Superbird, EPA Turn Coat

Today on a special edition of Muscle car when I found out that this was a Ray Nichols car that was important. Legendary Indian Stock car builder. Ray Nichols could make them fast. It ended up being an EPA car. The only one

that's pretty cool.

This cool bird used to chase planes. We'll show you why and how it may have ended the muscle car era. Plus Lou's going to talk dollars and how to make sense before starting your next muscle car project.

You're looking at our next project. It's 40 years old. It's rough and it's high on the endangered species list.

In 1967. This lemon sold for $2600. The GTO

cost only $300 more today. A decent GTO is hard to find and very expensive.

So cloning one from a lemons

became very popular. In fact, it's really hard to find a lemons

that's still a

lemons. So we're gonna do our part to preserve history. We're gonna save this one.

It wasn't tagged a true muscle car, but the 326 was no slouch. So we'll rebuild it

with the hoods from a GTO and it's gotta go.

The rest of the car is pretty much intact and salvageable. Well, almost,

we're gonna keep this thing about 90% original.

But what's it gonna cost to do that? You need to know before you buy it otherwise you may not finish it

and sometimes your passion and your checkbook just aren't good friends. So let's make a list.

It all starts with the body. The top of the fender looks really good, but I gotta see what's under there. This wood screw is in factories. Neither is this anchor

but the metal is not bad.

The rest of the rocker looks scary

but it's in surprisingly good shape.

The doors are in great shape and the hinges are rust free.

We got lucky here too.

Now, the rear quarter panels are a different story.

Too much rust on top

and too much fiberglass below.

Now, this would scare a lot of guys off, but it's really not as bad as it looks. They re pop this rear panel and you can get a new rear bumper as far as the tail lights go.

We're gonna have to check the catalog.

The trunk pan is more like a colander

and the passenger side quarter speaks for itself.

The door is in good shape. This fender is probably the best part of the whole car. The front bumper needs to be recon

the grill we can save and the headlight bezels need some metal work as well and that's the major selling point. Almost all the trim is here. If you can't buy it,

you can refurbish it

inside. The seats are perfect. The carpets rotten. The dash looks great but there's a crack in the pad. Some panels are shot, but the liner is amazingly tight.

Now that you've got your list, where do you get your parts from? Year? One is a good source as well as some other specialty catalogs. But you may have to find a Pontiac only salvage yard to get the hard stuff.

Two recorders in sections. 467

wheelhouses, 270

rear floor pans, 128 trunk pan, 385

reconditioned rear bumper, 289. And the list goes on. Not every part for lemons is re popped like the hood, the taillights, the rear panel, you can use GTO parts or you can get online and start looking for those good used ones

right off the bat. We found several sites with enough used parts to build a car

estimation for new and used parts. $4055. We're gonna prep the body for paint ourselves, add another $2500 to get it painted

and $1000 for stuff we might have missed. That's gonna put us at just over seven grand.

Don't let that number freak you out. We could have spent more money and bought a nicer car and had a smaller parts list. But for my budget, the smaller investment up front allows me to buy the parts as I can afford them either way. 12 grand, you got one hell of a good looking car. We're gonna add up the prices for the suspension engine and rest of the drive train later on in the show

coming up after the break, did a plane chasing car built by legendary in India and NASCAR builder Ray Nichols kill the muscle car,

a muscle car that may have helped kill its own kind resurfaces after 35 years

and it worked for the government.

But to understand the car, you must first understand the man who built it

back in the day. Ray Nichols was number one when it came to building stock cars, but that didn't happen overnight.

At 15, Nichols was already crew chief for his father's midget race team. By 1950 he partnered with Paul Russo to race in the Indy 500. This basement built Indy car dubbed Basement. Bessie would take ninth at the brickyard in

54 at Chrysler's proving ground. A Nichols

hemi powered Curtis crashed 500 a driven by indie champ. Sam Hanks set a closed course land speed record at 100 and 82.55 miles an hour.

Stock car racing is in its heyday.

Born from the dirt track competition between moonshine runners to see who the best driver was.

It is quickly becoming a national pastime.

Nichols had become Pontiac's official stock car builder in 56.

And the only way to gain respect from the other crew chiefs and drivers was to win

to Nichols. Second place was the first loser. He wasn't there to lose. If you weren't careful on the old Daytona Beach course, the sand could put a hurting on you and cost you the race

K

Owens was at the wheel of the Nickels number six Pontiac as it tore down the sands of Daytona

crossing the finish line first and setting a new Daytona Beach record of 100 and 1.6 miles an hour.

In 61 he captured the USA C championship and went on to set world records at the 24 hour speed and endurance run that still stand in his deck, putting another notch in Nichols ranch

in

62 we won a championship in USA and NASCAR

and in 63 another NASCAR championship

being the house stock car builder for Chrysler. Since 63 Nichols would break out the new Dodge Charger packing a 426 hemi

at the 66 Firecracker 400

with driver Sam mcquagg. This would be the first of many victories for the Charger

70 was the last big year for Nichols. Charger Daytona and Superb birds were killing everybody and he was building them.

Number 71 Bobby Isaac would become the NASCAR

champ in 1970 proving Nichols built cars were the bet.

In 1972. Ray Nichols would build his final winged mo pa for a very unlikely client,

the environmental protection agency,

more of that after the break,

stock car builder Ray Nichols had been turning out winning rides for India and NASCAR for almost two decades.

In 1972 the newly formed environmental protection agency would contract Nichols engineering to build this stock car like superb Bird,

its purpose.

The war on air pollution

driving the car. John B. Moran, an EPA section chief of the automotive and stationary emissions research.

He would use the car to collect data on particulates and emissions from automobiles and jet aircraft.

The first steps were done at the Charlotte Motor Speed Way testing brake pads for asbestos and poly glas tires for harmful particulates.

The final testing is done at Raleigh Durham International Airport, sampling particulate emissions from jet engines. Moran had his doubts on how this test would work.

The first time I chased

a jet,

I did not know what was going to happen.

I had made the calculations and I looked at the aerodynamics and the wind tunnel data from Chrysler and it should work.

According to Moran, there's actual footage of this car chasing a plane down the runway.

But until we find that

this will give you a really good idea.

The airliner would taxi on the tarmac and then hold till the Superb was in position.

All instruments and sampling devices were double checked on the car. The air suspension was engaged by dropping the nose of the superb close to the ground. The chances of the turbine forcing winds under the car and blowing it off, the tarmac was neutralized

once everything was set, he informed the tower and waited

when Moran heard cleared for takeoff, it was on

the pilot would let off the brake. Moran would let off the clutch cat of holding them both down the runway probes mounted in the nose of the car and on the top of the rear wing would capture particulates that were emitted from the jet.

The data collector would tell just how much pollution was actually coming from the air freight.

So after that, I knew the car wasn't gonna blow away.

The Epa Superb Bird recently resurfaced on the internet. So we had to send a crew for muscle car to check it out.

It was a winter morning when the muscle car crew arrived in Middlefield, Connecticut. This town is full of scenery and historical landmarks, Grain mills,

apple orches, the Lyman Guns site, factory Lake Bess

and of course

rare Super

Bird.

The E Muscle restoration shop is where this mo

car had recently been spotted

surrounded by different restored muscle cars. The Super Bird was right at home.

The car had been in Goldston North Carolina until E muscle owner, Brian Chafee got a hold of it in the fall of 2006. It had undergone a factory restoration by a previous owner in the early eighties

and there were only two tell tale items that told you what this car was. The Epa sticker on the windshield and the nickels engineering plaque on the dash packing a 440. This super bird originally came in alpine white with a black vinyl top and a standard black interior. Some of the go fast factory options included rebuilding a 440 so we could run over 100 miles an hour for up to two hours.

A vacuum pump, a control gauge that operated the rear air suspension.

Originally, it was an automatic on the column

but changed over to a heavy duty four speed Hearst and a NASCAR

style fuel cell was installed in the trunk.

The dash was outfitted with a shift light, a decelle

Roer and an aircraft transceiver radio.

The custom exhaust pipes were designed so the test equipment wouldn't sample the car's own exhaust.

It may not have been a full blown stock car

but it was pretty close. If you don't believe this thing could fly.

Ask officer Scott Halligan with the middle field PD. He had firsthand experience.

Brian knows his crew is good enough to restore this car back to nickel specs.

The core of E muscle is getting the best guys in the business that are passionate about muscle cars that work on them, own them and deal with it every day. Nothing leaves here unless it's perfect because of the team that I have

when I found out that this was a Ra Nichols car and there was only three left that was important. But on top of that, it ended up being an EPA car. The only one that was something that threw it over the top. So the amount of research that has to go through to bring this car back to the way Ray Nichols left it when he handed the keys over to JP Moran.

That's pretty cool.

Judging by the combined restoration work and enthusiasm of the E muscle team,

this bird was in the right place. By the time Moran completed his testing and analyzing his data,

muscle cars were pretty much at the end making this car a very likely suspect.

Now it's time to see if this was the car responsible for killing all the muscle cars. Only one man can tell us that

the way to look at the issue of the relationship of the car we lead and gasoline told us

that particularly emissions from mobile sources could constitute a serious public health effect.

So the car was a growth of that knowledge to the extent that we wanted to evaluate other mobile sources

and stationary source emissions for particulate material.

So while we got banned the hue and cry of the impact on the automotive industry was long and loud.

Yeah, the basic work that I did led to that

it takes time, but things are a lot better now than we are that

this superb bird helped kill the muscle car all in the name of the environment.

It forced the oil companies and auto manufacturers to start producing cleaner burning fuel and efficient, modern muscle. It just took longer than anyone expected.

The restoration is underway and muscle car be there for a special test drive when it's done.

If you had the opportunity

to run that car one more time down, a tarmac and chase a jet aircraft, would you do it again?

If conditions were right? I would do it.

That'll be really cool when that happens. But I gotta get back on my list for the Lamont and we'll do that after the break.

We're gonna finish our parts list to restore this endangered 67 lemons

to this point. The tally for the interior and body was just under seven grand. Now we're gonna do the same for everything that makes it go.

Our plan is to rebuild this stock 326. Why? Because they too were sacrificed in the making of GTO clones.

What would save us a lot of money is if the crank is still usable

after some tear down time, my hopes of that are quickly crashing on the jagged rocks below. Take a look at this. This is paraffin. They put it in oil to help it lubricate. When you don't change your oil, it builds up and it usually means that there's scarring on all your major moving parts.

That's the risk you take, you never know what's inside till you bust it open. But I've never seen an engine this bad.

Oh, look at that.

It's so bad that it's clogged up the screen.

It's make or break time.

There's a groove on the bearings

and scoring on the cranks,

but it's not as bad as I thought

according to the factory specs

where we're at now, this crank is still salvageable.

Surprisingly, these cylinders are in really good shape. That's pretty good considering the neglect that this thing has suffered. We've got a good block heads rod and crank. This thing's rebuildable.

I found a complete kit with everything you need to start it up for about 1400.

Add the machine work to that, to recondition your parts about a grand.

So to rebuild your stock engine close to 2400,

that's not bad at all. But we found another option that interest us for 279. Eagle has a stroke of crank for the 400 that'll fit our 326 transforming it into a 3 73 75 add an Edelbrock intake with two carbs, some custom pistons rods, et cetera, et cetera,

along with some additional head work. And you're looking at just under five grand for a serious little torque monster. This Stroker crank is made possible because in 67 the 326 the 389 and the 400 all shared the same block just with different boring stroke combinations,

but we're gonna keep our 326 sort of.

So there's two options for your engine. You've got some for your rear end as well. If you're gonna run the 326 this one will do just fine black paint, rebuild the brakes, spring shocks. You're good to go. But if you're gonna run a Stroker like we are, you might want to consider something a little bit stronger like a Moser 12 bolt

either way, refreshing. Our front suspension is fine.

The frame needs to be painted on or off the body at a drive shaft, exhaust breaking gas lines along with something to put your gas in.

The last thing to add to our list is roughly $350 to rebuild your stock power glide. You could convert it to a four speed for about 2400. Either one will hold up to the Stroker, but I prefer the third pedal. Here are your totals for a rebuild stock drive line about 5500 for a modified drive line. 12 grand

to get the body work right? 7000. Cost of the car 4000.

So for a very nice restored matching number. Lemons 16 5 for a very nice restored lemons with a Stroker. Moser

rear end four speed and disc breaking version

23 grand.

That's the list I worked

before I bought the car and it's all based on doing the work yourself. You might save some money along the way. But you'll find stuff to eat that up. If this were a weekend project for me, it'd take a couple of years. But through the magic of TV,

about five shows till then, go out, find your dream car

and get busy later.