Chrysler Corporation’s NASCAR Wing Cars: A Nine-Minute History Lesson

There’s even more than meets the eye when it comes to Chrysler’s legendary NASCAR homologation specials. 

Another epic history lesson from Donut Media just dropped, and this time it covers one of our favorite subjects: The wacky, wild, and super effective Chrysler wing cars from NASCAR’s 1969 and 1970 seasons.

At the height of the muscle car era, money was flowing into Chrysler’s automotive divisions like it was going out of style. At the same time, the arms race in NASCAR was rapidly heating up. When car companies have lots of money, they spend it on advertising ventures. And back then, NASCAR was exactly that.

The 1960s were the early days of automotive aerodynamic testing, and there were many concepts still considered a black art. Hell, even today aero is still something of a black art in motorsports.

One thing they knew they needed, however, was aerodynamic downforce to get the car through the corners faster. By adding a smooth nose cone to the front of the car, and a huge wing out back, Dodge managed to build a serious homologation special. The wing needed to be so tall in order to exceed the height of the cabin and get up into the “clean air”.
 

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When built to NASCAR spec, this was the first car to exceed 200 miles per hour on the high banks of the series’ ‘Super Speedways.’ It was huge news at the time. Back then, 200 miles per hour was unfathomable to the average driver. The full extent of this speed was first shown by Dodge in 1969 with the Daytona. For 1970, Plymouth built their own, the Superbird, and brought The King, Richard Petty, back into their camp. Man, wouldn’t it be nice if NASCAR ran truly stock cars and required homologation again? Bring back wild rides like the wing twins, please.