Do you all realize that in all these years we’ve never set our collective CC eyes on a gen2 Barracuda? Yes, the gen1 has been lavished with our amorous attentions. And Tom Klockau found a gen3 at a car show (natch). But no ’67-’69 Barracuda anywhere here, and given that it’s the best of the bunch, that needed to be rectified. And so when I saw one coming up behind me, I grabbed my camera and began shooting, into my outside rear view mirror, of course.
Here it comes, in a rather odd shade of…fuschia? Or just well-faded red?
I’ll let you all decide how this color came to be, but it doesn’t look any too original to me. And looking at this picture right now, I can’t help but think that the Avanti had more than a bit of influence on this car.
There it goes, the best handling pony car of its era. Now that I know the general whereabouts of its home, I will find it, and promise a full CC within six months!
I see that generation Barracuda daily. There is a very nicely restored blue/white roof/white interior barracuda convertible that I see daily during the some, and any decent weekend during the long winter months. He drives it unless there is snow on the ground.
Cool find.
Those are great cars! Personally I think they look better than the E-Bodies too, at least the fastbacks and convertibles anyway, I never cared much for the notchbacks. A 68-69 340 Cuda is one of best package cars of the musclecar era, add a 4 speed and disc brakes and you have a killer road car.
I think its still the only car in history where the front and rear bumpers are interchangeable. Chrysler engineering at its finest, lol.
The single tailpipe on the left side of the feature car tells me its a/6.
I agree, the fastback was the only good looking one. Not even the convertible does it for me.
Had a ’68 formula s 340 4 speed car, used to go to shows and mostly just drive it…only kept the inland shifter with its lift lockout due to originality, but had to be so careful shifting the damn thing, as it wanted to hang between second and third..hung an addco rear bar on it, and with radial t/a tires, as mentioned by others, it was a great road car, and damn fast as well…still am mesmerized by the sound the heat riser valve made in the exhaust note! Pure music to a mopar lover!
Woo! Good times…note to self, must dig out photos, it’s almost the holidays, time to get all nostalgic like…
Wow, I didn’t know ChryCo did the interchangeable bumper thing! Some 60’s Ramblers also had interchangeable front & rear bumpers — I thought they were the only manufacturer who did this until now.
Me too. Definately 64-69 Rambler American had interchangeable bumpers
the first generation Tempest/F-85/Specials also had interchangeable bumpers front back and division to division, or some combination of that. also. I think the Tempest had the front bumper from a Special turned upside down as its rear bumper or some strange twist of use. I’m sure someone will pipe in with the details.
The Torino Talladega had interchangeable bumpers to aid aerodynamics
I didn’t know about the bumpers on the Ramblers and Talladegas. I learn something new everytime I come on here!
That color is “Mauve” from the official Chrysler paint history. I was sort of hoping it was a faded “Plum Crazy” but that didn’t come along until 1970 – 1971.
http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/colorcodedisplay.cgi?model=Barracuda&year=1967&rows=50
A refreshingly clean design.
I do find the paint looks consistently ‘low-lustre’ over the whole body. Like it was intentionally repainted that way. Especially in the profile pic, the semi-matte appearance seems consistent from top to bottom. Usually with faded paint you can see inconsistent gloss and wear across the larger surfaces. I don’t see any variation in the ‘eggshell-like’ lustre. I don’t think it’s the original paint? Perhaps my eyes are playing tricks. : )
I’m surprised they didn’t bring the taillights further inward into the trunklid.
Even if they were simple, non-illuminated red lenses. These taillights look so miniscule. Doubling this lens width, would look stronger. I think the rear would have looked a bit more pony car masculine and sporty, and less ‘Valiant’ economy sedan-like.
Certainly of you compare them to the very distinctive Mustang ‘six-pod’ design.
Okay, I can see that by ’69, they did have a very distinctive lens surrounding the trunk lid at the rear. With the brightwork or blacked out center portion. Very similar to what they are doing with the Charger and Dart today.
Looks much better!
That was no lens. just reflective red paint over aluminum trim on the trunklid panel. One of the cars I most regret selling was a 69 Formula S 340 Convertible. Sunfire yellow with the deluxe interior also in yellow. I sold the car through Auto Trader when it was only in print. The next day, another guy called and begged me to give him the name of the buyer. I told him I would only do it on the condition that he not tell me how much more he paid for it. He called me a week later and said he’d just flown to San Francisco to buy the car- I had sold hit in Los Angeles. I wish I knew where that car ended up.
The featured car looks to be a ’67 with ’68 tail lamps and trunk lid molding. The ’67 had horseshoe shaped lamps with the trim in the center, with the trim continuing on the trunk. It was reversed for ’68, and then redesigned for ’69.
I had a ’69 fastback back in the mid-seventies. It was very well worn and had some collision damage on the left front. I was going to fix it up and resell it. Before I got very far on that project someone hit me in the right door and an icy day and pushed me into a parked Porsche 356. The fault was never determined and I did not have collision coverage, so I gave up and sold the car as is. I did enjoy driving it while I had it. It had the 318 with Torqueflite, and was a nice sized, good driving car.
After the disastrous 1962 down-sizing debacle, Lynn Townsend went ultra-conservative, content to stick with last-year’s styling and pick up whatever leftover scraps GM and Ford would throw their way. The exception was the Barracuda, which got its own styling unlike anything else (at least from the cowl back). With that in mind, one can only wonder what might have been if the 1964 Barracuda had more distinctive front-end styling to separate it from its humble Valiant underpinnings (the masterful way Iacocca did with the Mustang/Falcon).
But by 1967, when they finally got the whole car right, the f-body Camaro/Firebird’s arrival on the scene made it too late. A real pity because the 2G Barracuda was a worthy ponycar entry (at least in small-block V8 form). Unfortunately, GM handily stomped both Chrysler and Ford in those big-block-crazy, musclecar days of the sixties with 383 Barracudas and 390 Mustangs being easy meat for 396 Camaros and 400 Firebirds.
Ironically, the 1970 Duster returned to the exact same formula as the 1964 Barracuda, but with a much different outcome, becoming one of the most memorable and successful Chrysler products, ever.
When I worked as a mechanic at Champion Chevrolet, one of the residents on the street behind the dealership had the notchback version of this. It was pale yellow with a disintegrating black vinyl top and looked completely original- right down to the small steelies with their Satellite-style full wheel covers. One time I spotted the guy and asked if it was for sale. His answer was a polite but emphatic “no”. Funny, since it vanished just a few months later.
Another time while heading up to the historic Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank, I came up behind a convertible version of this at a light near the intersection of La Brea and Santa Monica Bl. It was being driven by an older fellow who looked quite tall. Its maroon paint was dull and faded, it looked dirty, and the taillights were dim. Even so, it emitted a very healthy V8 burble from its dual exhausts, and when he punched the gas it took off like a bat out of hell.
My brother had a 69 fastback til he lost his storage space.A beautiful and under rated car,I see tons of E bodies at UK shows and hardly any of the earlier Barracudas.The 383 cars were very nose heavy and had no room for power steering or a servo which they badly needed if you wanted to go fast round corners as well as a straight line.The 340 was a much better car in the real world with an average driver.
The other big issue with a big-block V8 in the early Barracuda and Mustang was the lack of space for the same size exhaust as an intermediate musclecar. The smaller exhaust pipes lowered horsepower and effectively negated any weight savings the smaller cars might have.
The GM ponycar engine compartments, OTOH, seemed to have been designed with being able to accept a big-block V8 from the beginning. In a bit of change from normal procedure, the GM ponycars came out in ’67, while the next gen Nova with the same basic chassis didn’t arrive until 1968 (and it came with the 396 option, too).
Of course, the GM products had other issues, namely the single-leaf rear suspension which hampered the vehicle’s ability to hook-up consistently off the line.
The F-bodies and 68 X bodies were basically body-on-frame from the cowl forward, giving big car size room in the engine compartment. Conversely Ford’s Falcon platform and Mopar’s A bodies were fully integrated structures with bulky shock towers in the way.
While the GM compacts had more room for exhaust than the Ford or Mopar competitors, the manifolds were still far from perfect. The first thing you did with a big block Nova or Camaro (or Chevelle for that matter) was dump the stock manifolds and install a decent set of tube headers. That one modification, along with the required ignition curve work and carb rejetting, was worth 4 or 5 10ths in the 1/4 mile.
The mono leaf springs went away after ’67, but a set of properly installed and adjusted traction bars was still a must if you were half serious about straight line performance with these cars.
These were probably the best all around pony car of the ’60s. The had a little more usable room, handled better, and with the 340 engine were almost as fast as the big block competition without the problems caused by the big blocks. Unfortunately for Plymouth, styling sold a lot more pony cars than performance or usability did and the ‘cuda’s Valiant roots were a little too obvious. There was a bronze coloured ’68 340-S in my little town back when that ran high 13s with nothing more than headers and traction bars. A very under rated car back in the day. Nice find!
I have always wondered why Plymouth stylists walked away so soon from that split grille with the hourglass-shaped division in the middle. Starting with the 66 Fury, then moving to the 67 Valiant then this Barracuda, I thought it was an attractive styling touch that sort of gave Plymouth some visual identity. But for whatever reason, they moved on to other looks. I thought that the theme had a lot of life left in it.
I agree, it is very distinctive. Perhaps it was because it is quite Pontiac-like?
It does remind me of the Tempest somewhat, from a distance.
There was a Plymouth concept car prior to 1967, the Barracuda SX, that has been speculated was so close to the design of the upcoming, not-yet-released, intermediate Pontiac, that GM threatened legal action and Plymouth went in a different styling direction for the Barracuda.
The SX would have made sense in that it would have kept up with Chrysler’s tradition of aping GM cars. The only problem was that if it made production for MY1967, it would have been a year ‘ahead’ of Pontiac’s new 1968 models (and the big reason GM didn’t like it when it appeared on the show car circuit before the release of the all-new ’68 Tempest).
Whether true or not, Plymouth kept the Pontiac-esque split grille for the ’67 Barracuda. However, seems like the split grille caused occasional cooling issues, so the split was toned down considerably for the E-body.
All the drama stems from Plymouth poaching John Herlitz from GM. Once the SX hit the show circuit, all the GM stylists who worked alongside Herlitz went ape shit… Apparently enough so to make Plymouth reconsider the major design elements and return to Milt Antonic’s suggested window line and Avanti-inspired detailing ( a big plus in my book )
Here’s Milt’s early clay proposal:
Wow, I have never seen these before. You are right, this proposal is very un-Chrysler, and very GM.
I can definitely see some A-body resemblance if I squint hard enough but I don’t know how GM didn’t bat their eye at what did become the 1970 Barracuda. There’s a lot more resemblance between the E-Bodies and 67-69 F-bodies than there is between the SX and 68 A-bodies IMO.
Maybe by then, GM was okay with Chrysler using yesterday’s design.
Knowing they had the 1970 Camaro/Firebird waiting in the wings, ready to make the Challenger/Barracuda look like late 60s car designs.
Let them wear egg on their face.
Th A-bodies were still being readied, when the Barracuda SX appeared.
Like I said, the SX was making the car show circuit long ‘before’ the very similar 1968 Pontiac Tempest was built.
GM could care less if Chrysler copied any of the old designs they had already released and moved on from. GM had gotten all the sales they wanted out of the ’67-’69 f-body Camaro and didn’t care if Chrysler used a similarly styled body for the 1970 E-body. They were done with it and had moved on to the 2nd generation f-body.
They just didn’t want Chrysler producing a brand-new GM style ‘before’ it had been released by a GM division.
Here’s a clearer picture of the SX I hadn’t seen before.
And a profile shot. From this view, I wonder if Ford got into the act and cribbed that roof and C-pillar for the 1970 Torino.
In profile, the Barracuda SX also looks strongly like the already new for 1966 Buick Riviera as well. Good for GM!
This is the SX in clay stage:
John DeLorean should have busted them right there…
I photographed a convertible of this generation Barracuda a couple of years ago. I would’ve loved to have written it up here, but the cell phone I had in those days didn’t do well in direct sunlight, and the photos were all washed out 🙁
I am sorry but this gen of Barracuda’s front end looks to much like a first gen Pontiac Tempest. That does not keep me from wanting one
Believe it or not, there is a Mod Top ’69 hardtop that is a regular at the cruise nights at the local mall. I think it might have been shown in one of my early Car Show Classic walk and talks…
And here’s the interior. Yowza.
Have always liked how Mopar has dared to be different, to branch out in a little different direction than the other automakers. Thinking in terms of Austin Powers, those Mod Top Plymouths were some groovy cars, Baby!
Those guys were hip for the times! Surprising they didn’t sell more. But the crowd that might might have been into them probably didn’t have the dough for a new car. Have personally seen very few of them over the years.
You’re giving Chrysler a lot of credit perhaps… given the profile of the hardtop looks remarkably like the new for ’65 Chev Corvair. I guess It gave Chrysler more time to work out interior fabric choices… : )
With a 340 not many could catch a Barracuda and with a bathroom yellow paint job and Mod top even fewer wanted to.A rare find,the only Mod top Mopar I’ve seen in the metal was a blue Satellite.How about a Mod top feature?
I wonder how many of these were destroyed during the making of the TV show, “CHiPs”?
I never noticed it until now but I can actually see a resemblance between the Barracuda Fastback roofline and the 1970-74 F bodies, the back window in particular, with the ever so slight wraparound and rounded edges of the bottom. Even the upsweep in the quarters is similar, only it’s moved up to the B pillars in the F-body.
Am I crazy?
No I thought the 70 F bodies looked like the 67/69 Barracudas and the 70 E bodies looked like the first Fbodies.I’ve often thought industrial espionage was rife in Detroit
I’m apparently in the minority, but I’m very fond of the 1967-1969 hardtop and much prefer it to the fastback. I don’t think the nose quite works, but the roofline is very nicely executed. Yeah, it looks like a second-generation Corvair, but there’s nothing wrong with that.
The fastbacks get all the love, but I like them the least of the three body styles.
I loved these cars, and ironically, the notchback was my favorite.
I’d take one of the notchback over even a convertible, because they look like a business coupe with the truncated rear seat area, which I’m sure was quite tight.
make mine red, please…
Zackman, the very first car that my father ever owned was a red ’68 notchback w/a 318. I preferred it to his second & last car, a ’73 T-Bird.
For the trifecta, I love the notchback as well. Give me a burnt-orange one with white interior, 340 4-speed, better shocks and sway bars. An almost European GT sort of ponycar.
I had a 1967 Barracuda fastback, medium metallic blue on black, 383 4-speed. Bought it in 1969 and owned it for just a couple of years. It had a fairly high-geared rear end, but that 383 had all the torque in the world. It’s true that the big-block engine came with a couple of problems, weight distribution like a blackjack and slow manual steering which made the car a bit of a handful in a parking lot. My car had capped Y-pipes in front of the mufflers, and there was a very noticeable difference in performance when those were open, as well as a noise to wake the dead, and which would reveal to all within a mile the exact state of tune of the engine.
That was the car in which, returning from a trip to Reno, we found a satin-smooth stretch of highway in central Oregon, and drove for a good 20 or 30 miles at 105-110 mph. When we approached Bend and there started to be quite a few driveways and such we slowed down to 70 which seemed quite slow by comparison.
We did have some good times with that car and no problems except for having to replace a heater core – it was an A-body after all, but having subsequently owned a 318 4-speed 1969 Valiant and a 360-powered 1976 Dart Pursuit, I certainly agree that the small-block cars were better balanced and could be just as much fun to drive.
These cars are quite rare now. You won’t find them too often. I have a ’69 fastback with a 340 and 4 speed. Manual steering, manual brakes. As simple as a car can be. I’ve only ever seen two or three others in my area (southwestern Ontario) The car is very small and light and quite nimble for a 60′s era car. It is very solid and great fun to drive.