(Updated 11/12/2025) I always enjoy coming across new and old versions of the same car. Or in this case very similar cars. Since Plymouth was dead by the time the Challenger was revived, we will not get a chance to see a new Barracuda. The modern Challenger is as close as we can expect.
The Challenger is the spicy SRT variant. Which would you pick?
In my fantasy world I take the old one to drive and the new one to sell for a handful of Chrysler Newports to drive in bad weather.
In the real world I take the new one to drive (or to crash, as Kevin Hart learned) and the old one to sell – for a whole crap ton of anything else.
I believe there are kits to convert a new Challenger into a Barracuda. I have seen a few around. Of course it still has a Challenger VIN on it. All it needs then is a “Highland Park Hummingbird” starter attached to the current engine!
Bob
Yes, there are. Likewise there are kits to turn a current-gen Camaro into a Firebird/Trans Am. Why do people buy them? I have no idea.
Are there kits to turn a new Mustang into a Cougar?
It’s really not conducive to it, the bodysides and Fastback roofline are so distinctively Mustang a Cougar conversion would be really reaching.
Challenger-Cuda conversions on the other hand are really simple since they didn’t look that different from each other to begin with, and much of the modernization in the new body distorted some of the more challenger specific body traits anyway, in fact the taller trunk of the current Challenger looks more Cudaish in profile.
The Barracuda grille kits look convincing and attractive but the taillight panels look awful, they seem to use straight up vintage Cuda taillights and just look wrong and dwarfed encased around all the modern plastics
The Barracuda taillights are wrong on the new Challenger simply due to the mounting of the license plate. The E-body Challenger had it mounted below the rear bumper; the Barracuda on the decklid panel between the lights.
If the new Barracuda taillights included a kit to relocate the plate to the E-body location, it wouldn’t look so goofy. But, then, you’d have get a whole new, smooth bumper fascia, as well.
For some reason, that change also makes the rear bumper seem massive – much more so than the bumper on the stock Challengers. Is it the angle of the photograph?
These conversion kits were offered for sale at the Chryslers at Carlisle show. The Barracuda front does look good.
Because it IS massive. I think the Challengers wide full width taillight panel emphasizes width and tricks the eye to focus on it.
Found this one.. from Hot Rod. Didn’t read article, but it sure looks 100x better.
As Rudiger noted, the license plate in the correct place would really help. Here’s the original for comparison.
What if they move the rear plate to the cove area on the kit, make a new smooth bumper cover and add a thick chrome strip on the top edge of the bumper cover to mimic the bumper on the original ‘Cuda? That would make the cover look less massive and closer to the original.
Bob
Maybe it’s just a sign of the times, but I sure don’t get the missing chrome bumper/grille trim on any of the new retro-ponycars. It would be so simple (and cheap) to just shmuck a mylar chrome strip to mimic the old-school bumper on the fascias of the new cars, as well as a thin, chrome trim-strip to surround the grille and taillights like the old cars.
There are actually kits for just such an application and they are such an improvement it’s not understandable why the companies aren’t doing it at the factory.
An improvement?
The short answer? “One of each!”
(Assumes lottery money.) 😉
It’s been covered here before, but the Barracuda makes a real nice wagon
That is oddly fantastic.
Wow, good lookin car!
That does look really damn good. I’d totally rock that.
That is so Brady Bunch!!
This works too
This would have been some great competition for the successful AMC Hornet Sportabout.
I like the modern Challenger quite a bit but next to the original E bodies they look like massive bricks. Additionally, if so equipped, the original wood accented Rallye cluster in the E body is probably my favorite instrument cluster I have ever seen, I’d gladly look down at it over the plasticy LCD laden overstyled modern instruments
The one thing that sways me towards the newer is if I was forced to drive it In all weather conditions, E bodies rust so rapidly and so badly I’d be afraid to drive it just through puddles. The oldest LXs I see in salt bathed Chicago streets still appear to be solid.
I remember the ad for the retro-Challenger nose-to-nose with an original E-body. It made an extremely convincing argument to buy one of the substantially better looking old cars.
With that said, yeah, the old E-body is a terrific car to look at but not so great if you actually have to drive one on anything even remotely close to a regular basis. Even with modern drivetrain upgrades, the body integrity of an old Mopar just isn’t there.
It’s kind of like the myth of the legendary Street Hemi. They were high-strung race engines that responded poorly to detuning for the street. Smart guys who wanted a good-running Mopar musclecar went with a 440, and then only a four-barrel and not the difficult to keep in tune ‘Six-Pack’ version.
Smarter ones who liked handling balance went with a 340, which was no slouch in a straight line and much better through a corner.
But smarter ones than that got a Duster or Demon 340
Spotted this one in Columbia Maryland a couple of years back…
The front looks great, but I have to agree with Matt regarding the back end…
The previous modern ‘Cuda looks like it uses original ‘Cuda taillights and reverse lights, which are relocated from the trunk to the outer panel.
This modern cuda just uses finishing panels that mount over the stock taillights. On the outside they are visible with some chrome over the stock taillights. On the trunk the inner lights are blocked and only the factory reverse lights are visible.
I don’t hate it. The tail lights on this one look better than the one above that XR7Matt posted but still look a little era “off”.
Well, for hate, there’s the Superbird version. Ewwww.
These make me nauseous in the same way easyrod Thunderbird’s do – how can someone be so enamored with the front and rear end designs that they can just ignore the midsection not remotely matching the original designs???
I see the blue one looking more like a full scale version of “The King” from Cars. Than an actual Superbird. It’s the smiley mouth grille that cinches it.
That grille
What year was the Barracuda in? My guess would be 1973 because of the bumpers, I actually prefer the rounded tail lights of the 1972-74 Barracuda’s over the 1970-71 tail lights and don’t know why they weren’t used in the beginning.
In the realm of muscle Mopars, I always liked the A/B/C-bodys more than the Es. While obviously great-looking cars, the E-Bodys had sub-par build quality, even worse than the typical Mopar of the day, they were heavy and sloppy handlers at best, especially the big block cars. The GM F-Bodys were much better cars in pretty much every aspect, and I say that as a Mopar fan thats owned both a 340 Cuda and a 340 Challenger
The new Challenger, however, is a very well-built car with a real back seat and a trunk that punches well above its weight on a road course despite it being such a heavy, sedan based car.
So for me it would be a new Challenger and a classic Charger.
Yeah that’s probably the ideal combo. Nothing modern matches the 68 Charger in design and presence/attitude, I like the current Charger for what it is but it’s far removed from what the originals were. Whereas the current Challenger is really what the E bodies should have always been and proved to be far more successful. I love the low slung wide fuselage aspects of the original designs that didn’t translate to the larger LX but, not they’re just enough to overcome their negatives. They’re like concept cars for display that were accidentally mass produced for a few years.
My heart wants the Barracuda & my head wants the Challenger
Has anyone heard about the 4-door 1970 Barracuda that someone actually built?
http://4doorcuda.com/magazines.php
The overall look of these two parallel the people who bought then and buy them now.
The ’70’s Barracuda looks a lean muscular young guys in his ’20’s ready anytime to…
The current Challenger looks like that same guys after fifty years of the good life, too much beer, rich food and little exercise. But, he’s still able to ‘perform’ with the help of the little blue pills and his car with healthy doses of technology and engineering.
Come to think of it, I’ve described about 98% of the current Challenger drivers I’ve encountered…
To be realistic, that describes the entire automotive landscape currently. The difference in Challengers is far less extreme than the difference in say a first gen Accord and a current one. Or the “mini” countryman or Fiat 500L, or virtually any SUV since the original military JEEP.
The Challenger is about 6 inches longer and 6 inches taller than the original 1970, same width. It fares pretty well compared to most import legacy names, the ones that proudly took on Detroit’s bigger is better philosophy…
Regardless of which you pick, you are very likely to stand out in a crowd. I love them both.
Amazingly underappreciated in its day, its modern successor and the original revered today.
The modern version rides a fine line between Pony Car and Personal Luxury Car – likely the reason it sells so well, very cool with enough space, glass and cargo area to be functional.
Sometime when driving our 2013 Mustang, I occasionally daydream about a longer wheelbase, more formal C pillar, elongated sequential turn signals…..
One of those new Challenger SRTs overtook me today then he got trapped behind a curtainsider B train so I went around him and the truck he passed me again not long after somewhere where his handicap of LHD didnt hamper him so much rego plate was VANPNT, only thing wrong it was a black car I remember the movie the car was white, prefer the original model meself it might not be as fast but it was much cooler.
I missed out when I was 18 in ’74 on the last Cudas and Challengers. I couldn’t find one with a 360 that wasn’t some awful color, or wasn’t badly optioned. I had friends with them, and it seemed like they either held up very well, or just fell apart. A friend’s ’73 Challenger Rallye 340 that he bought looking showroom new in 1978 held up well, but another friend’s 440 Cuda was a mess from day one, and when he finally got tired of it, he traded it for a ’78 Trans Am, which was just a better car. Not as quick, but a much better car for a daily driver. I’ve had two Challengers now, an R/T and now an R/T Scatpack. If the money situation is out of the picture, give me the new car, hands down. Better built, faster, handles better, a lot better, and stops tremendously better. And it’s a lot more comfortable. If I had the power to make a car from some sort of spell, it would be a Cuda that had the modern drivetrain, and interior, with the external look of the original. I would take the 6.4 engine over the 440 or Hemi, no contest, and the 8 speed Torqueflite is just about perfect.
The new one, hands down. Something you could daily or just show; modern diagnostics, performance, safety and compatibility with newer technologies.
I love the old ones, but would not want to deal with their needs in the current day.
The new one as a daily driver, the old one for shows and as a ‘weekend warrior’.
I only see old men driving Challengers.
I’ll pass.
Sorry, that came off as harsh.
I meant to say that you know those old people driving around in Toyota and Honda vehicles?
This is what their parents drive.
I know one young man (fresh out of diesel mechanic school) who bought a Challenger R/T with Hemi and 6 speed manual. He’s in his early 20s.
I see more young faces in Challengers than I do Mustangs and Camaros by a wide margin.
But even humoring this claim, so what?
“Oh no, my dream car isn’t cool, cars aren’t even cool, ownership is way uncool! I’ll just uber everywhere and be depressed, lest a zoomer says ok boomer to me!!!”
You know what really makes people seem old? Pretending to know what younger people think.
The Challenger is a fairly hot ticket at my son’s high school, and was on his my son’s list when we went looking for a used commuter for him.
Even the V6 versions have strong resale value, and were out of our budget. While “settled” isn’t really the right word, we picked up a 2013 Mustang V6. Ours is one of several that appear daily in the school parking lot. My son wrote an article about them for the school paper.
It’s not all grey hair and beer bellies behind the wheels of these cars.
Comparing the new model Pony cars against their early models, the newer cars are quite a bit larger. The Challenger is the largest of the group. I had a ’70 Mustang at the same time that I had a 2007 coupe. The 2007 was noticeably larger, but was so much better in use of space and the newer car has much better ergonomics and better integrated safety and convenience equipment. If I had to choose between the newer and older car I’d choose the newer car to use as a daily driver. If I had a ton of money I could have both. I’d buy my favorite Classic Pony car to keep as a hobby and show car. I like the newer versions and I’m glad that the manufacturers made these cars, it allows the average guy to enjoy the Pony car experience.
The old Barracuda is a beautiful, terrible car!
The new Challenger is a beautiful, terrific car. Until you get close to it. Open the ridiculously huge door and get inside.
It’s huge everywhere, 4000+ pounds.
My ’89 Fox Mustang looks so small when parked next to a 2007+ Mustang. It make the newer Mustang look huge.
My Fox is like a go cart compared to a modern Mustang.
The answer is to take the old car, gut it, weld up all the unibody seams, weld in full length subframe connectors, weld in a 6 point roll bar.
Modern seats, modern drivetrain, suspension and brakes.
Then you have cool looking old car, the right size, lightweight, that performs.
Which is what I did to my Fox Mustang. 🙂
The E body barracuda is ok, but I prefer a ’69 formula S with a 340.
Ideally I’d take a proper restomod with modern drive train, brakes, suspension, interior etc.
This way I can have it all with one car.
I don’t mind the new challenger, but the looks are a bit off.
I’ll take the old one. Will hold value better than the new one and the new ones have build quality issues with the engines. I also don’t like the cockpit feel of the new cars where the center console cuts the car in half. Can’t slide your girlfriend over on the front bench seat if it’s got one.
I’ll try again. Hot Rod article car.
Either the first photo was taken in Canada, or (much less likely) Shoppers Drug Mart has expanded into the United States.
Yes, in Alberta.
Can’t help but like the old one. Much better size/weight.