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The Story of the Record-Setting 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona: Lost, Found, Restored

from writing by Greg Kwiatkowski; portions based on a story by Bill Hamilton

One day, Chrysler technician and Plymouth Superbird owner Greg Kwiatkowski was talking at work with Larry Rathgeb, the former head of stock car racing. Rathgeb mentioned that the Talladega Motorsports Museum unknowingly held a clone of the #88 Dodge Charger Daytona, the first car to run over a 200 mph lap on a NASCAR speedway. The real deal was sitting behind Don White’s racing shop in Iowa.

the Buddy Baker 200 mph Dodge Charger Daytona

The #88 car had started out as a 1969 Dodge Charger 500. The Charger 500 was an ordinary Charger modified for aerodynamics, with flush-mounted window glass and headlights and other changes; this one, given the number 99, was raced by Paul Goldsmith in the 1969 Daytona 500 in its original dark blue paint. Goldsmith crashed it at Daytona just a few days after finishing third in the second race on February 20, 1969.

Dodge took the car back and used it as an engineering testbed, fitting it with the now-famous Daytona nose and tail. Racing teams were leery of the odd-looking car, so Dodge brought it to Talladega to show off its performance. Chrysler’s head of racing, Ronnie Householder, demanded that the car run laps at around 185 mph, enough to beat the Ford Torino and Charger 500 but not enough to tip Dodge’s hand. It was assigned the number 88.

testing the engineering car

Charlie Glotzbach ran an unofficial practice lap at an average of 199.987 mph, then an official qualifying lap at 199.466 mph. The speeds were averages; the car repeatedly broke 200 mph and reportedly went faster than 230 mph. These figures were unprecedented, and tipping off Ford and NASCAR infuriated Householder, but the damage was done. A year later, after the season, they had Buddy Baker return to Talladega to make an ever so slightly faster lap on a closed course; thus, on March 24, 1970, Buddy Baker ran a Charger Daytona lap at 200.447 mph, officially breaking the 200 mph barrier.

Chrysler gave the car was sold to champion USAC racer Don White, who ran it under new paint and a new number. After some time he took off the wing and nose, which mainly helped on super-speedways, then abandoned it behind his shop, where Greg Kwiatkowski eventually found it—just as Larry Rathgeb had said. White may well have offered it back to Chrysler and gotten no interest.

Dodge Charger Daytona engineering test car

Greg acquired the #88 car and pulled it out of the race shop’s weedy backyard to start a careful restoration. He was able to hold the same steering wheel Buddy Baker grasped to run a full lap at 200 mph. As for the car in the Talladega museum, acquired with no reason to doubt its authenticity: that turned out to be the #71 car.

In 2001, the creators of the first Charger Daytona came together for an Aero Warrior Reunion, and Greg invited them to visit their old creation. The group included Larry Rathgeb, former head of Dodge racing car development; John Pointer, developer of the sheet metal; George Wallace, who drove the company’s racing cars at high speed to get test data; Bill Wright, who ran the Dodge racing garage in Huntsville, Alabama, home of Chrysler Electronics, home of the instrumentation used for testing it; and John Vaughan, who helped to create the instrumentation, basing it on Chrysler’s telemetry for the Moon rockets and Abrams tanks. It’s likely John Vaughn or Bill Wright in the trunk in the photo below, adjusting the recording gear.

circa 1970 200 mph nose

The car needed a lot of work after sitting outside for years. Greg and his friends had torn the car down as far as they could to find and fix rust and corrosion. The fenders and nose were hanging on the wall, and the rest of the car looked, as Greg said, “like a big dune buggy with all the sheet metal cut off.”

The exposed roll cage paint was the original corporate B7 Blue. Parts of the car that faced the driver had been repainted in black; as the paint flaked off, it revealed more blue paint. George Wallace, who had driven the car and witnessed its two records, said that there were hundreds of points of evidence before writing and signing a notarized letter of authenticity. Among other bits of evidence was the factory-stamped serial number (093) in the frame.

Rathgeb agreed, telling Hamilton, “It’s definitely an old friend. I recall when it left Nichols engineering and Fred Schrandt and Larry Knowlton came and picked it up on a trailer and pulled it down to Huntsville, Alabama, and worked on it down there.”

inside the first Dodge Charger Daytona - 200 mph car

Wright’s main clue was a hole in the dash, covered by a plaque, which he had put into the dashboard to mount the data recorder shown in the photo below; the plain lever to the left of the buttons was removed and hidden by a plain black cover by the time Don White had the car. Wright had used equipment from Chrysler Aerospace, including sensors, brush recorders, and accelerometers, in the car to collect data; in some cases, at least with the later Mopar Missile project, they even used an umbilical with a chase van.

Since drivers didn’t use air conditioning, heat was a major problem; fortunately, Chrysler Aerospace also had access to more effective foam insulation. According to Wright, Glotzbach had likened the insulation to having air conditioning. The remaining tufts of insulation were more proof of the car’s provenance.

photo in Talladega Charger Daytona

Kwiatkowski understood the responsibility of owning the car, telling Hamilton, “I have a responsibility as the keeper of the history. And from a historical standpoint, the car is phenomenal. Not only did it set a stock car record of 200 mph, at that point in time it was a world record. That to me is huge; it is huge. It is a world-record setter. You didn’t have anything in Europe going that fast; Indy cars were going 180 mph at Indy; nothing in Europe could touch it.”

The renovation continued. Larry Knowlton and Fred Schrandt, who had set the car up for Talladega; and Larry Rathgeb, who had taken notes, helped provide the information Greg needed to put in springs and shocks with the correct rates, and even the correct carburetor jetting. It was restored to its condition as of March 24, 1970. The car was originally painted B7 Blue, and stayed that way through the first tests at Chelsea; it was painted TB-3, Super Blue, best known as Petty Blue, in late August 1969.

DC-93 as restored - 1969 Talladega Dodge Charger Daytona

Gary Congdon, who tuned the 950 cfm carburetor during the 200 mph run, provided the correct materials to restore the rare sand-cast Holley Dominator. The car doesn’t just look perfect from above; it’s accurate under the hood and inside the carburetor and suspension, as well.

Greg wrote, “This is the first known use of on board electronics for data acquisition by Chrysler Corporation in a car. Both Bill Wright and Ron Killen (a former manager of mine) were ‘instrumental’ in developing the package.”

Also see Supercars: The Story of the Dodge Charger Daytona and Plymouth Superbird by Frank Moriarty and Buddy Baker, our main Dodge Charger Daytona page, and our Plymouth Superbird Secrets page.

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