There are many collectors within the muscle car hobby with varying tastes in the vehicles they go after. Some just focus on one brand or a nameplate built between certain model years, while others have various interests based on personal tastes, teenage memories or future investment potential. Whatever motivates collectors, they can be a very passionate bunch, regardless of what’s in their garages, pole barns or museums. While at the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals (MCACN) Show last month, we ran into one such collector. For Bob Jennings, his love affair for Plymouth and Dodge muscle cars began in the early 1970s while working as a young mechanic at a local Chrysler/Plymouth dealership. By the day, he tuned-up Furys, New Yorkers, Valiants and the occasional ‘Cuda, GTX or Road Runner that stumbled in the service department with fouled spark plugs and worn-out ignition points. At night, he was taking accounting classes that would define his career path to become a successful CPA. Bob’s expertise in this field led to him giving educational speeches and training seminars to tax, legal and financial professionals across the country and around the world.
For Bob, he never forget the fun of rolling down main street in a 1970 Plymouth HEMI® Road Runner during his early 20s. But we all know school, career, family, business and other important things put owning cool cars in the backseat of our lives during this period. Once things began to fall into place for Bob around 2000, the symptoms from the bug that bit him decades earlier began to resurface. It started back up when he bought a 440 Magnum-powered 1970 Charger R/T, but it was Bob’s fascination with the Plymouth Superbird that never went away. It was probably ingrained in his memory banks when he first spotted a brand-new Superbird back in 1970 sitting at the dealership he worked at. The car went unsold for a long time. “The dealer I worked for back in the day claimed they’d never sell a Superbird because they were so ugly,” laughed Bob. “I began reading up on these unique cars and found out how special they were and decided one day I’d own one. Fast forward some 50 years later, I now have six 1970 Plymouth Superbirds and two 1969 Dodge Daytonas and I just love these cars.”
Another motivating factor that prompted Bob to begin collecting these cars was a medical emergency. It motivated Bob even more to pursue his dreams of owning and driving these rare Wing Cars. After surviving a heart attack, and with some nudging from his wife of 50 years, Jean, Bob got serious with his collection and began to amass some impressive street examples of Chrysler’s commitment to dominate the NASCAR scene in 1969 and 1970. While many of these wild street machines suffered a horrific fate at the hands of errant and over-enthusiastic drivers during the 1970s, many did somehow manage to survive and now have become valuable collector items to be cherished among their current owners. Not one to just sit and stare at his collection, Bob has spent a great deal of time driving his Wing Cars to various destinations. One epic road trip happened a few years back when Bob drove one his Superbirds to Alaska. “My Alpine White Superbird was the first one that started my passion for these ‘Aero Warriors’. In a dozen or so years of ownership, I driven it from Jeffersonville, Indiana, to Alaska not once but twice. We did the trip in July of 2015 and again in 2022,” exclaimed Bob. There’s even a cool video of Bob and his cross-continent Superbird adventures he posted on his YouTube channel.
Other wing oddities in Bob’s collection include an original HEMI Superbird that was raced in NHRA’s Super Stock class from 1970 to 1971. Still wearing its worn and “checked” metalflake psychedelic paint, this ex-drag racing Superbird takes us back to an era when these were just cars meant to be modified and raced. On the other end of the spectrum of Bob’s impressive collection is a “survivor” Superbird still wearing its original paint, interior and unaltered 440 Six Barrel engine under its long hood. This “Bird” is a true time capsule and has been used by leading Mopar® restoration shops and examined by “Mopar experts”, a reference point on how these cars were assembled at the plant along with their final completion at a separate Chrysler facility.
Bob also owns what can be called “The Holy Grail” of Dodge Wing Cars, an unrestored 1969 HEMI Daytona that’s part of his impressive collection that he brought to the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals for all of us to see. When Bob first got the unrestored Daytona, the car had sat for many years. When it came time to fire-up the Daytona’s 426 HEMI V8 engine after its long hibernation, it was nerve-racking but with the help of good friends and by the sixth try, the HEMI Daytona came to life!
Bob’s other “oddities” within his Wing Car collection include the only black-painted Superbird with quite an interesting story. This Bird was originally Lemon Twist Yellow, and it was bought at a Los Angeles police auction for $180 as it was abandoned on streets of L.A. way back when. Its new owner owned a body shop and happened to be in a Heavy Metal band called “Black Ice”. He went about customizing the Superbird by incorporating an Air Grabber scoop from a 1970 Road Runner onto the Superbird flat hood and then painting the car black. Quite a unique combination but the mods really seem to work and, if anything, makes up for the wish that Plymouth didn’t limit the original color offerings on the Superbirds and made black a factory color option.
Oh well, can’t go back in time but we can preserve the weird examples that owners did to their cars back in the day, and the one’s that survived, and that’s what Bob will do on his watch. His goal is to preserve these rare examples of an era we’ll never see again. And when looking into the future, don’t expect the flock of Bob’s Wing Car’s to leave his nest in his lifetime as he made it very clear to us: “None of my Wing Cars will ever be sold while I’m alive!”
We don’t doubt you one bit, Bob!
Make sure to check out the Jennings Wing Cars YouTube Channel for even more details on his spectacular Daytona and Superbird collection; but in the meantime, here are more pics of Bob’s cars from the 2022 MCACN show.
