NASCAR and the Daytona 500 are a blessing for every American car lover. They are icons of the American racing culture, a culture that has seen many changes throughout its time. And in the video we are showing you today, we see a prototype car from the past that never saw the chance of participating in both NASCAR and the Daytona 500. The star of the video below is the 1971 Plymouth Road Runner Superbird prototype, as it takes a wind tunnel test!
The wind tunnel test is used to showcase the cars aerodynamic capabilities, and given the fact that this is a car that was manufactured over 40 years ago, they are truly great. But the question arises, why did the 1971 Plymouth Superbird never got the chance to show what it can do when it was developed in the past? To answer this, we have to take a look back to the past days of NASCAR.
The short lived Plymouth Road Runner Superbird was developed in 1970 as a modified version of the Plymouth Road Runner. It has been speculated that it was designed specifically to lure Richard Petty, one of NASCAR`s greatest drivers, back to Plymouth. Unfortunately, the changes NASCAR made for the so called “aero cars“, rendered the Superbird uncompetitive. It was because of this that these types of cars never went into production.
The prototype in this video was built thanks to Gary Romberg, who did the aerodynamic tests on wing cars back in the 1970s. Thanks to his data, the Plymouth Superbird prototype was made into a full scale version, and took a wind tunnel test to truly show the car’s aerodynamics! The original tests were done on a 3/8 model, and didn`t quite show how aerodynamic the car is. Anyway, let`s leave that in the past and enjoy this footage!
Oh, and if you want to know which are the 10 best NASCAR stock cars, click here!
