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A fishy story or how Plymouth got the jump but lost the race to Ford.

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The 1964 1/2 Ford Mustang was the first Pony Car. Chrysler Plymouth did their best to try to steal the thunder of the April New York Worlds Fair Introduction, by releasing the Plymouth Valiant Barracuda on April first, two weeks before the opening of the Fair. Chrysler did a great job incorporating the large glass fast back onto the mundane Plymouth economy car and actually created a niche for the car. It was not until 1965 with the introduction of the "S" package that the Barracuda was actually taken seriously as a performance car. Plymouth was ahead of the curve in SCCA Road Racing and the Barracuda was always in the running in the early Trans Am Series.

It was not until the 1967 introduction of the second generation A body Barracuda that the car was taken seriously by the enthusiast. With a truly fresh design and the addition of a coupe and convertible to the fastback, sales were brisk but nothing in comparison to the Mustang and the Camaro Firebird duo from GM. For such a low production numbers, Chrysler gave its buyers every thing from the legendary 225 six to the ground pounding 2 four barrel 426 Hemi V8.

In my opinion the best balanced of all the "Cudas" was the 1968-69 340 powered fastback. Find a nice one of those with the S package, a "6 pack" intake and carburetors, some modern tires and suspension and you would have a butt kicking very usable street, track and show car. Although the 3rd generation of cars with the big block power are very celebrated today. The second generation A bodied cars were the most graceful with well designed lines with little or no gimmicks.

1970 saw the introduction of the 3rd generation Barracuda along with its brother for Dodge, the Challenger. By far the most aggressively designed of all the pony cars, they were also the biggest. The need for space for the big block motors led Chrysler to build their new Pony cars on the "E" platform shared with the full size Belvedere and Coronet. In racing Dodge and Plymouth Super Bird aero cars were the cars to beat in NASCAR and on the drag strip that duty fell to the Cuda, and Challenger. In 1970 the hottest racing series was not NASCAR, it was the SCCA's Trans Am Series. With the win on Sunday Sell on Monday mind set all the manufacturers had official and un-official road race teams. The crowds were huge with some venues having as many as 70,000 attendees. The #48 Plymouth Cuda AAR (All American Racing) with Dan Gurney, Sweede Savage and Sam Posey. A friend of mine bought the ex Dan Gurney/Sweede Savage car and I had the opportunity to flog this car at Infineon Raceway (formerly known as Sears Point, California) My first reaction was, "my god, this thing is huge" and that it was. It felt wider than any thing I ever drove on road course and only exceeded when I drove Ken Epsman's 1963, Mercury Marauder with no power steering. Check out Sam Posey's Road & Track article of his reunion with the sister to the car I drove and his original 1970 race car.

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Comment by John Cuda on July 13, 2011 at 8:45am: Ha, ha. that'll work.

Comment by Miguel Caparros on July 13, 2011 at 8:25am: I used to have Motorsports Ministries come out to the race track to help cleanse some soul's.

Comment by John Cuda on July 13, 2011 at 8:00am: Joe, I wanna see that 38 hemi powered coupe!

Comment by John Cuda on July 13, 2011 at 7:58am: Yeah Miguel, will definitely pass the word about that cruise. It's not too far I just have a hard time splaining to the Wife how a car cruise is better than going to Church with the family on Sunday morning.

I have my racers for Christ sticker on the windshield so I may have to grovel a bit to get away.ha, ha.

Comment by John Cuda on July 13, 2011 at 7:48am: The Shelby?

Comment by Miguel Caparros on July 12, 2011 at 3:06pm: Did either of you notice the car in my profile photo?

Comment by Miguel Caparros on July 12, 2011 at 3:05pm: I know it may be a bit far for you guys bur if you can pass the word about my Sunday Morning Cruise in Duluth I would appreciated http://southeastwheelsevents.com/events/horsepower-breakfast-3rd.

Comment by Joe Mcginnis on July 12, 2011 at 2:51pm: I planned to go to Canton but something came up that I have to do on Sat. I will try to make the next cruise. I' ll be driving a Patriot Blue 1938 Plymouth coupe powered by a 426 Hemi. Look me up as I will be passing out flyers for our show on Oct. 15 th in Blairsville GA. I would like to see your cars. Joe

Comment by John Cuda on July 12, 2011 at 12:25pm: I love my 67.

I was excited to know that shortly after I bought my 67 project barracuda notchback I found out that my neighbor right at the end of the street had a 68 formula-S notchback 340/auto.

Just the other day my other neighbor scored a 68 fastback formula-S with a wild big block./originally a 383/auto/console, now white but originally HH1 dark bronze metallic (turbine bronze.)

Now there are three of these cars all within one square mile and we are all die hard Mopar fans.

How cool is that?

Can't wait to get them out to a local cruise in together, I think we will all be at Canton cruise in this saturday.

Ya'll need to see this gem my neighbor scored.

I was initially interested in an E body 'cuda but could not find one as a project and stumbled across my 67 which was not my favorite body style but with a crazy imagination and some options stolen from other mopar models I was able to create something different from the norm.

I can't wait to get my hands on another one, but the next one will be butterscotch/pearl with some custom stripes and a big block motorvation.

Now if I could just hit the lottery.

A good, solid 67-69 Barracuda project car could be had for roughly $2-k and the possibilities are endless and parts are still all over the internet.

Aftermarket companies have been doing much better re popping items for these cars as of late so putting one together is much easier than it used to be.

Comment by Joe Mcginnis on July 12, 2011 at 11:35am: I had a 1968 Formula S 383 4 spd that I ordered from the factory in Turbine Bronze. It was a great car. Ran in the 12's at the drags ( ATCO) with a 4.30 gear ,slicks and headers. I just wish I had the tires that are available today.