1970 Dodge Coronet Superbee
Story by: Randy Rohde
Growing up like most young boys I was always excited by flashy cars, blurring speed, burning tires, and screaming engines. Now as an adult, it was time to experience the excitement first-hand. Growing up in a small rural farming and ranch town in South Texas, the opportunity for Mopar Muscle excitement was rare. For my generation, Mopar was not really on anyone’s radar until Dominic Torretto launched his 1969 Charger off in the first “Fast and the Furious” movie. In 2012, my Mopar interest peaked and the decision was made when my dad paraded around in his latest hobby car, a 1970 Plymouth Roadrunner. It was then that I felt, I must find that screaming, tire shredding flashy Mopar that was my “WOW.”
The decision to find a 1969 or 1970 B-body was conveniently influenced by my father having two B-bodies that we could easily trade parts on and create family projects that will span generations. I chose the 1970 Dodge Coronet Superbee because it was different, rare, and made a bold statement as the leader of the Dodge Scat Pack. I initially thought the body style was odd, but once I really looked at the car; I started to see the mean machine inside with the scowling front bumper hoops and sweeping shapely lines over the rear fenders. The choice was confirmed by my wife, Staci, who surprised me with favoring the Superbee over the more popular Chargers and Cudas. The 1970 Superbee purely screams “muscle car” like no other of its time and now it was my time to find ours.
I searched the nation via Ebay, Craigslist, Classic Auto Trader, You Tube and other websites to find little that met my search criteria. After about a year of daily searches that followed putting the kids to bed, I came across a car that seemed to check all the boxes off my list, 2,000 miles away in Havre, Montana. With a lack of local inventory, the possibility of finding a gem tucked away in the middle of nowhere intrigued me. I did my homework and called the owner to discuss if the car was a battleship or a beauty queen. As the story goes; it’s a numbers matching car that is rust free with one professional repaint and a rally gauges package. All of the electrical works and the car runs great. As you can guess, I was really hoping to sneak one past the Mopar community and I took the long road trip and a chance to find my Mopar Muscle.
Now, in late September 2014, and 2,000 miles later, Staci and I are in “the middle of nowhere,” Havre, MT, looking at this Lime Green 1970 Dodge Coronet Superbee at a small Dodge dealership that has an inventory of about twenty vehicles or so. After spending a half day crawling all around the car and inspecting it inside and out; it was time to weigh all the needed repairs (leaking power steering gear box, leaking transmission and fuel tank, running lights didn’t burn, rock chip/scratch on the trunk, minor interior surface rust, etc). The dice were thrown over lunch at the local casino, and that afternoon we loaded up our numbers matching, lime green, reverse C stripe 1970 Superbee, sporting a 335HP 383CI 4bb motor and automatic transmission. Other special feature included black interior, wood grain dash, rally gauges, functioning ram air hood and intake, rally drive wheels, power steering, power brakes, electronic ignition, 3.55 rear gears.