Belies its Big-Block - 1968 Plymouth Barracuda

Barracuda coupes have become thin on the ground--even though they sold within 10 percent of each other in the showrooms 40 years ago, the fastback has proven to be the more popular body style and seems to turn up far more often. Seeing a coupe at all is something of a rarity. Seeing one look so hunkered down, so coiled, so contemporary and clean is an even greater surprise.

'Twas not always so with this particular unit, but owner Dave Meyer quickly formulated plans for his 1968 Barracuda when he rescued it almost five years ago. "It was being used as a drag racer. It was red and looked plain-jane; it even had dog-dish hubcaps on it. I thought it was remarkable that it had a straight and solid body; there was just a little Bondo in it. All of the doors and fenders were nice, and there was no rust, which is unusual.

"But the owner really just beat on it weekly. That's not the way to treat a car, especially one like that. Really, the only good thing on it was the engine--everything else needed to be repaired or replaced." The former Slant-Six car had been converted to V-8 power years ago, and he scored it for $6,000.

Not everyone would want to paint a red car blue, but Meyer had a vision. "It seems like every time you see a restored car, it's what I call 'resale red'... there's nothing wrong with it, I'm just not a big fan of it. The color is close to a Dodge B5 blue, with some metallic in it. And then I wanted a blue interior to set off the outside." A phone call to Year One later, and it all arrived in boxes.

Restoration began slowly, at the home of a friend who already had a couple of projects of his own. "We did the suspension and some other things whenever I had a few bucks--the seats were redone, we got the A/C for it... the problem was that we were doing it on weekends, he had two Mopars of his own, he was catching hell from his wife for not being home, and he just ran out of time." The engine was pulled intact and painted a stealthy light blue, rather than the orange it had been; it hasn't been rebuilt since Dave took possession.

Stock lines look far more sinister when dumped over a set of black powdercoated 15x7 cop car steelies; anti-roll bar hints at cornering prowess

This is where Steve Strope of Pure Vision enters the picture. He has quite possibly done more to remove customized Mopars from the hoary old caveman-image ghetto than anyone else out there. But Meyer didn't know that--Strope's was the first name that sprang to mind when he asked a couple of trusted mechanic friends about who around town knew Mopars; that they both did business in Simi Valley, California, was pure coincidence.

And, although Strope points out that this is not a Pure Vision creation as such--the car as it appears is not his concept, although its final assembly and fettling occurred at his Simi Valley shop--his signature move of managing to draw attention to invisible details is in full effect here.

For instance, the cleanly drilled but incorrectly placed badge holes in the front fenders, drilled by the body shop (Strope generously describes them as "overzealous"), could have spelled disaster, but Strope made them work, filling the holes with a variety of factory badging that looks, well, factory. The argent grilles were blacked out to lend an air of menace to the Barracuda's stealth look; Pro Street legend Scott Sullivan, who was visiting for another project, masked and shot the hood trim ("He said, 'I'm bored, give me something to do,'" Strope tells us. "Next thing I know, he's shooting these.")

Inside, all looks mostly stock, except for the centrally mounted vacuum gauge that had been cleverly converted to a tach and re-faced by Redline Gauge Works to look absolutely stock. There's also a Flaming River tilt steering column with stainless billet U-joint attached to a Firm-Feel steering box and a small-diameter Grant wheel.

Adjustable upper arm and KYB gas shock

And, to clean up the engine compartment, various ignition components, including the Mopar Performance electronic ignition conversion, were mounted behind the engine on a plate that blocked off where the heater hoses used to go. Those hoses, thanks to a Classic Auto Air A/C system, were moved elsewhere under the hood. This, along with the four-core US Radiator "desert cooler," meant that fan space was at a premium.

Master Power front disc conversion

"The fan is a Hayden eight-blade, but because the four-core is so much thicker than a stock two-core, because the aftermarket A/C compressor is closer to the backside of the fan than a stock compressor, and because the engine is mounted at an angle (with the bottom of the fan closer to the radiator than the top), fitting the fan is tricky," Strope says. "No factory spacer will fit in there; I had to lathe a spacer and trial-fit it until the fan sat far enough back. Luckily, the fan flexes a little, so the more the blades are in motion, the more clearance we get."

Most of the suspension was the usual bag of stuff you'd throw at any car to stiffen it up--anti-roll bars, gas shocks, torsion bars and the like. (Eaton custom-made a set of leaf springs that are both an inch lower and 50 pounds beefier than even Formula S springs.) Two things stand out here, though: First, there are no subframe connectors--a bit of a surprise. Second are the adjustable MagnumForce upper A-arms.

"Because we lowered it a bit, and the disc brake conversion moves the hubs around, the tubular upper arm lightens and strengthens, and the adjustability allows an alignment guy to dial it in where it needs to be. We're not using it as a trick race part, but as an intelligent problem solver," Strope tells us.

We'll just see about that, we said as we took the keys for our drive.

Yesterday's compact feels roomier than today's mid-size inside. It's light and airy in there; the hardtop body style and thin pillars aid in that feeling. There's plenty of headroom and shoulder space, as well. It lets the outside in, rather than burying you in a bunker of molded plastic.

Turn the key, and a deep 700 rpm rumble settles in. The cabin fixtures do not shake, but the low octave where the engine and exhaust register give pause. You'd think a big-block A-body would be a slobbering, ill-mannered beast that traded power for finesse. It's not, but there's still a warning: Massive power is hidden beneath that speared hood, so proceed gently.

Owner Dave Meyer and Builder Steve Strope

We didn't unleash the apocalypse under our rear tires; we didn't threaten to discover another earthquake fault line somewhere in Southern California. Short of power-braking it, which we weren't about to do, there is no off-the-line punch in the small of the back; 2.76:1 highway gearing cushioned the expected shock.

What you get when you mash on the gas is... well, not a sense of taking it easy, because that would imply being lazy, and this Barracuda is anything but that. To get the sort of power delivery we're getting from this mild stock 440, a small-block would be all fizzy and shrieky and high-winding, possibly with a cam that would make it a bear to lug from light to light; the 440 lets the torque do the talking, and while it's hardly reclining in repose, it doesn't threaten to come undone, even while your foot is to the floor and the tach is ticking the upper reaches of the rev range. It's quick but calm in a way that only a big-block can pull off: It's working, but it's more like a reflex.

It would be wrong to read disappointment into these observations. If anything, the big-block would seem to make the Barracuda far easier to deal with on an everyday basis, and anything you do to a car that makes you want to drive it more surely cannot be bad.

We threw it--as much as we dare throw anyone's brand-new baby--around an off-ramp or two, and were impressed with the chassis's manners. The black 15-inch cop-car steelies and BFGoodrich tires fill up the wheel openings and look the part, but do they help everything work? You bet. You could still feel the nose aching to stray off into the weeds somewhere, but the fatter tires, stiffer springs, big-block torsion bars, gas shocks, chunky anti-roll bars, lower center of gravity, decided lack of body roll, and a proper alignment thanks to those MagnumForce upper control arms, all conspired to pull things back from the brink, gentle as you like.

If you were interested in autocrossing, you'd probably want to rethink the front/rear weight imbalance of the big-block, but for most back-road situations, this is a remarkable combination. All this, without subframe connectors or cutting-edge low-profile rubber!

With the laundry list of corner-flattening components above, you'd think that the exchange would have your tailbone yowling for mercy after even short trips, but that's not the case: a long-ish wheelbase (for a compact) and the relatively tall 60-series tires help cushion the blow, and while there's little doubt that the ride is firm, it's not chatty or nervous. You could go for hours, despite the little factory-shape seats, without your back or bum demanding a pit stop. The brakes, a Master Power conversion using '73-up A-body components and a cross-drilled 10-inch front rotor, were still being bedded in when we went for our jaunt.

The steering was a mixed bag. There was plenty of resistance and heft--not artificially so, but plenty to get the idea of stereotypical single-finger Mopar power steering out of your head once and for all--but the slow steering box, combined with the tiny steering wheel, meant that there was both a lot of on-center play (at least 45 degrees by our estimation) and a lot of arm-over-arm sawing away come turn time. It might not be so glaring if the suspension weren't so tied down: The chassis urges speed in the curves, but the tiller isn't geared to back it up. At freeway speeds, it does well enough, but for anything approaching a country two-lane road, you'll need to back it down 10 or 15 miles an hour below your expected velocity, just so your arms can keep the front of the car pointed in the right direction.

Says Meyer proudly, "This Barracuda is always driven; it's not one of those trailer queens that sits in the garage and you ooh and aah over. I take it everywhere, man. That's what it's for. I want to be buried in it and drive out into the cosmos in it."

He said, he said

Dave: I was at a point where, do I let it go, or get it done? I called Steve (right), and a couple of days later he came out, and I showed him the car,

Steve: Dave came to me to finish up his Barracuda. It was painted, the chassis was undercoated and already done, the suspension had been powdercoated and installed, the brakes were in, the engine was on a stand, and everything was in pieces but more or less complete. There were boxes and boxes of Year One parts.

Dave: I thought we could get it done easily for $5K or $6K.

Steve: There were a whole host of issues. The transmission needed to be rebuilt...

Dave: I got into my 401K

Steve: It's the same for any project that languishes: Things get forgotten or lost.

Dave: I did some parts finding.

Steve: The transmission crossmember went missing, it had no front valance, and the metal pieces of the rear-seat side panel trim were missing. They had to be found, then match-painted--to a color that isn't in a book!

Dave: $30,000 later, it's done.

1968 Plymouth Barracuda

Specifications

Engine

Block type: Chrysler cast-iron RB-series V-8

Cylinder heads: Chrysler cast-iron OHV

Displacement: 440 cubic inches

Bore x Stroke: 4.32 x 3.75 inches

Compression ratio: 9.7:1

Pistons: Stock

Connecting rods: Stock I-beam

Horsepower @ rpm: 375 @ 4,400

Torque @ rpm: 480 @ 3,200 rpm

Camshaft type: Stock Mopar hydraulic flat-tappet cam

Duration: 222 degrees intake, 222 degrees exhaust (at 0.050)

Lift: 0.464 inches intake, 0.464 inches exhaust

Valvetrain: Stock

Fuel system: Edelbrock dual-plane aluminum intake manifold, Edelbrock 600cfm four-barrel carburetor, Carter mechanical fuel pump

Lubrication system: Stock-type gear-driven, external

Ignition system: Stock Mopar with Mopar Performance electronic ignition conversion kit

Exhaust system: Schumacher Creative Services headers (1-5/8-inch primaries, 2-inch collector), coated TTI dual 2.5-inch exhaust, dual Dynomax mufflers, stainless tips

Original Engine: 225-cu.in. Slant-Six

Transmission

Type: Chrysler 727 TorqueFlite three-speed automatic

Ratios 1st: 2.45:1

2nd: 1.45:1

3rd: 1.00:1

Reverse: 2.20:1

Built By Performance Transmissions, Simi Valley, CA

Differential

Type: Ford 9-inch for Mopar A-body, built by Currie Enterprises

Ratio: 2.76:1

Steering

Type: Firmfeel steering box, ididit billet tilt column with billet U-joint, Grant steering wheel

Ratio: 16.0:1

Brakes

Front: Master Power front disc conversion using '73-up A-body spindle and caliper, 10-inch cross-drilled disc

Rear: Lincoln Versailles rear caliper and disc

Suspension

Front: Mopar Performance 0.920-inch torsion bars, Mopar A-body spindles, agnumforce tubular upper control arms, ADDCO 1-1/8-inch anti-roll bar, KYB Gas-A-Just shocks

Rear: Custom Eaton lowering leaf springs, ADDCO 3/4-inch anti-roll bar, KYB Gas-A-Just shocks

Wheels & Tires

Wheels: Centerline Starlite rotary forged billet

Front: 15 x 7 inches

Rear: 15 x 7 inches

Tires: BFGoodrich Radial TAs, red letters with a Duplicolor paint pen

Front: 225/60R15

Rear: 255/60R15