did it do good very good it did great i am i am ecstatic about that it drove perfect i love it i can't wait my hat's off to you the whole team and this car coming together the way it has yeah that made us happy very good thank you very much thank you buddy yeah thank you man first off there is no perfect car when they're restored i think the super bird turned out very good did it turn out perfect no were there flaws imperfections yes but overall consider what that car came in here like it turned out very very very good derek nice to meet you buddy thank you so much for uh working the hard parts out on this car time line that you had you really i know you pulled the midnight oil on this one you burnt some midnight oil on this one didn't you morton i'm sure i'm sure michael you ready to hit the road yes sir we got seven and ten days to get home i'm gonna let you take the first leg all right yeah i'll see you all in seven to ten days i love you you be careful right there gary yeah man you were the official you were the official escort for my wife okay all right good luck good to see you all right all right everybody yes sir y'all have a have a good flight see you later clean it out nice thank you mark hard running really well there you go so where you want to hit first well i figure if we head down to california coast we're going to know oregon coastline we're going to hit california we're going to run the coastline down uh right along the beach kind of taking as many sights there maybe we can hate you know i heard they do some sand dune riding out there yeah you know i know how you like to ride motocross what do you think about doing that yeah to know that their journey with the car back home begins now and knowing that it won't end there that this is now going to be part of their lives for the rest of their lives and generations to come pretty much solidifies when i say that i am the dream maker that i am the sandman you know don't say mr sandman bring me a dream say mr warman bring me a dream if you need me to duck down if you see any really pretty girls and you need me to duck down uh at least we got room yeah watch your young boy i am 100 happy where i'm at so mike and michael i think it was uh 10 days and 14 hours on the road almost 4 000 miles they drove that super bird from springfield oregon all the way home to sumner south carolina it's always nice to build a car to the owner the superbird there was a big build up on this because they're actually going to drive the car back home which put a lot of extra pressure on us yes i was very happy when the car was revealed i was very worried for the return drive home truly for me and i think for anybody who's ever restored one of these cars or done a customer's car in general the most rewarding thing in the world is to find out their home and in one piece i mean they stopped in the redwoods down in california just beautiful stuff they went to santa monica pier they uh they stopped at every tourist site grand canyon all the way back home that's a trip of a lifetime between mike and mike you know dad and dad and son it's something they'll probably never repeat it in their lifetime it's something that we the rest of us dream about next time on graveyard cars mark and the team check out a legendary daytona but will it be too far gone to save or is the rest of the car the cook's 1970 barracuda is racing for the finish line that ain't right and mark's original equipment loyalty is tested when the dailies want to install an aftermarket suspension from magnum force [Music] these are effects you can't drive you had to change all the suspension so you could drive this car is that it uh no on the next episode of graveyard cars

Channel: Graveyard Carz

Views: 34,454

Rating: 4.8487396 out of 5

Keywords: Graveyard Carz, TV Show, Mopar, Chrysler, Dodge, Discovery Channel, MotorTrend, Restoration, Muscle Car, American, The Office, Christine, Mark Worman, Allysa Rose, Will Scott

Id: eiyVVQU-rqE

Length: 43min 39sec (2619 seconds)

Published: Tue May 04 2021