Barry Lee first heard about the Superbird from an unreliable source. After all, the guy had already snookered Lee out of two Plymouth 'Cudas that he had pursued on eBay.

"This guy would deal in muscle cars," said Lee, a motorcycle dealer near Jacksonville, Florida. "But he sold the two 'Cudas from under me after I had committed to them."

Lee's business was booming, and this allowed him to pursue the Mopar muscle cars he had loved since he was a kid. He was into Chrysler's big-block 'Cudas, Super Bees, and Challengers. But his dream was to someday own either a long-snouted, big-winged Plymouth Superbird or its similarly styled cousin, the Dodge Daytona.

These cars were built with one purpose in mind: to win NASCAR races. The slippery nose and tall tail helped these cars go fast and stay planted, earning wins for drivers such as Richard Petty, Buddy Baker, and Bobby Allison. But the street versions were never winners in the showroom. The odd-looking vehicles were sold to the public for homologation purposes only; NASCAR rules required that a certain number of street versions be built for any model a manufacturer wanted to race on the stock car circuit.

Lee's not-so-dependable contact must have had a change of heart, because he phoned Lee to tell him about a Superbird he heard about in Alabama.

"He told me something about the car having been owned by a guy who was missing in action in Vietnam, and it had been sitting since 1975," said Lee. "He gave me an address and only asked for a finder's fee if I purchased the car."

Fair enough, Lee thought, and he made plans to see the winged Plymouth.

"Alabama was more than four hours from my home, and my wife wasn't in the mood to take a long drive," he said. "But I told her I'd take her to Biloxi, Mississippi, for some gambling over Christmas if we could stop in Alabama on the way. She was all for it."

When Lee pulled up to the house, he thought the wheeler-dealer Mopar salesman had pulled another fast one on him. The property was overgrown, the house was abandoned, and the roof had collapsed. Lee walked around the yard and looked at a couple of old trucks and cars that were lying about, but there was nothing exciting. Then his wife noticed a small piece of bright orange inside the hedge. Lee pushed away the branches and discovered the car of his dreams: a 1970 Plymouth Superbird that had actually become part of the hedge!

Lee found out who owned the house and called the phone number.

"When I called and asked about the car, they hung up the phone on me," he said.

The elderly owner, Frank Moran, whose wife was in a nursing home, lived nearby with his daughter.

"So then I had my wife call, and she and Frank were having a nice conversation until she mentioned the Plymouth. Then he hung up on her too."

The Lees went on to Biloxi and had an enjoyable holiday, and decided to pursue the Superbird later.

Lee gives his wife full credit for coming up with a plan on acquiring the Plymouth. Call it woman's intuition, but she suggested that they simply write a letter that expressed their desire to buy the car. What did he have to lose?

It was several weeks after their Alabama trip that Lee wrote the letter to both the elderly Frank Moran and his daughter. In it, he said he'd like to restore the car-to remove it from the elements that were destroying it-and that Moran could keep the title. It was quite a charitable offer, but it went unanswered.

"It was out of my hands," Lee said. And at least a year went by before he received a surprise phone call.

"Hello, Barry? This is George Proux, Frank Moran's son-inlaw," the caller announced. Lee's heart began racing. "Frank fell and is in the hospital. I have power-of-attorney, and I had all the cars hauled off before I found your letter. I figured I should give you a call and let you know that the Plymouth you are interested in is sitting at my house in Jacksonville, Florida."

Only about fifteen minutes from Lee's house!

Proux was a muscle car enthusiast. In fact, when he first married Moran's daughter, he had tried to purchase the Superbird from Moran, but he was denied. With Moran's declining health, Proux and his son hauled the car to their Florida home in the hopes of restoring it. But Lee hoped they would consider selling it, because the Superbird's restoration was more than an average hobby restorer could handle.

Proux said that a museum in Alabama had been calling about acquiring the car, but he wanted to give Lee the first opportunity because the letter he had written was so sincere.

"I went over and looked at the car and we talked," Lee said. "At the time I was driving a very nice, 1970 factory big-block lime green Road Runner."

Lee and Proux traded.

"He got what he wanted and I got what I wanted," said Lee, very pleased with the transaction.

Lee's barn find is equipped with a numbers-matching 440-cubic-inch engine, column-mounted automatic transmission, and bench seat. It still has its original bias-ply Goodyear Wide Oval tires mounted on rally wheels. It was one of 1,920 Superbirds manufactured.

It was only after he acquired the car that Lee was finally able to meet Frank Moran and learn of the car's history.

"Frank was a super-nice guy; he was in a walker when I met him," Lee said.

Moran had traded a boat for the Superbird in 1974. He drove it, but didn't enjoy being followed by people who wanted to talk to him about the car. Apparently, Moran once ran off someone inquiring about the car with a shotgun.

"He was kind of a private guy," Lee said.

Finally, having driven it less than one thousand miles and fed up with the notoriety the car was bringing him, he pulled the car out of sight and parked it behind his house. Eventually the hedge slowly engulfed the orange car so that it wasn't visible even to someone standing next to it. That's where Lee first spotted the car. Unfortunately, the time since he first saw the car had taken its toll on the Superbird's condition.

A hurricane that took landfall in Pensacola in 2004 blew down a tree, which broke out the back window and dented the roof and rear quarter panel. Then thieves had made off with many of the car's unique parts, such as the rear wing, hood, radio, front fender scoops, and radiator.

"I was surprised at the car's poor condition when I saw it in Jacksonville," he said. Luckily, Lee came across a "clone" Superbird, from which he was able to buy replacements for many of the stolen metal and fiberglass pieces. However, he still needed the rear window-which is unique to the Superbird and extremely rare. Incredibly, Lee was able to locate a parts vendor in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, who had a brand new rear window for the car still in the original carton.

"I finally have my dream car," Lee said. "This car is a keeper."

"It will get a full rotisserie restoration and be the most serious restoration I've ever done. Because of the moist, salty, and humid environment the car had lived in for so many years, the floors, trunk, frame rails, and some of the firewall need to be replaced."

But first, Lee is completing the restoration of a 1969 Super Bee. Then a 1969 Camaro Convertible. Then a 1971 'Cuda.

Then comes the Superbird.

"I owe it to my wife, whose idea of a letter worked," he said. "Persistence paid off."

"When it's restored, I think it will be the lowest-mileage Superbird in the world."

An excerpt from Hemi in the Barn: More Great Stories of Automotive Archeology, Motorbooks, ISBN-13 9780760327210. All rights reserved.