This is my friend Jim’s 1972 Plymouth Barracuda. He’s owned it since 1978. It’s painted Hemi Orange, and he added the 1970-style “hockey stick” stripes with 340 callouts himself because he liked the look. And after sixteen years being out of action, it’s finally back on the street.
Under the hood, it’s actually got a 318 backed by a 4-speed manual transmission. As Jim puts it, “Everything on this car is manual!” It may get a 340 under the hood some day, but for now Jim is just happy that it’s back on the road.
The Barracuda has seen its share of bruises and repairs over the years. It had some bodywork and a repaint done in 1991. In 1997 Jim was in the process of removing the drivetrain to freshen-up the engine and discovered a rotted-out section of the rear frame. Disgruntled, he took a break from the project, and never got back to it.
This spring I helped Jim take his car to a restoration shop. They repaired the frame, reinstalled the drivetrain, did some underhood clean-up and fixed-up the fuel and brake systems, which had deteriorated from sitting for 15 years.
Last weekend I gave him a lift over to the shop to pick up his car. Here he is covering-up the 1997 registration sticker with the new 2013 one. He’s really happy to be able to drive it again.
I would think that a 318 with a four speed would give this car plenty of scoot. Every 318 I have driven in a smaller car has not been a bad performer.
Your friend Jim must have had access to a crystal ball when he went shopping for a car in 1978. If there had ever been a cheap used car to pick up then and hold until now, it would be one of these. A shame he didn’t hold out for the convertible or a bigger engine.
Several years ago, I used to see a Challenger convertible in the same color rolling around my area. It was a ratty but original car. It has certainly made it to someone who has restored it by now, as I have not seen it in probably ten years.
Are the pictures showing up for you? They’re just lines for me. Are you on a mobile device?
I’m getting lines in IE ,but pics are fine in Chrome…
Not getting pics in IE.
I’m getting lines, but if I click on the lines, they act as a link to the photos.
I had a Petty Blue 72 Cuda 340/automatic when I was stationed in New York in the early ’90s. It was a mostly original car with 80K miles on it and it had a hot cam and some other basic hot rod parts. Every stereotype about Chrysler E-Bodies was true in that car..rust, bad interior, rattles everywhere, etc but that car was ungodly quick on the street and so damn cool.
I love the basicness of that orange 72, glad to see its back on the road. My 2 cents: that 318 has been with it for 41 years, I think its earned the right to stay
A 318 in that sized car gets along ok, nice car a model I wish we had got drop in a E49 motor and it would go like a bullet
Pics show up fine for me. Im on a mobile device errr phone.
There’s a very similar Barracuda in my neck of the woods, even same color. Original lady owner, she bought it after her first paycheque as a school teacher. Hers is a vinyl roof car with white bucket seats and automatic, and has full-sized wheelcovers. She takes it out in summer once in a blue moon, never goes to shows though. Next time I see it at Safeway I’ll try and grab a few pics.
These cars look great in bright colours,always fancied a lime light E body.The 318 is overlooked among Mopar V8s, it can offer good performance and when driven carefully reasonable mileage for a high power V8.
The pics are vertical lines for me – but clicking on them brings them up in a new screen. I like the look of the taillights and rear on these.
Very nice! 72-74s seemed to fly under the collector radar for quite some time, now a days even they’re fetching 70-71(non big block/non vert) money, so having that tucked away in a garage for several years aint too bad. And I love the color!
Personally, I always thought the 72-74s always had a sad look to them, where the 70-71s had a cocky exuberance to their look. The rehashed 70 grille/headlight layout and huge Corvette like tail lights just made it seem outwardly apparent the company gave up, which was the case. The all at once loss of the high impact colors, big blocks, as well as convertables to lesser extent really spelled the E’s moribund fate, as those were really what the cars were truly made for. Even the striping on the 72 ‘Cuda models had a dreary, toned down, generic look to them, despite being no less outrageous than the 71’s billboards(especially the hood decals) and much more bold than the clean 70 hockey stick stripe this one has.
Yeah, once it quickly became apparent that the E-body was going to be a sales bomb, Chrysler management seems to have decided overnight that the car’s days were numbered and abandoned any significant future changes. They eliminated all but the two smallest V8s, then rode it out for as long as they could with one, minor grille/taillight change in ’72, and that was it. The only other changes were those required by federal regulations.
If not for the sharp styling and rarity of the highest performance models, the E-body would have been long forgotten. They were engineered and built poorly, had miserable ergonomics, and weren’t any faster than a similiarly equipped A- or B-body coupe.
The 318 can put out decent power, but these days fuel prices dictate economy. After 1976 Dodge made a version of the A-833 4-speed manual that was overdrive in 4th gear. That would make a decent combination with the 318 for a mix of performance and economy while staying with stock, bolt on parts and not needing any fabricating or expensive custom parts. Here’s a link for more info.
http://www.allpar.com/mopar/transmissions/four-speed-manual.html
When the E-Bodies first came out, I saw a lot of them, my sister’s best friend’s soon to be hubby had a 340 Challenger R/T, A neighbor of ours had a red Cuda with a 383, and some Fonzie looking guy about 2 blocks over had a 440 Cuda, red with a black vinyl top. I wanted a Cuda or a Challenger really bad. By the time I was ready to buy my first car, the E-Bodies had been cancelled, and the leftovers were going fast. I found a perfectly optioned black ’74 Cuda, but since my mother had to sign for the car, as I hadn’t hit 18 quite yet, it was gone by the time I got her to go over to the dealer, and the only 360 one I could find was a horrible misty green one with white stripes, and white interior. Over the years, i had chances to buy nice cars, but they never came along when I had any money available. When Chrysler showed the Challenger concept in 2006, I practically foamed at the mouth. Finally, in Nov 2010, I had the money, and the car was available. Not my car, but identical:
Nrd515 – I’ve also got one of those. 2010 Challenger R/T Classic in Hemi Orange. It has every available option, yet it’s a 6-speed. That’s because the manual transmission was actually a $995 -option- on these cars before the facelift in 2011.
I would not have specified it with so many gizmos – the GPS I certainly would have skipped – but it was March 2011, I wanted to get myself a 30th birthday present, and after a bad experience with a Ford dealer reneging on a deal to sell me the then-new Boss 302 at sticker, I drove the regular Mustang 5.0, then tried the Challenger. I was going to drive a Camaro SS but the Challenger got its claws in me and I was hooked. Funny thing, too, as I usually prefer smaller, sportier cars, but the Challenger felt like a more authentic muscle car experience.
Anyway, I did not care for the color choices on the 2011s – they’d dropped all the High Impact colors – so I went looking for either Hemi Orange or Plum Crazy. The only PC I found was an auto, but the Hemi Orange could still be had with stick.
Getting it for nearly $9,000 off the original sticker price was icing on the cake. I drove it from Pennsylvania to Southern California last December (a tale I am working on a story about for this site) and I couldn’t imagine a better road trip companion.
My first car was a ’72 Barracuda, a real plain Jane. Aztec Gold, stock hubcaps, 318 and a three speed manual! It was in great shape, 100% stock. Bought it in 1985 for $1,500 , wish I still had it today.
While these days Barracudas have the ‘Hemi’ image from car auctions. Reality is like the Mustang back in the day, a Pony car with long option list. Many were just commuter cars or ‘office worker specials’.
Images like Doris Day and Mr. Brady driving them on TV, are more close to reality than all the ‘Plum Crazy’ [real or cloned] Hemis at Barrett-Jackson.