1966 Plymouth Barracuda

The early Chrysler A bodies are among the last affordable hot rod-able (not sure what to call them) cars available. They're too small to be considered muscle cars and too dorky looking to really be considered pony cars, but they are good looking in their own way and a lot of fun. Introduced in 1963 as the Dodge Dart and Plymouth Valiant, this A Body series was produced through 1966. The original Barracuda was a variant of the Valiant, mainly just a huge fastback style rear window and some trim changes. Of all the cars in this series, my favorites are the 1964 Dart GT (2 door hard top), 1964 Valiant station wagon, and the 1966 Barracuda. The main challenge when building one of these cars is finding ceratin parts and fitting a decent exhaust system.

I purchased my Barracuda in May of 2000 for $2000, intending it to be my wife's daily driver. Unfortunately, while the body and paint were in excellent condition, everything else was in very poor shape. I had to put about $2400 into the steering and suspension before we could even drive it safely. It also had serious carburetion problems which eventually left me stranded and needeing a tow. The tow truck driver broke the front brake line, so I got that fixed and also rebuilt the carburetor, but it still didn't run right. I bought an Edelbrock Performer intake and carb, but when I took off the old manifold there was so much burned up oil in the lifter valley that I wasn't too sure about running it without pulling the engine and dissassembling it to clean it out properly. I also found out that new intake manifolds won't bolt to early 273 cylinder heads.

We moved to our new house in 2003 and the Barracuda still wasn't running. My wife wanted me to sell it, but I felt I could get a better price with it running, so we towed it along with us. At least now I had a garage to park it in, where it sat for 4 years while we had a baby, worked through some health issues with our older son, brought her parents here from China, just life in general. Finally my wife got sick of it taking up space in the garage, so she gave me an ultimatum to sell it or fix it up. Of course I decided to fix it up... I'm not about to sell a perfectly good Mopar. I started buying parts. First was a Keisler 5 Speed conversion kit. Next was a Flaming River fast ratio steering box. After a few more parts I ran out of money for awhile, so it was just sitting in the garage, taking up space. Early this year (2009) my wife asked me when I was going to finish it. I explained that I couldn't do it on "side money," we'd have to use some of our savings. Suprisingly she said OK, so I'm back on track. My engine is being built and should be finished by the end of August. The plan is to drop it in and drive it for a couple moths to break it in, then take the car down and have the 5 speed installed. I'm still looking for a new rear end and saving money for wheels and tires.

Updated August 12, 2009