My name is Ken Beard and I own the Superbird in the photo as it was delivered to Hodges-Prince Chrysler-Plymouth. I have owned my Superbird for .46 years having purchased it on July 12 1979 in Kirksville Missouri. I am the 4th owner of the car. There is a decal on each side of the oval air cleaner which has the name Hodges-Prince Chrysler Plymouth Dublin Georgia. The car is a numbers matching 440-6bbl and console automatic 727 Torqueflite also numbers matching with an 8 3/4 rear axle housing with 3:55 sure-grip differential. It had 31000 miles on it when I purchased it and it has 56500 miles on it now as of October 29,2024. It has been rotisserie restored in 1993 by Jeff's Resurrections in Taylor Texas. I now live in Round Rock Texas and the car is on my property in a 900 Sq. Ft. air conditioned garage. I try and drive it every weekend at least in the subdivision I live in. The Superbird has been right here in the Austin area owned by me, since 1979. I always wondered if Hodges-Prince ever had any more Superbirds that they sold there. Was my car the only one? Such a great tragedy that Tab died so young. I thank you for posting the video.I do have further history of the car and some paperwork also of the 3 previous owners and when they owned it. Thank you, Ken
A very interesting crash that I recommend you check out is that of Al Briggs in 1955. Briggs had gotten hit by someone, wildly believed to be Jimmy Thompson, and both cars spun. Thompson flew end over end & Cotton Owens, one of the most prominent racers at the time, flipped as well and hit a spectator’s vehicle. 3 Spectators were injured from getting hit not by shrapnel, but the cars as they were flipping, and all spectators miraculously survived. During this Al Briggs had gone ablaze, and was on fire still in his car. Amazingly Owens was uninjured, and crawled from his vehicle to pull Briggs out. Owen’s would single-handedly roll Briggs until the fire had gone out. Unfortunately, Briggs did not survive the incident. There is very limited footage of the incident, with only a short video showing the aftermath of the accident, from a completely different part of the track. In general, this crash had gone forgotten and I think you should probably check it out.
Agree, looks like Prince had everything going for him until his engine blew. It was great seeing the number 6 of Buddy Baker up front. Him & That car started my first love affair with having 'My Driver' in NASCAR. Yes, in 1970, I was 10, Mario had won Indy in '69 and racing was appearing on my young radar.
The wing cars were great cars but it took a lot of skill to be able to push it to 180/190 mph. Even some NASCAR drivers had trouble at that speed. Its not just putting it to the floor and turning left. In fact if you turn left at the apex of the turn you will spin out. You actually have to turn a bit to the right to keep the car moving in the correct line. Scary.
@@garycook2355 Actually better aero and about twenty five more hp. Ford was notorious for understanding horsepower to meet feder/EPA guidelines. Your right though ,if I had deep pockets I'd love to have one of those fords.
Yup and all todays drivers have to worry about is if their makeup and hair is just right for an interview with some mindless tv twit post race and remember the endless tirade of sponsor product names and such before they praise their clone cars performance ! Like giving school kids trophies for losing !!!!
Not a criticism of the video creator but, TH-cam. You can’t even let a 8 minute video go without three commercial breaks. This doesn’t make people want to sign up for TH-cam premium, it makes them want to switch to Rumble!
Sometime after the accident, a story went around about Tab buying an engine from Ray Fox. Ray supposedly told Tab that he should skip Daytona and get some experience at smaller, slower tracks before he went for the "big one".
The car that is shown to be being rebuilt is a regular Charger. The back windshield on a Charger Daytona is flush with the roof line. Not sunk in as shown.
Not sure the car shown was a legit Daytona. First clue is the back window does not have the window buck on it.A window buck is a panel made to flush mount the back window.Wind tunnel tests showed that in stock form wind would curculate and hold down the potential speed of the car. The car pictured still has the original stock rear window.
Very informative and respectful presentation on a racer with a dream that didn’t quite fulfill his hopes. Thankfully he didn’t suffer. I hope he knew Jesus and his children will have great stories of their dad. Excellent job telling the story. ✝️
If that was the chassis Prince drove, then it has a scabbed body on it. The fuel filler is in the stock location (on top of the quarter panel), whereas the racing filler location is on the side of the quarter panel.
How beautiful are all the cars. Why have cars become so pathetic they are all black white or grey all look the same and they just don’t stand out. I love these old cars so I bought a 1965 Chrysler Valiant AP6 made in Australia 🇦🇺 just like me. It’s my daily driver and I love it. No air conditioning no power steering it’s just a car that works and looks great. I paid $13,000 about 6 years ago when I was in my late 30’s. It’s now worth a lot more and it’s insured for $45,000. I don’t see any cars made after the 90’s that are going up in value. They all go down. I bought my 16 year old daughter a BMW in 2005 it cost $70,000 new. We got it for $7000 put a new starter motor in it and it cost around $8100 all up and she loves it.
That car they say was his is not in anyway a Nascar spec Daytona, first obvious clue is the rear window is stock, it shoes no sign of having the window plug as it's called installed, second is the wheels and hubs , Nascar used 1 ton truck hubs an d full floating rear axles that had larger bearings and because they were heaver 1 ton hubs the rims used had 6 lug nut stud so they used 6 bolt rims. That car has standardpaasenger car 5 bolt wheels and hubs, the roll cage is wrong design an tube thickness and finally the front clip, you can see in the drivers side picture that the fender and nose is one piece fabricated out of sheet metal a Nascar Daytona nose is three pieces, the stock fender the nose cone and a filler piece that covered the lower style line indentation where the factory side marker was smoothing it out, you can see that from the picture taken on race day where the driver is kneel in front. What you have is someone's second Gen hobby dirt track charger, with a period correct looking nascar style hemi in stalled, there may be a few bits and bobs from the original like the cylinder heads or intake, maybe the seat something like that. But I'd bet 95% or more isn't original.
You’re wrong on all of it . The NASCAR sheet metal shares nothing with the production car except the roof skin . Sheet metal parts were sent by from body-in-white to the teams to fit the template . The cage had to fit minimums including wall thickness. Axles were 5 bolt and full float mods were available. The car in the photos was documented by NASCAR , Peterson museum and many others . Take the time to learn some history.
@@duncandmcgrath6290 Weelll I admit after reading the comment about them using a ford 9 inch, they didn't btw, I was wrong about the number of lug studs they used, I was thinking about in the 50's early 60"s when every part on a stock car had to have a factory number, an example that's easy to look up was the hand full of 57chevy"black widows" they made before gm banned all race participation. As for the rest you are mistaken. In 69-70 a body in white was actually an assembly line chassis just like the car on the show room, they didn't use just the roof and fabricate the rest from sheet metal to fit templates, now in the late 70's when they went to that spec type chassis ford and gm used, based on mid sixties ford galaxy type modified floor pan and frame that used a coil spring three link 9 in rear as a basis they used well into the late 90's. You are partially correct about them using a template, it was a crude silhouette they started to use after junior johnsons 66 galaxy nicknamed the yellow bananna and smokey eunicks 7/8ths chevelle engineering study. I don't really care if nascar or the peterson museum said it was the car, it may have a lot of parts from the wrecked original no way the chassis was the same, look at the picture of it after the wreck, the drivers side is smashed in almost to the trans tunnel and being a 69 daytona used a unibody the chassis would've been bent beyond repair no race team would waste there time trying to fix it when it would be easier and cheaper to take all the good parts off and put them on a new chassis. Here's another thing the video said the family kept the car a few years after the wreck in the garage that the local kids played in and on. Let's say a few years means they kept it until 72, by then the daytona was outlawed or restricted so much to make it noncompetitive, even if they repaired it to race again why would they use that body instead of the 3rd gen charger? They have found a few petty and other name racers cars and they were rebodied 3rd gen chargers or in the case of a petty 71-72 plymouth, magnum bodied, they knew it might be a petty car because of the peace sign head rest that the fabricator back then used those couple of years, so I stand by my original statement minus my error that I just corrected.
What a unfortunate debut for a driver, this is really tragic only 18 laps to your Nascar legacy. As far as that car being found and for sale or restoration that thing needs to be crushed so called death cars have bad karma and are in disrespectful macabre displays for money treating a or multiple peoples death like a sideshow. Jane Mansfield, Bonnie and Clyde, etc...
Some time in the future, I want to do a Top 10 Countdown video on the Worst NASCAR Debuts, which I've wanted to do for a long while now... This would be the obvious #1, but what I'm going to do exclude it because of the sad ending & instead make note of it before truly beginning the countdown.
Was the 1970 Daytona 500 the first MRN Radio broadcast? Also, if I remember my American History in general correctly, wasn't it also around this same time period in 1970, when Jeffrey MacDonald's family was massacred in Fort Bragg, North Carolina? I know that this is one of the more darker subjects to discuss, just like the Tab Prince crash you documented in this video, but I've watched all kinds of TV shows about this case, and everyone has their own ideas about what happened that night. I think I remember them saying that that happened in February 1970. Correct me if I'm wrong now. Again, a dark blemish from a tumultuous period of American history. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't that happen around the same time Daytona Speedweeks was taking place in 1970? For that matter, is there anyone part of this community, that has watched TV shows about this case, just like I have? I have had a long time fascination for NASCAR. I guess Cold Cases have always fascinated me a bit too to some extent.
You never said a thing about how much experience he had or any other racing he had done. You usually don't get to start out in the big leagues like the Daytona 500 or the Indy 500 without some qualification to do so. Was he simply too inexperienced to be doing what he was attempting?😪🏴
I did mention that he had done some part time racing, but I couldn't find too much information. Probably not much. Although he didn't have the experience, no one can prevent an engine failure like that.
You have to keep in mind that the rules back then were far more lenient- especially in NASCAR- than they are today. Local short track racers with no superspeedway experience at all, people with little racing experience in general could race at Daytona as long as they had a car.
My name is Ken Beard and I own the Superbird in the photo as it was delivered to Hodges-Prince Chrysler-Plymouth. I have owned my Superbird for .46 years having purchased it on July 12 1979 in Kirksville Missouri. I am the 4th owner of the car. There is a decal on each side of the oval air cleaner which has the name Hodges-Prince Chrysler Plymouth Dublin Georgia. The car is a numbers matching 440-6bbl and console automatic 727 Torqueflite also numbers matching with an 8 3/4 rear axle housing with 3:55 sure-grip differential. It had 31000 miles on it when I purchased it and it has 56500 miles on it now as of October 29,2024. It has been rotisserie restored in 1993 by Jeff's Resurrections in Taylor Texas. I now live in Round Rock Texas and the car is on my property in a 900 Sq. Ft. air conditioned garage. I try and drive it every weekend at least in the subdivision I live in. The Superbird has been right here in the Austin area owned by me, since 1979. I always wondered if Hodges-Prince ever had any more Superbirds that they sold there. Was my car the only one?
Such a great tragedy that Tab died so young. I thank you for posting the video.I do have further history of the car and some paperwork also of the 3 previous owners and when they owned it.
Thank you, Ken
All I can say is one word....NICE!
A very interesting crash that I recommend you check out is that of Al Briggs in 1955. Briggs had gotten hit by someone, wildly believed to be Jimmy Thompson, and both cars spun. Thompson flew end over end & Cotton Owens, one of the most prominent racers at the time, flipped as well and hit a spectator’s vehicle. 3 Spectators were injured from getting hit not by shrapnel, but the cars as they were flipping, and all spectators miraculously survived. During this Al Briggs had gone ablaze, and was on fire still in his car. Amazingly Owens was uninjured, and crawled from his vehicle to pull Briggs out. Owen’s would single-handedly roll Briggs until the fire had gone out. Unfortunately, Briggs did not survive the incident. There is very limited footage of the incident, with only a short video showing the aftermath of the accident, from a completely different part of the track. In general, this crash had gone forgotten and I think you should probably check it out.
At least he lived the dream to race in NASCAR. RIP still.
Agree, looks like Prince had everything going for him until his engine blew. It was great seeing the number 6 of Buddy Baker up front. Him & That car started my first love affair with having 'My Driver' in NASCAR. Yes, in 1970, I was 10, Mario had won Indy in '69 and racing was appearing on my young radar.
I had other favorites but had actually met buddy and liked him too
Thumb nail caught my eye. My grand daddy from Alabama was named Talmadge. Nice video
So why does the video need to be blurred? This is an actual happening and as such if someone doesn't want to see it, they need not view it.
liberals
The video needs to be blurred because TH-cam kept taking the video down for graphic content.
Are u serious ? GEEZ
Another great video thanks man!
Another blurred gay video.
I was there that day. Even though I was only 8 years old, I distinctly remember the accident.
Please do the story of Leeroy Yarbrough the worst example of nascar safety, he suffered a hard crash at texas world speedway
That crash was reminiscent of Captain Harold Kite's fatal crash at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 1965.
Great Job on the story. Thank you !.
The wing cars were great cars but it took a lot of skill to be able to push it to 180/190 mph. Even some NASCAR drivers had trouble at that speed. Its not just putting it to the floor and turning left. In fact if you turn left at the apex of the turn you will spin out. You actually have to turn a bit to the right to keep the car moving in the correct line. Scary.
and the Ford Talladega's did it without that huge wing and chisel nose. Just better aerodynamics.
@@garycook2355
Actually better aero and about twenty five more hp. Ford was notorious for understanding horsepower to meet feder/EPA guidelines. Your right though ,if I had deep pockets I'd love to have one of those fords.
First car to break 200 mph;Baker in Dodge Daytona.👋🏿
Sounds like counter-steering on a motorcycle when you drop over into a turn.
Yup and all todays drivers have to worry about is if their makeup and hair is just right for an interview with some mindless tv twit post race and remember the endless tirade of sponsor product names and such before they praise their clone cars performance ! Like giving school kids trophies for losing !!!!
Not a criticism of the video creator but, TH-cam. You can’t even let a 8 minute video go without three commercial breaks. This doesn’t make people want to sign up for TH-cam premium, it makes them want to switch to Rumble!
4:31 there is absolutely no way an actual human being was named Bill Cipher 💀💀
Seifert
@@KellieLeigh48 ah I see, can’t believe I misheard that
This went from Championship implications to Gravity Falls implications way too fast
Sometime after the accident, a story went around about Tab buying an engine from Ray Fox. Ray supposedly told Tab that he should skip Daytona and get some experience at smaller, slower tracks before he went for the "big one".
The car that is shown to be being rebuilt is a regular Charger. The back windshield on a Charger Daytona is flush with the roof line. Not sunk in as shown.
His name is pronounced bill seefort!
I agree, just like they did with the Marty Robins car. No onw should be left behind!!!!!
Not sure the car shown was a legit Daytona. First clue is the back window does not have the window buck on it.A window buck is a panel made to flush mount the back window.Wind tunnel tests showed that in stock form wind would curculate and hold down the potential speed of the car. The car pictured still has the original stock rear window.
Looks like it was rebodied,and not very well. From the looks of that wreck,I'm saying it was?
Yea, wreck probably got into the roof area. Those window bucks were not something you could go down to the dealership and order! LOL
Don't want a car that is cursed like James Dean's Porsche
I don't know if that's the actual car or not, but I'm positive it's more than I could afford.
Tragic.
Finally a tab prince video
Have you done a video about driver Friday Hassler who lost his life in one of the 1972 qualifiers at Daytona?
I witnessed his crash...
Very informative and respectful presentation on a racer with a dream that didn’t quite fulfill his hopes. Thankfully he didn’t suffer. I hope he knew Jesus and his children will have great stories of their dad. Excellent job telling the story. ✝️
Guy on the right, does not care at all that a drive died. I know it was a different time back then, but damn!
If that was the chassis Prince drove, then it has a scabbed body on it. The fuel filler is in the stock location (on top of the quarter panel), whereas the racing filler location is on the side of the quarter panel.
I believe that car your showing at the end of ur video, I could be wrong, but I read somewhere that was a James Hylton car
How beautiful are all the cars. Why have cars become so pathetic they are all black white or grey all look the same and they just don’t stand out. I love these old cars so I bought a 1965 Chrysler Valiant AP6 made in Australia 🇦🇺 just like me. It’s my daily driver and I love it. No air conditioning no power steering it’s just a car that works and looks great. I paid $13,000 about 6 years ago when I was in my late 30’s. It’s now worth a lot more and it’s insured for $45,000. I don’t see any cars made after the 90’s that are going up in value. They all go down. I bought my 16 year old daughter a BMW in 2005 it cost $70,000 new. We got it for $7000 put a new starter motor in it and it cost around $8100 all up and she loves it.
That car they say was his is not in anyway a Nascar spec Daytona, first obvious clue is the rear window is stock, it shoes no sign of having the window plug as it's called installed, second is the wheels and hubs , Nascar used 1 ton truck hubs an d full floating rear axles that had larger bearings and because they were heaver 1 ton hubs the rims used had 6 lug nut stud so they used 6 bolt rims. That car has standardpaasenger car 5 bolt wheels and hubs, the roll cage is wrong design an tube thickness and finally the front clip, you can see in the drivers side picture that the fender and nose is one piece fabricated out of sheet metal a Nascar Daytona nose is three pieces, the stock fender the nose cone and a filler piece that covered the lower style line indentation where the factory side marker was smoothing it out, you can see that from the picture taken on race day where the driver is kneel in front.
What you have is someone's second Gen hobby dirt track charger, with a period correct looking nascar style hemi in stalled, there may be a few bits and bobs from the original like the cylinder heads or intake, maybe the seat something like that. But I'd bet 95% or more isn't original.
You are wrong about the rear end. Most every nascar of that era ran a modified 9" ford unit.
I agree,I think that it's been rebodied. And not very well?
You’re wrong on all of it . The NASCAR sheet metal shares nothing with the production car except the roof skin . Sheet metal parts were sent by from body-in-white to the teams to fit the template .
The cage had to fit minimums including wall thickness.
Axles were 5 bolt and full float mods were available.
The car in the photos was documented by NASCAR , Peterson museum and many others .
Take the time to learn some history.
@@duncandmcgrath6290 raaaaahrrrr... is that a cat fight?😄
@@duncandmcgrath6290 Weelll I admit after reading the comment about them using a ford 9 inch, they didn't btw, I was wrong about the number of lug studs they used, I was thinking about in the 50's early 60"s when every part on a stock car had to have a factory number, an example that's easy to look up was the hand full of 57chevy"black widows" they made before gm banned all race participation.
As for the rest you are mistaken. In 69-70 a body in white was actually an assembly line chassis just like the car on the show room, they didn't use just the roof and fabricate the rest from sheet metal to fit templates, now in the late 70's when they went to that spec type chassis ford and gm used, based on mid sixties ford galaxy type modified floor pan and frame that used a coil spring three link 9 in rear as a basis they used well into the late 90's. You are partially correct about them using a template, it was a crude silhouette they started to use after junior johnsons 66 galaxy nicknamed the yellow bananna and smokey eunicks 7/8ths chevelle engineering study.
I don't really care if nascar or the peterson museum said it was the car, it may have a lot of parts from the wrecked original no way the chassis was the same, look at the picture of it after the wreck, the drivers side is smashed in almost to the trans tunnel and being a 69 daytona used a unibody the chassis would've been bent beyond repair no race team would waste there time trying to fix it when it would be easier and cheaper to take all the good parts off and put them on a new chassis.
Here's another thing the video said the family kept the car a few years after the wreck in the garage that the local kids played in and on. Let's say a few years means they kept it until 72, by then the daytona was outlawed or restricted so much to make it noncompetitive, even if they repaired it to race again why would they use that body instead of the 3rd gen charger? They have found a few petty and other name racers cars and they were rebodied 3rd gen chargers or in the case of a petty 71-72 plymouth, magnum bodied, they knew it might be a petty car because of the peace sign head rest that the fabricator back then used those couple of years, so I stand by my original statement minus my error that I just corrected.
No such thing as a cursed car. But then if you believe in "the lord" and "the devil" you might well believe that.
That's a badass car. You pay the top a say sorry my friend.
Driving at or above 100 mph is high risk no matter where you are.
I wonder if it's the same Prince Chrysler Plymouth dealer that is in the original Gone in sixty seconds movie where the Challenger is stolen from?
What a unfortunate debut for a driver, this is really tragic only 18 laps to your Nascar legacy. As far as that car being found and for sale or restoration that thing needs to be crushed so called death cars have bad karma and are in disrespectful macabre displays for money treating a or multiple peoples death like a sideshow. Jane Mansfield, Bonnie and Clyde, etc...
Some time in the future, I want to do a Top 10 Countdown video on the Worst NASCAR Debuts, which I've wanted to do for a long while now...
This would be the obvious #1, but what I'm going to do exclude it because of the sad ending & instead make note of it before truly beginning the countdown.
Garrett Smithley should definitely be included on that list. Transmission broke on him during the opening lap at Michigan in 2018.
No disrespect meant. But where do they come up with some of these people's names? Talmadge, Sterling, Cotton, etc. Just curious.
Common in the south, in that era .
Knew a guy from Carolinas named pougar????
Dick Trickle as well
Bonnet
You DON'T think, what is up with that, you tying to get under the boys skin, saying that his father ain't his, because you "DON'T THINK "😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮
True. Could have been a "booty call".
Ray Yound and Ray Yound and Ray Yound
Yes great he got to live his dream if only for a short while, how many can sat they raced at Daytona in a stock car..RIP Tab.
Was the 1970 Daytona 500 the first MRN Radio broadcast?
Also, if I remember my American History in general correctly, wasn't it also around this same time period in 1970, when Jeffrey MacDonald's family was massacred in Fort Bragg, North Carolina? I know that this is one of the more darker subjects to discuss, just like the Tab Prince crash you documented in this video, but I've watched all kinds of TV shows about this case, and everyone has their own ideas about what happened that night. I think I remember them saying that that happened in February 1970. Correct me if I'm wrong now. Again, a dark blemish from a tumultuous period of American history. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't that happen around the same time Daytona Speedweeks was taking place in 1970? For that matter, is there anyone part of this community, that has watched TV shows about this case, just like I have? I have had a long time fascination for NASCAR. I guess Cold Cases have always fascinated me a bit too to some extent.
Blurred video. LOL. Nothing to see. Just a couple of cars sliding sideways.
Prob YT and there copyright claim stuff
Bill WHO?
Siefert (pronounced See-fert)
booo homework!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
first human comment
A Car dealer wants to race? He's not a race car driver....he shouldn't of been out there. At ALL! RIP Dreamer!
You never said a thing about how much experience he had or any other racing he had done. You usually don't get to start out in the big leagues like the Daytona 500 or the Indy 500 without some qualification to do so. Was he simply too inexperienced to be doing what he was attempting?😪🏴
I did mention that he had done some part time racing, but I couldn't find too much information. Probably not much. Although he didn't have the experience, no one can prevent an engine failure like that.
You have to keep in mind that the rules back then were far more lenient- especially in NASCAR- than they are today. Local short track racers with no superspeedway experience at all, people with little racing experience in general could race at Daytona as long as they had a car.
REALLY?check out L.W.Wright.
Ridiculous.