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It's Tail Light Tuesday Whatchya Got?

Dodge '62 Dart . . .

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Saw this one a few years back at a cruise in, factory fuel injected. Drove it in, couldn't get it started a few hours later, a rollback showed up a few minutes later to take it away.

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Why do you think they omitted the flush backlight glass, one of the main reasons for the aero program in the first place?
Datonas were 1969 only, correct? Neither of these look to have the nose cone either. Adding a wing and fender scoops is much less aggressive than cutting out the rear glass, adding the plug and rebuilding the entire nose. I imagine they liked the look of the wing and just didn't want to go nuts on the car.
 
Datonas were 1969 only, correct? Neither of these look to have the nose cone either. Adding a wing and fender scoops is much less aggressive than cutting out the rear glass, adding the plug and rebuilding the entire nose. I imagine they liked the look of the wing and just didn't want to go nuts on the car.
Yes and no. They were produced for sale for 1969 only as you say. But there were prototypes for the 1970 model year. They did have the nose cone as well. The top one was known as the 'watermelon car' due to it's show paint, the second one was purple. I think Chargervert has a thread about building a replica of the purple one which also had a sunroof.
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Why do you think they omitted the flush backlight glass, one of the main reasons for the aero program in the first place?
Two reasons, I believe that these two, and possibly a third car were built to be show cars. The Daytona already met Nascar's homologation rules and the body was approved to race for three model years. So they didn't have to meet the specifications needed to compete. The second reason is that the company who did the conversions to the original Daytona cars was busy making the parts to build 1935 Plymouth Superbirds at the time that these cars were built. I'm guessing that the rear window plug conversions couldn't be fit into the schedule. The original Daytona prototype press car didn't have the rear window conversion done to it either, so I'm guessing that it wasn't a priority for press vehicles. The green 70 Daytona was seen at a Dodge performance event at a local college with other Dodge high performance cars. I believe that because of the Nascar rule changes,and the new for 1970 federal bumper crash standards, that these two cars were sold off before the new crash standards went into effect. All the Superbirds had to be built before January 1st of 1970. The Doctor who bought the purple car stated that he purchased the car through a Maryland dealership but he had to go to Detroit to pick the car up in person. The paper temporary license plate is on the car in the photo. He stated that the paper license plate was issued so he could transport the car from Detroit back to his home in Maryland.

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My replica of the purple car is in the works, and my friend Mike has already built the replica of the green car. I donated the Charger body and Dana 60 that the green replica was built from.

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Datonas were 1969 only, correct? Neither of these look to have the nose cone either. Adding a wing and fender scoops is much less aggressive than cutting out the rear glass, adding the plug and rebuilding the entire nose. I imagine they liked the look of the wing and just didn't want to go nuts on the car.
They both had nosecones. The only Daytona specific parts that these two cars didn't have was the rear window plug conversions and the A pillar wind deflectors.
 
They both had nosecones. The only Daytona specific parts that these two cars didn't have was the rear window plug conversions and the A pillar wind deflectors.
I'll have to look again on the PC.
Viewing them from that angle on the small phone screen is making it hard to see them.
 
This is the original 69 Daytona Charger press release car,it also has no rear window plug. The Charger 500 cars were already built when this press release car was built,so the rear window plugs were already long developed and had been installed on the Charger 500 cars.

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