The original muscle car era was not long but it had a profound impact on American performance that's still very much alive to this day. One of the most famous and, not to mention, rare, of those muscle cars was the 1970 Plymouth Superbird. By today's standards, it could be mistaken for a small boat, but the Superbird was very much state of the art for its time. It had to be because Plymouth wanted to lure NASCAR great Richard Petty back from Ford. Needless to say, it worked, but the Superbird's NASCAR career lasted only one season.

Why? It was just too damn fast. Designed in the wind tunnel (a rarity at the time), the Superbird was homologated and road car production got underway, though it was limited.

As Jay Leno and fellow comedian and owner of the Superbird featured here, Jeff Dunham, discuss in this new episode of Jay Leno's Garage was the fact the car was not very popular when it went on sale. It was so different from anything else out there (one exception: the '69 Dodge Charger Daytona) that some buyers actually removed the front end. Clearly things have changed today as these Superbirds are highly sought after. Dunham's car was actually a barn find and it's rare even among Superbirds because of its manual transmission.