When the second-generation Plymouth Barracuda debuted for 1967, it offered an awkward choice between too much engine (the bulky, heavy 383) and not quite enough (the smaller 273 V-8 or Slant Six). For 1968, Chrysler-Plymouth redressed this shortcoming with the new 340, one of the hottest small-block V-8s of the muscle car era. In December 1967, Car Life tested a Barracuda Formula S with the new engine and called it “a real value in the field of high-performance automobiles.” Here’s what they had to say about it.
New Fish on the Block
Car Life had previously tested two 1967 Barracuda hardtops, one with the 225 cu. in. (3,682 cc) Slant Six, the other a Formula S, with a stiffer suspension and the four-barrel version of Chrysler’s 273 cu. in. (4,482 cc) LA-series small V-8, rated at 235 gross horsepower. Both had adequate performance with the excellent TorqueFlite automatic — the six went from 0 to 60 mph in 13.6 seconds, the 273-4V car in 9.2 seconds — but they didn’t qualify as hot stuff by the standards of 1967.
Another option, which Car Life drove only briefly (I don’t think they ever did a full road test), was the bigger 383 cu. in. (6,277 cc) B engine. This was a bulkier, heavier engine than the LA-series V-8, and it had to be shoehorned into the Barracuda engine bay, precluding the installation of air conditioning, power brakes, or (until later in the run) power steering. Worse, the more restrictive exhaust system cost about 40 gross horsepower, dropping the 383’s advertised rating to an unexceptional 280 hp (300 hp for 1968).

The 1968 Barracuda had a restyled grille / Classic Auto Mall
The 383 made the Barracuda quicker than the 273 did, but not enough quicker to compensate for its drawbacks in street driving — a letdown considering that the small-engine Barracuda Formula S was regarded as one of the nimbler pony cars. Martyn L. Schorr of High Performance Cars called the Barracuda 383 “a clumsy around-town handling bomb due to the extra weight planted over the front wheels” and complained that “it still lacks the super-punch of a supercar.”

The Formula S package included complete instrumentation, although a tachometer was $51 extra / Classic Auto Mall
Of course, the rival Ford Mustang 390 presented similar problems, but what the Barracuda really needed was a good middleweight engine that wouldn’t overcrowd the engine bay or overcrowd the chassis.
Enter the 340. Introduced for 1968, the 340 cu. in. (5,567 cc) V-8 was a development of the LA-series, but it wasn’t simply a bored-out version of the 273 or 318 cu. in. (5,204 cc) versions. In designing the 340, Chrysler had made extensive use of thinwall casting and precision foundry tricks — not to reduce the engine’s weight, but to allow the largest bore size and biggest ports that could be accommodated within the existing block and head dimensions.

The 1968 Plymouth Barracuda was 192.8 inches long on a 108-inch wheelbase; the fastback was 52.8 inches high unladen / Classic Auto Mall
The text refers to the larger valves, but it doesn’t adequately convey just how much the 340’s breathing had been opened up compared to its milder siblings:
Valve/Port | 273/318 | 340 | Percentage Change |
---|---|---|---|
Intake port area, sq. in. | 1.70 | 2.20 | +29.4 percent |
Intake valve diameter, in. | 1.78 | 2.02 | +13.5 percent |
Total intake valve area, sq. in. | 19.91 | 25.64 | +28.8 percent |
Exhaust port area, sq. in. | 1.25 | 1.70 | +36.0 percent |
Exhaust valve diameter, in. | 1.50 | 1.60 | +6.7 percent |
Total exhaust valve area, sq. in. | 14.14 | 16.08 | +13.8 percent |
Car Life noted:
To emphasize the adequacy of the new valve sizes, comparison with the 350-cid Chevrolet engine, long touted for its exceptional breathing ability, is in order. The Chevrolet features valves of 1.94 and 1.50 in. diameter, intake and exhaust. Thus, the new Barracuda 340 engine has exceptionally large valves. Substantial high-speed output was evident in the vehicle’s performance.
The 340 engine also had hotter camshafts — cams for manual- and automatic-transmission applications were slightly different — along with a double-level intake manifold, low-restriction exhaust manifolds, a windage baffle in the oil pan, and a viscous torque fan drive that reduced the fan’s power consumption by 7.5 hp at 5,000 rpm.

Engine call-outs on the hood were standard on the 1968 Barracuda / Classic Auto Mall
With 10.5:1 compression and a bigger Carter AVS carburetor, Chrysler rated the 340 at 275 gross horsepower and 340 lb-ft of torque. This was clearly conservative, leading the NHRA to “factor” the engine to 290 hp for classification purposes. Chrysler didn’t initially release net ratings, but they did say the 340 had 40 percent more net horsepower than the 273-4V, which was advertised at 235 gross hp. In 1971, Chrysler finally published net ratings of 235 hp and 310 lb-ft of torque, although by that time, they had standardized the milder automatic cam and slightly lowered the compression ratio. In his 1983 book American Supercar, Roger Huntington estimated that the 340 in the 1968 Car Life Barracuda test car had about 290 net horsepower, which sounds too high to me; my guess would be something like 260 to 270 hp.

The 340 had the same exterior dimensions as the 273 and 318, but much better breathing and a stronger bottom end
In any event, the 340 gave the Barracuda’s performance a shot in the arm. Said Car Life:
Low-speed torque was relatively weak, as it should be in an engine installed in a passenger car with forward weight bias and non-dragstrip rear tires. Full throttle could be used on takeoff, on dry pavement, with slight wheelspin. This was followed by a long, strong pull up to 5500-5800 rpm. This is an example of an engine well suited to a car. This type of performance makes much more sense than the 383-cid Barracuda package that features gobs of low-speed torque to turn rear tires into smoke, yet runs out of breath at 4500 rpm.
Times and speeds in the quarter-mile were eye-openers for a relatively small engine. With the usual two passengers and test gear load, the Barracuda 340-S buzzed through the lights in the high 14-sec. bracket at speeds around 95 mph. Both elapsed time and top speed were substantially superior to a 383-engined 1967 Barracuda briefly examined by CAR LIFE.
An added bonus with the new 340-cid engine is a weight saving of approximately 100 lb. Thus, handling and traction are noticeably improved. Also, since the 340 has external dimensions similar to the 273. standard power steering equipment can be fitted, a worthwhile addition to the car, and one which was impossible with the much larger 383-cid engine.

In addition to the medallions, the $212 Formula S package included heavy-duty suspension, dual exhausts, full instrumentation, and (on automatic cars) a re-tuned TorqueFlite with higher shift points / Classic Auto Mall
The 340 was not quite the ultimate weapon in small-block V-8 power: The 302 cu. in. (4,942 cc) SBC in the limited-production Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 was significantly more powerful, but also much more high-strung, concentrating its power near the top of its rev band. A 340 Barracuda was not nearly so peaky, and it provided a better balance of performance for real-world use. As Car Life explained:
Excellent quarter-mile performance of the 340-S complemented its exceptional high-speed cruising ability. The new 340-cid engine is very flexible, and runs freely at high engine speeds. Cruising at 4000 rpm was quite effortless, although such speeds are grossly illegal in most states. Still, it’s significant that the 340-S chassis was capable of smooth, steady performance and good stability at sustained 100-mph speeds. This certainly indicates satisfactory performance at normal 60-70 mph limits.
High average speeds were aided by the abundance of passing power available in the 340-S. Kickdown provided plenty of acceleration for pulling around slow traffic in a minimum distance.
A point worth emphasizing here is that, as the spec table reveals, the CL test car TorqueFlite and a mild 3.23 axle. Given the 340’s appetite for revs, a higher numerical axle ratio would have been a boon to serious dragstrip work, but for street use, keeping engine speeds to 3,000 rpm or less at legal highway speeds was easier on the nerves, and a bit easier on gas — Car Life averaged 13.5 mpg with their air-conditioned test car.

Despite its performance, the 340 was surprisingly rare on the 1968 Barracuda — only 3,930 ’68 cars were so equipped / Classic Auto Mall
Unlike the heavy 383, the 340 weighed no more than the 273-4V — 539 lb dry — and thus didn’t prevent the Formula S chassis from showing what it could do on a winding mountain road:
The Barracuda, while not a sports car, negotiated many curves at speeds that would give some accepted “sports cars” considerable strain. The Barracuda is relatively large and heavy, compared with other GT cars, and these characteristics are evident when driving through tight curves. A lack of agility is apparent, but driver confidence remains intact. The driver soon gets the feeling that it would take some incredible occurrence to make the Barracuda lose its grip on the pavement.
Fairly strong understeer is dominant, although slow turns can be taken in an oversteering attitude by applying large amounts of power to the rear tires. One of the prime attributes of the 340-S was that, even with closed throttle in a fairly hard turn, the car refused to roll, tuck a wheel under, or slide smartly off the road.

The 1968 Barracuda Formula S had E70-14 tires (whitewall or redline) on 14-15J wheels, with a choice of four different wheel cover styles; “Sport stripes” were $20 extra / Classic Auto Mall
However, the CL did offer some qualifiers about the road manners of the Formula S package:
Much of the excellent stability of the 340-S apparently has been achieved through high spring rates. This became obvious when traversing the first stretch of bumpy roadway. The 340-S was quite harsh over small-amplitude irregularities, though the firm damping was appreciated on undulating highways. It would seem that some additional suspension system compliance could be applied to the Barracuda to lessen ride harshness without losing a significant amount of handling precision. If this cannot be accomplished, then CAR LIFE would rather have the package left alone.

The Formula S suspension included rear leaf springs 20 percent stiffer than on a six-cylinder Barracuda, improving handling at the expense of ride harshness / Classic Auto Mall
Although their test car had the optional front discs (the blue car in the photo has drums), the Car Life editors were none too impressed with the Barracuda’s stopping power:
On seeing the car for the first time, it appeared that the combination of disc front and drum rear brakes, with no power assist, would be an excellent system for the sporting driver. In actual testing, fade resistance was rather poor, for a disc/drum system, and pedal efforts to maintain high deceleration rates with well-warmed brakes bordered on the fantastic. To reach a deceleration rate of 16 ft./sec.² on the third panic stop from 80 mph required both feet of a reasonably strong test driver. Concern over seatback failure was voiced during such Herculean brake applications. Apparently a booster is necessary to stop a 3000-lb. vehicle with a reasonable-sized disc/drum system.
Concerns about pedal effort were one of the reasons Detroit had dragged its feet on offering disc brakes in the first place: The self-energizing effect of drums made power assist less essential, whereas unassisted discs could be annoying heavy even on cars hundreds of pounds lighter than the Barracuda (which had an as-equipped curb weight of 3,470 lb).
Judging by the previous Car Life Barracuda road tests, a brake booster probably still wouldn’t have produced outstanding stopping ability because Chrysler hadn’t yet incorporated any kind of proportioning valve to delay rear-wheel lockup in a hard stop. Rear lockup had been a problem on both of the two previous Barracudas tested, and a Fury III convertible Car Life had tested in July 1967 had gotten sideways on its first 80 mph to 0 test stop, which they said “was a memorable, vividly traumatic experience for the testers” that would probably have ended in disaster if it had been on a public road rather than a test track. Their 1967 Barracuda comparison had remarked that a proportioning valve “would be well worth paying for, were it offered for sale with Plymouth Division cars.” In 1968, it still was not.

Although the Car Life test listed no prices, a 1968 Barracuda with the 340, Formula S package, and TorqueFlite started at $3,281; the CL test car would have listed for around $4,200 / Classic Auto Mall
Nonetheless, Car Life was generally satisfied with the Barracuda 340-S. They were annoyed that the front seats didn’t adjust for rake, finding the upright seatbacks “caused considerable discomfort on long trips,” and their test car suffered a power steering pump failure during their test, but they thought the fit and finish was pretty good and the interior “attractive and fairly functional.”

Bucket seats were optional except on convertibles in 1968; the woodgrain wheel was an extra $27, the center console $51 / Classic Auto Mall
After a long highway trip, the editors remarked:
Long days behind the wheel brought a real appreciation of the Barracuda’s high-speed stability, and the air conditioning system afforded genuine comfort over long stretches of 110° desert terrain.
One could not help wondering how long the average European GT car could stand up to this type of long, hard touring. The Barracuda gave a feeling of effortless performance, regardless of the demands placed on it. Somehow it seems that American cars offer more for the American driver on American roads. In the Barracuda 340-S, the driver can enjoy an exceptional car in many ways, an adequate car in nearly all ways, and a real value in the field of high-performance automobiles.

On the Barracuda fastback, the rear seat could fold down to create a flat load floor, although cargo height was still limited / Classic Auto Mall

With the rear seat up, trunk space wasn’t generous, with a small opening and high liftover / Classic Auto Mall
Turning attention once again to the data panel on the bottom of the previous two pages, we find that while the 340 Barracuda wasn’t quite a match for a Firebird 400, it could easily dispatch most of its pony car rivals, including some with bigger engines. Here’s a summary from various Car Life road tests:
Performance | Barracuda 340 | Mustang 390 | Camaro SS350 | Firebird 400 |
---|---|---|---|---|
0–30 mph | 3.0 secs. | 3.4 secs. | 2.9 secs. | 2.9 secs. |
0–60 mph | 7.0 secs. | 7.8 secs. | 7.8 secs. | 6.5 secs. |
0–100 mph | 16.4 secs. | 20.5 secs. | 19.8 secs. | 15.5 secs. |
Standing ¼ mile | 14.97 secs. at 95.4 mph | 15.5 secs. at 91.4 mph | 15.8 secs. at 89.0 mph | 14.7 secs. at 98.0 mph |
The 340 Barracuda’s performance also made for an instructive contrast with the rarer and more specialized Camaro Z/28, which Car Life tested in July 1968. The Z/28 was 115 lb lighter and had a close-ratio four-speed with 4.10 axle against the Plymouth’s TorqueFlite/3.23 combination. However, see how they ran in Car Life hands:
Performance | Barracuda 340-S | Camaro Z/28 |
---|---|---|
0–30 mph | 3.0 secs. | 3.5 secs. |
0–40 mph | 4.2 secs. | 4.5 secs. |
0–50 mph | 5.5 secs. | 5.7 secs. |
0–60 mph | 7.0 secs. | 7.4 secs. |
0–70 mph | 8.7 secs. | 8.9 secs. |
0–80 mph | 10.7 secs. | 10.5 secs. |
0–90 mph | 13.2 secs. | 12.5 secs. |
0–100 mph | 16.4 secs. | 14.2 secs. |
Passing, 30–70 mph | 5.7 secs. | 5.4 secs. |
Standing ¼ mile | 14.97 secs. at 95.4 mph | 14.85 secs. at 101.4 mph |
Engine revs per mile | 2,590 (23.2 mph/1,000 rpm) | 3,260 (18.4 mph/1,000 rpm) |
The much higher trap speed revealed the Z/28 engine’s greater ultimate power, but even with the shorter axle and closer-ratio gears, the Camaro couldn’t catch the Barracuda until they were both past 70 mph, and you had to keep the revs up for best performance. For street use, the hot 340 was a much better compromise, and arguably the ideal pony car engine of this era: relatively light and revvy, but flexible and easy to live with.
Buyers, however, remained unmoved. Chrysler-Plymouth had sold only 62,534 Barracudas for 1967, and sales fell to 45,412 for 1968 and 31,987 for 1969.

An attractive layout, but the front seats didn’t recline, and they too upright for comfort on long trips / Classic Auto Mall
When looking for additional photos for this post, I was hoping to find a 1968 Barracuda 340 Formula S with about the same equipment and color combination as the Car Life test car (which was red with a white vinyl interior, the “Rallye Instrument Cluster” (a 150-mph speedometer, trip odometer, and woodgrain dash trim), and wire wheel covers), but the Electric Blue Metallic car was as close as I could come. When I checked the production figures, I understood why: Only 1,120 1968 Barracudas were ordered with the Formula S package, and only 2,461 ’68 cars had the 340/TorqueFlite combination. Looking for a specific color/trim combination on top of that was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

The fastback was the most popular Barracuda body style, accounting for about half of 1968 production / Classic Auto Mall
Why didn’t the Barracuda sell better? With the addition of the 340, the Plymouth pony car now offered highly competitive performance, and its flaws were no worse than its rivals’, but that apparently just wasn’t enough for many people. Whatever the buff books implied, the big selling point for pony cars in their heyday was not outright performance but style and image, and in those areas, the Barracuda fell short.
Please understand that it gives me no pleasure to say this, because I like the looks of the second-generation Barracuda a lot (especially the hardtop), but the wheel arches were too small, the tail was a little longer than was fashionable, the front aspect seemed a bit tall and narrow, and some of the detailing was rather crude. The second-generation Barracuda body shell no longer shared many body panels with the Valiant (Milt Antonick, who was primarily responsible for the styling, said the only shared piece was now the rear wheelhouse inner), but the hot fish still hadn’t divorced itself from the structural hardpoints and proportions of its plebeian cousin — certainly not to the extent that the Mustang had separated itself from the Falcon. Judging by the sales figures, contemporary buyers could tell, and they didn’t much like it.

Stylist Milt Antonick, who designed the second-generation Barracuda, also designed its emblem, which was “a combination of a shark, a pike, and a Ferrari body side” / Classic Auto Mall
They were missing out. The Barracuda 340 Formula S might have been a runner-up in the beauty contest, but it offered the kind of performance and practicality the pony cars had always promised, but didn’t always deliver.
Related Reading
Curbside Classic: 1967 Plymouth Barracuda Hardtop – B-Side Magic (by Tatra87)
Vintage Car Life Review: 1967 Barracuda Comparison – The Tame 6 cyl. Hardtop and The Brisk V-8 Fastback (by Rich Baron)
Curbside Classic: 1968 Plymouth Barracuda Formula 340 – The Worst Selling But Best Pony Car Of 1968 (by Paul N)
COAL- 1968 Plymouth Barracuda to Volvo 122 to Bass Guitar (by Chas Glynn)
COAL: 1969 Plymouth Barracuda 340 Formula S – Heading East (by Johannes Dutch)
Vintage CL Road Test: 1969 Plymouth ‘Cuda 440 – “A Disturbing Automobile” (by Paul N)
The 340 always seemed to be a rare engine out in the real world. In the world of old used Darts, Dusters and Valiants I used to inhabit, it seemed like about 70% of cars came with the/6 and maybe 25% were 318s. It seemed to me that the 273/340/360 constituted the remaining 5% of what was out there, and I don’t think I ever came across a 340 when I was looking for something.
A Duster with a 318 was not a slow car, so I can only imagine what one must have been like with a 340.
On those magazine test figures, I am skeptical that the Pontiac results were all that close to stock. 1968 was still well into Pontiac’s test-ringer era.
If so, they were doing a surprisingly good job at distributing ringers to all contemporary testers. (Which is still possible, and would just mean they learned from their miscues with the GTO.)
Whether it was the fastback or notchback hardtop, styling was clean, but seemed too benign for a solid/strong pony/performance car image. Competing with the Mustang and Camaro, which each had more aggressiveness in their appearance, its looks were almost neutral. Torino-like. Having a nose, that looked so much like the conservative Valiant, was a mistake IMO. In spite of the competitive performance, Charger had stronger, more defining looks. The Barracuda didn’t look like a ‘Barracuda’, until the next generation.
When I see a Barracuda from this gen, jacked up with racing tires, they don’t look the part convincingly. Especially, with that Valiant-like nose.
Sorry, Daniel… I’ll argue against the coupe variant being good looking. To my eye, the proportions from the doors back are all wrong. The roof comes down too far forward, and the positioning of the rear wheel wells looks too far forward. There’s a LOT of quarter panel behind the rear wheels.
I find it disproportionate in the same way that a 1st-generation Corvair Club Coupe is. At least the Corvair had the excuse of having the engine behind the rear axle.
By no means, am I a big defender of the coupe’s looks. I said it looked clean, but I somewhat agree with the faults you find in its design. It did appear to be following Corvair styling.
I would imagine the genesis of the 2nd gen Barracuda took place around 1965, about the time the 2nd Corvair was hitting showrooms. Since Chrysler was still in their ‘copy everything GM was doing’ mode, they hedged their bets with a coupe that had very similar Corvair styling for a model-to-model ponycar line-up the same as the Mustang.
The problem was the Corvair wasn’t selling all that well, Plus, the Mustang with its long hood/short deck styling was all the rage. Simply put, Chrysler copied the wrong sporty car for the 1967-69 Barracuda coupe.
I have never made the assumption it was copying the Corvair. Sure, it has 1965 GM-esque curves and hips, and the ’65 Corvair may have been an influence, but the Barracuda coupe has the same proportions as just about all Chrysler Corp. sporty hardtop coupes of this era. In fact, in relative terms, its rear deck is if anything shorter than some of the others.
Keep in mind that this Barracuda is essentially a sporty Valiant, with all/most of its key hardpoints. Sure, its tail looks long compared to the Mustang and Camaro, but then their passenger cabins were well set back and had unique bodies. Put a typical Mopar hardtop coupe roof on this body, and this is the result, with the same proportions as all the others, bigger and smaller. It’s just how they were styling their coupes at the time.
And yes, they got away from that big time in 1971.
This is also true of the Nova hardtop, which has a stubby nose and a long tail.
Back in the day when one could order disc brakes, but did not come with a booster as a corresponding component. Talk about nickeling and timing to death. I’m would imagine it was only a few dollars more and well worth the investment.
I’m lucky to have owned and driven several 340 A-Body cars including a 71 Duster, a 71 Demon, a 68 Dart and an E-Body 72 Cuda. All were 4 speeds except the Cuda. They were all very fast cars and handled incredibly well. The Dart was the only one with disc brakes but I honestly can’t remember if they were power. It also had factory A/C, that was a cool, rare car. I have a 318 Duster now with manual disc brakes and it takes some leg muscle to stop the car. Never skip leg day.
I say, without apology, a 340/4 speed A-body is one of most fun-to-drive platforms ever built. But a 4 speed is a must to keep the 340 in its sweet spot, along with 3.55 gears. If you ran the optional 3.91s on the street back then, you had a car that would run with (or outrun)the 440 B Bodys. While you could get the 340 in the E-Bodys and later B-Bodys, the lighter A-Bodys took better advantage of the 340s ability to rev and power to weight ratio.
I never had an A-body Barracuda but I love the fastbacks. I had a chance to buy a red 340/4 speed ’68 Formula S fastback from the original owner about 15 years ago at a very reasonable price but I was going through a divorce and just couldn’t afford it
I seriously considered buying a new 1969 model (not a 340) but decided to spend the summer in Europe instead, a decision I never regretted. However, it would still be my choice among all of the vehicle alternatives.
Always seemed to me that Chevrolet made a mistake in not offering a genuine hi-po version of the 350 instead of the very lo-po 396 in those first three years. The parts were always there of course; the 325/350hp 327 had them all, and it was still available in the Chevelle. Of course there was a problem: Starting in MY 1967 GM instituted a minimum 10lbs/hp rule, which explains why they did what they did, as well as the ridiculous 290 hp rating on the Z/28 302 (The 396 weighed enough more to squeak by).
They should have just rated a hi-po 350 (the 360hp 1970 LT-1 engine) at 295 hp or such, and looked the other way. That’s what Chrysler did with this 340.
A 350 LT-1 would have made a perfect counterpart to this 340, and completely negated the need for the big block in the Camaro, as the gen2 version proved.
I wonder if there car dealers like Yenko, Baldwin-Motion, Nickey could have offered a hi-po version of the 350 like they did offered special versions of the Camaro, Nova and Chevelle with the big block 427?
For that matter, the L79 327-350 from the Corvette would have been a very desirable engine in a Camaro.
Roger Huntington estimated that the 340 in the 1968 Car Life Barracuda test car had about 290 net horsepower, which sounds too high to me; my guess would be something like 260 to 270 hp.
I would have guessed even a bit higher perhaps. The similar (valve size, etc.) Chevy LT-1 350 (360 gross hp in 1970) was rated at 255 net hp in ’72, with low CR and desmogged. In 1971, Chrysler advertised both gross and net hp, and the 340, still with a 10.3:1 CR was advertised with 275 gross and…235 net hp. Hmmm.
Although Chrysler didn’t publish any net output figures for the 340 prior to 1970, they did make the intriguing statement in 1968 that the 340 had 40 percent more net horsepower and 34 percent more net torque than the 273-4V. Huntington estimated the latter at 190 net hp (which I also think is a bit high), and 40 percent on top of that would be 266 hp. To approach it another way, while it’s apparent that the initial 1968 340 was more powerful than the 1971 version, especially with the hotter manual transmission cam (later dropped), I have a hard time seeing it being down 55 net hp at that point. (The 1972 340, maybe, but the 1972 engine adopted the more restrictive heads from the 360.)
What year is the table? 318-2v in our ’69 A-108 van was 177hp net (per data plate).
The table is from the 1971 Barracuda brochure.
Truck engines often had different power outputs, typically lower gross hp from different tuning to improve lower speed torque at the expense of peak power. The 318 used in light duty trucks in 1969 had a 210 gross, 177 net rating. That’s interesting, as the gross hp is lower than the 230 typically used for the passenger car 318. But obviously the 177 net is higher. That can be due to two things: trucks often had a less restrictive exhaust system, which made net hp higher on a percentage basis, compared to gross hp. There may be other aspects of how this truck 318 was set up to shrink the gap between gross and net.
The other factor is emission controls, which the ’69 had very little or none of, in terms of impacting its net hp. The ’71 passenger car 318 definitely had emission controls, including retarded timing, not reflected in its gross rating, but certainly in the net rating.
One more comment: the fact that the Barracuda and Valiant shared so many hard points (their windshields interchange, BTW), was of course a significant negative in terms of its visual appeal compared to the Mustang and Camaro. If Chrysler had been serious about the pony car market they would have given it a truly new body. But the return on investment would have been questionable.
But yes, this 340 version did make a very attractive counterpart to Europe’s best GT cars.
We could wonder what Chrysler allowed the Barracuda to have a different windshield or a different front end if things might have been different? Still, the Duster kept the Valiant front end until the firewall and was sold like hotcakes.
Then I wonder if the design of the Barracuda fastback along with the design of the 1966-67 Dodge Charger have served as a source of inspiration to the Australian designers to create the Valiant Charger with its Hemi 6?
“Why didn’t the Barracuda sell better?”
Because one of these was an extra $2 over a 318 fastback in 1968:
I think that ad is from 1969, but I’m sure the point is still valid. It had never occurred to me that the Road Runner might have cannibalized A-body Barracuda sales.
Ironically, while the price situation was still similar between the new, B-body-based, E-body Mopar ponycars and the Road Runner/Super Bee in 1970, it would be the new, truly cheap 1970 Duster 340 cannibalizing sales from the more profitable, sporty Mopar coupes.
IIRC, the Duster 340 undercut the other Mopars by something like ~$800 for a version that had a similiar hi-po engine, which was a very substantial sum back in the day. No wonder the savvy musclecar buyers went for the later A-body 340 in a big way.
I’m not persuaded that it did, at least in any commercially meaningful way.
The very large majority of Barracuda sales were the base models with the milder V-8 or slant six. As much as the buff books fixated on the most powerful models, that was really not what most people were buying. A lot of pony car buyers bought cars like these because they were better-looking alternatives to a compact like a Falcon or Valiant. (In 1968, 27.5 percent of Barracudas, 29.3 percent of Mustangs, and 21.7 percent of Camaros had six-cylinder engines.) In that respect, the A-body Barracuda fell short, because even with a 340, it looked a little too much like your grandma wearing go-go boots.
This is also why the 1970 E-body Barracuda and Challenger flopped: They were stylish muscle cars, but they didn’t have much appeal for people who just wanted a compact that didn’t look terminally frumpy. If you wanted a six or a 318, the Duster made a lot more sense.
I wonder if this is the answer to the question as to how the AMC Javelin managed to outself the Barracuda for every year, save one (1970). IOW, for the most practical ponycar, buyers went with the makers of the Rambler instead of the Valiant. Or maybe it was simply that the Javelin looked better than the Barracuda.
In typical Chrysler fashion, they were always a day late and a dollar short with their ponycars, whether it be due to styling or equipment. When they finally had an entry capable of easily taking the big-block V8 engines, the game was all but over. The former big player in that market had nearly given up on it, too, as the final Chevolet big-block Camaro was the 1971 SS396, yet another early seventies big-block musclecar that sold few examples. In contrast to its Ford and Chrysler counterparts, I’ve never read that those last big-block Camaros were great performers. Maybe all that thunder was taken by the LT1 350.
Of course, the exception to all that was the Firebird that manaaged to cling to its big-block engines through 1979.
In terms of their actual sales, the Javelin beating the Barracuda was sort of like that episode of The Boondocks where Grandad kills Stinkmeaner (i.e., not a fight that left either party covered in glory). Neither of them managed even three-quarters of one percent market share, and the margin by which the Javelin outsold the Barracuda wasn’t substantial enough that I think one can draw a lot of meaningful conclusions about their relative appeal. Neither was really what the market wanted — the Barracuda was hampered by its unfashionable styling and lingering resemblance to the Valiant, the Javelin by the stigma associated with the AMC badge — and both sold poorly.
Well said. I don’t think sales of the Javelin and Barracuda, combined, were ever even remotely close to that of the Mustang and Camaro. With the A-body Barracuda, it was due to the looks of the car (Chrysler certainly had the engineering and drivetrain prowess). With the Javelin, it was simply being a car coming from the same company that built the Nash Rambler.
And, yeah, a big part of it was perception. The A-body Barracuda sold about as well as the Mustang would have if Ford had used the Falcon front end on it.
The Mustang was styled well enough that, even with those lo-po six cylinder engines (which sold as many as the V8), it was still sporty enough to never be confused with the Falcon upon which it was based. A Barracuda with a six-cylinder looked way too much like a Valiant fastback (which is exactly how it was sold in Canada).
A big part of all that is the appeal to women (‘secretary specials’). They didn’t mind a low-performance, six-cylinder/automatic drivetrain, so long as the car was stylish and looked sporty. With the Barracuda, it still looked like they were driving a dowdy Valiant (as otherwise practical it might have been).
And Chrysler could have done a better job with the four-barrel version of the 273 V8, too. Unlike the hi-po 289 in the Mustang, it didn’t even come with a dual-exhaust.
In fact, in one of those ‘what were they thinking?’ moments, I could never figure out what Chrysler was doing with the 1966 Barracuda. The grille of the 1964-65 car at least tried for something sporty with turn signals that resembled foglights. The grille of the first two years were definitely more sporty than the Valiant.
But for 1966, the Barracuda’s grille looks almost identical to the Valiant, with the only difference being the fish emblem in the middle in place of the Valiant emblem.
At least the 1966 Barracuda got a real pair of instrument binnacles instead of the standard Valiant dash. But that hardly made up for how much the car now looked like a Valiant. Did someone at Chrysler really think that was going to ‘increase’ sales?
It would have been interesting to see how the 1967-69 Barracuda would have look if it had a front end more of less inspired from the customized 1966 Barracuda shown in the movie “Fireball 500” with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello.
http://www.barris.com/carsgallery/kustomshotrods/fireball500.php
There’s was also another customized Barracuda shown in the movie “Corky’s”.
https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_9874-Plymouth-Barracuda-1969.html
Probably not. I assume that change was made to take some cost out once they realized the Barracuda was not going to sell well anyway. This is the problem with a product like the A-body Barracuda: When it doesn’t sell well at the outset (due in large part to initial underinvestment), it’s harder to justify putting MORE money into it and tempting to take more money out to try to staunch the loss.
*Very* nice, especially in the blue .
At 3,500# it’s a bit porky for such a small car but I remember these as being terrific road cars if not so much racers / stoplight draggers .
I’d love to have this .
-Nate
I like those Barracudas but none came here, the 340 V8 went into Australian Valiant Chargers but they strangled it, there had been an outcry about factory hotrods so the 340 was neutered.
K-B, you can sure see the likeness in the roof-line shape between the Barracuda
& the Aussie Charger, (albeit the Aussie A-body had the ‘flying buttress’ rear pillar/’notch-back rear window – like the `68-70 US Chargers).
Nor did using the same front as the Valiant – impair sales of the Aussie Charger.
The Aussie Charger 340 was only ‘neutered’ in being marketed in 770 trim, with a quieter single exhaust & taller final-drive gearing than the 340S as featured,
it was still quicker than its 350 Chev powered Holden, or ‘luxo’ 351 Ford coupe,
opposition.
In any case, the 3 speed manual 265 Hemi 6-pack was quicker than that 340S
too, even with the same 3.23 gearing.
(& the VH 265 2-barrel Charger when on test – showed pretty much identical performance – whether equipped with 3-speed auto or 4-speed manual –
with both using the same 2.92 final drive gears).
I had a non-assisted disc brake Aussie Charger as a daily driver for years, so
I fitted a softer-grippier pad to one side of each brake caliper, & a hard-no fade
pad to the other, this worked fine.
Ferrari for many years didn’t fit servo-powered discs to their sports cars, due to
the linear feel of direct input-to-stopping ability being superior, I understand that
same reasoning went for ‘sporty’ Mopars too, certainly the ‘luxury’ power brakes
(& steering) of that era lacked sensitivity (pre-ABS systems, then).
Whether to mandate power assist with discs was a great controversy for the U.S. auto industry and one of the factors that delayed the wider adoption of front discs. There were several issues: First, pedal effort that was acceptable for a sports car or GT like a Ferrari or Corvette wasn’t necessarily acceptable for a big family sedan. Second, while softer pads reduced pedal effort, it also increased pad wear and fade, which could both reach unacceptable levels on a heavier or more heavily laden vehicle. Third, with front discs and rear drums, power brakes tended to promote abrupt rear lockup, which was already a problem because of the self-energizing effect of drum brake and could get very bad with too much servo assistance. This was exacerbated if the manufacturer tried to get away without adding some kind of proportioning valve to delay rear pressure buildup, as Chrysler did in the U.S. with its early disc/drum systems. (I don’t know if Australian Valiants with front discs had a rear proportioning valve, but American Chrysler products didn’t for some years, which could have very alarming consequences.)
The road testers’ commentary is illustrative here: They had expected that the non-servo disc/drum brakes would provide better braking control without the alarming instant lockup they’d experienced with Chrysler disc/drum setups, but effort was high enough to make the brake fade a real bear, and it didn’t help controllability.
Still own a 1967 Fastback Formula S original 383 car. Original engine was long gone and now has a 440 in it. The look of the 68 hemi cars is second to none IMO. Always loved that body style but a big block in an a–body is tight.
My brother owned 2 ’67 Barracuda notchbacks in the 1970s. I was in high school and drove Mustangs, Camaros, and Barracudas. I’ll take the Barracuda everytime. In my opinion, the 1967-1969 Barracuda is the best looking car of all time. I’ve always wanted one, but never had the money when the right car came around. I had a shot at a beautiful ’67 dark blue Barracuda convertible in high school around 1977, however, dad had other ideas and I lost out. I do have a ’71 340 Challenger convertible. I love that car. I know this will offend some, but the Barracuda was a far better car than its direct competition in my opinion. After driving as many Mustangs as I did over the years, and truthfully, I like them, however, I still don’t see what the huge attraction was about.