Background
Cars named after fish are few and far between for good reason – most fish just don’t have names that suit the automotive vibe. Kia Sardine, anyone? Thought not. But Barracuda – that’s a large, fast predatory fish known for its aggressive appearance and behaviour. That’s a bit more like it, huh? Would you be this excited if the muscle car before you was called the Plymouth Panda? It nearly was, but someone with a better marketing head got their way and Barracuda it was. Phew.
In the beginning, there were family cars, but American buyers wanted more. They wanted something they could afford, something that looked fresh, and something that would go fast.
The early sixties were a time of economic plenty and optimism in the USA, with the Big Three American car manufacturers Chrysler, Ford and Chevrolet competing to dominate the youth market with affordable, mid-size performance cars.
The word around Detroit was that Ford was planning to introduce a sporty new compact car based on the Falcon chassis and running gear. Rumour had it that it would be called the Mustang. In response, Chrysler stylist Irv Ritchie sketched a fastback version of the Valiant, which at the time was Chrysler’s most sporty model.
Budgets were tight, but the company’s executives wanted an entry in this rapidly growing market, and stealing some of the sales from Chevrolet’s Corvair Monza models wouldn’t hurt either.
Ford was inventing a new market sector with the Mustang – compact sized cars that were affordable (base models had six cylinder engines and basic interiors) but could be kitted out with a powerful V8s and custom accessories. They became known as pony cars after Ford’s innovation.
Introduced on 1st April 1964, the Plymouth Barracuda was actually the first pony car, launched two weeks before Ford’s long bonnet, short-rear Mustang. Due to Chrysler’s limited budget, the Barracuda was a hardtop two-door fastback version of their compact car, the Plymouth Valiant, with the largest rear window glass ever fitted to a production car.
Initially the Barracuda was viewed as very obviously just a fastback version of the Valiant, which had a frugal family image. Plymouth had to figure out a way to combat that, so they pitched the Barracuda as a car ‘for people of all ages and interests’. Meanwhile, the sporty Mustang was marketed with abundant advertising to young professionals and with a youthful image, this proved to be a huge strength for Ford and a weakness for Plymouth.
Characteristic of the burgeoning muscle car era was Chrysler’s range of performance tick-box options, giving an almost custom-made appearance. First-generation (1964-66) Barracudas had a 106 inch wheelbase, small-block V8 engines, and powertrains identical to the Valiant’s. The highest performance option in 1964 was the popular 273 cubic inch (4.5-litre) LA V8, making it faster than Ford’s Mustang.
Mopar muscle power culminated in the late 1960s and early ’70s with special performance packages and a 440ci (7.2-litre) big block V8, known as the Chrysler B Engine. This transformed the Barracuda into a legendary muscle car. 1970-74 Cudas had a Chrysler E-body, sharing a similar design to the Dodge Challenger R/T and the same 383ci engines.
Barracudas and Cudas were not interchangeable. Barracudas didn’t have the hemispherical-shaped combustion chambers V8, or hemi. The Cuda was the so called high-performance derivation with 426 hemi big-blocks (as though a 7.2-litre big block V8 is an eco-powerplant). The 426 Super Stock hemi was the notorious power behind 26 drag racing records in one season and 11.39 second quarter mile time, alongside Richard Petty’s 1967 NASCAR Championship win.
Muscle car marketing was full of entertaining bravado, the like of which you never saw in UK car ads, with Ford, Chevrolet, Dodge and Plymouth flexing their muscles. Chrysler’s advertisements for the 1970s hemi ’Cuda included the strapline, Our Angriest Body Wrapped Around’ Ol’ King Kong Himself. Take that, Morris Marina.
1970-1974 Cudas and limited production convertibles are the most valuable. A numbers-matching (original engine with body), four-speed blue 1971 hemi Cuda convertible reached a record $3.5 million at Mecum Auctions in June 2014, becoming the most expensive hemi Cuda ever sold. In 2019, a rare 1970 yellow hemi Cuda convertible sold for $1.98 million.
A 1973 Barracuda is hard to find now – only 11,000 were made in that year – and even in 1973, a Plymouth Barracuda was an unusual choice for a new car. In the face of rapidly diminishing sales, you could argue that Plymouth had chosen the path of least resistance as a means to its end.
The muscle car fad was on its way out: sales of high-performance cars plummeted precipitously, and opera windows and ludicrously soft suspensions were becoming increasingly attractive to the American car-buying public. Safety standards, the spector of unleaded fuel and the dreaded catalytic converter, and the slowing of performance car sales all spelled doom for Plymouth's pony car.
Its last update of any significance was in 1972, when a minor facelift eliminated the wing gills and the front end reverted to a two-headlamp design, and the available engines had their compression ratio lowered in advance of no-lead at the pumps.
The Plymouth stylists didn't even design proper five mph safety bumpers for it; thick rubber over-riders on chromed stanchions were all that the engineers (who were working overtime on emissions compliance) could muster, or that the budget would allow them to tool up for. The following year spelled the end of the line for Plymouth’s feisty fish.
