Whatever else you may say about the third-generation (E-body) Barracuda and its sibling, the Dodge Challenger, you can't call them half-hearted. After six years of being frustratingly out of step with buyer tastes in the pony car market, Chrysler Corporation was in a mood to overcompensate, giving its latest-generation pony more of everything, from horsepower to sheer size.

The earlier, A-body Barracudas had eschewed, to their cost, the long-hood, short-deck proportions that had given the Mustang, Camaro, and Firebird their aggressive image. Some found the vaguely European-looking '67-'69 Barracuda sleek and graceful, but it looked far less muscular than its rivals, and performance-minded young buyers shied away. John Herlitz, principal designer of the third-generation car, applied the long-hood/short-deck theme to the new model with a will. The fastback roof, which had been the Barracuda's trademark since its 1964 introduction, was abandoned in favor of a notchback hardtop roofline. The new car was long, low, and wide in the best Harley Earl tradition. As a result, even the simplest, six-cylinder Barracudas took on a decidedly carnivorous air. If the Barracuda looked more than a little bit like a '67-69 Camaro or Firebird on steroids, that was fine with Plymouth managers -- GM's F-bodies had outsold the Barracuda by a large margin.

The new Barracuda was actually about six inches shorter than the '69, riding the same 108-inch (2,743 mm) wheelbase, but its hood was more than a foot (30 cm) longer, and overall width was several inches greater. The extra width was important, because it facilitated the second part of Plymouth's more-is-better strategy: bigger engines. The A-body Barracuda, based on the compact Valiant, had never been designed for the big-block engines that the marketing people had started to demand. Chrysler's 383 (6.3 L) and 440 (7.2 L) V8s had been made to fit, with difficulty, but the resulting cars were not very satisfactory, except on the dragstrip. Worse, Plymouth's meanest (and most famous) engine was simply too big. Plymouth had squeezed the 426 Hemi into a few '68 Barracudas, but those cars required considerable modification, and weren't suitable for street driving. The new E-body Barracuda and Challenger would have engine bays big enough for any engine Chrysler built.


This is a compact? The E-body Barracuda isn't as long as it looks, but it's as wide as a modern 7-series BMW. The complex, six-segment grille and the louvers on the front fenders were new for 1971. Many critics preferred the simpler, cleaner 1970 nose, and few liked the pearlescent silver that the '71 grille was painted if you didn't specify the optional body-colored "Elastometric" bumpers. This car has all the cues expected of the muscle car breed, including driving lamps, hood pins, and a really ostentatious hood scoop.

The "E-body" designation might suggest that the Barracuda and Challenger were entirely new cars, but that was only partly true. One of the basic tenets of the pony car genre had always been low production costs; by Detroit standards, none of them (even the Mustang) sold in large enough volumes to justify a lot of bespoke hardware. The second-generation Barracuda had had its own sheet metal, but its floorpan and most of its structural components and running gear were shared with the Valiant and the Dodge Dart. When the Valiant and Dart's "A" platform proved to be too narrow for the third-generation car, Chrysler engineers turned instead to the intermediate "B" platform, used by the Dodge Coronet, Plymouth Satellite, and Dodge Charger. With its wheelbase trimmed from 117 inches (2,972 mm) to 108 (2,743 mm) (111 in/2,819 mm for the Challenger), the B platform became the basis for the Barracuda and Challenger's E-body.


The E-body Barracuda's interior was awash in molded plastic, a feeling the woodgrain trim on the dashboard, console, and steering wheel did little to alleviate. At least with the optional Rally Instrument Cluster, you got a full set of gauges, including a tachometer and a rather gaudy clock. The console was optional, as was the three-speed TorqueFlite, which cost a heft $237.50. It was worth it: Chrysler's four-speed manual was a cumbersome bit of business, not well suited to fast shifting.


Behold the definition of the term "close-coupled." Although the E-body's back seat was wide enough, legroom was practically nonexistent, except perhaps for very small children. Admittedly, this is a convertible, which seldom makes for good rear-seat space, but the hardtop isn't much better. Black vinyl upholstery is the source of much pain on hot summer days.

The consequence of that engineering sleight of hand was appalling space utilization and an unseemly amount of avoirdupois. With a big-block engine, Chrysler's B-body intermediates hovered around two tons; the E-bodies were lighter, but not by much, weighing about 200 pounds (90 kg) more than a comparable '69 Barracuda. For all their bulk, the E-bodies had less interior room than many compact sedans weighing a thousand pounds less. The inches extracted from the B-bodies' wheelbase had come mostly from the rear seat, while the short-deck styling reduced the trunk to little more than a shallow bin. It was a far cry from the station wagon utility Plymouth had promoted in the original Barracuda. Of course, sacrificing practicality for style was the other great pony-car commandment; the Mustang's sales had never suffered measurably from its scant rear legroom or modest trunk. Besides, the first-generation Barracuda's fold-down rear seat and load-carrying flexibility had never impressed anyone but a handful of campers and surfers.

Plymouth tried to cover a broad range of buyer tastes by offering three different models: the basic Barracuda; the plusher, luxury-oriented Gran Coupe; and the performance 'Cuda. If the Barracuda's size and shape weren't extroverted enough for you, you could order yours in a host of vivid, absurdly named "High-Impact" paint colors, including TorRed, In Violet, Lemon Twist, Vitamin C, and (if you were very secure with your sexual identity) Moulin Rouge (known to Dodge buyers as "Panther Pink"). A three-speed manual transmission was standard on most, but most buyers opted for either the optional four-speed or the three-speed TorqueFlite. A vast array of engines were offered, ranging from a 225 cu. in. (3.7 L) Slant Six to the monstrous 440 (7.2 L) Six Pack, with three two-throat carburetors and a claimed 390 horsepower (291 kW). At the top of the heap was the 426 (7.0 L) Hemi, which was rated at 425 gross horsepower (317 kW). You could round out your purchase with front disc brakes, a wide array of axle ratios, and a choice of different hood scoops.


The optional "shaker" hood scoop was essentially an oversize engine air cleaner with an integral air scoop, extending through a hole sliced in the hood. It was so named because it vibrated noticeably whenever the engine was running. Engine call-outs on the side were perhaps a little redundant in 1971, when most 'Cuda models had dramatic body-side decals announcing the same thing. The 383 was rated at 300 gross horsepower (224 kW).

Despite the extra weight, the Barracuda's performance left little to be desired. The Slant Six and base 318 (5.2 L) V8 were adequate for less demanding drivers, but seemed a little pointless; even a six-cylinder Barracuda was in no danger of being mistaken for an economy car. At the other end of the scale, the 440 and Hemi were capable of running the standing quarter mile (402 meters) in less than 14 seconds, and the 340 (5.6 L) and 383 (6.3 L) engines weren't far behind.

Handling was another matter. Earlier Barracudas with the optional Formula S suspension had a reputation for competent handling, at least by American standards. The E-body, even with the stiffest suspension options and fattest tires, was a clumsy beast. It plowed heavily in turns, and the massive torque of the big engines could send the tail skittering sideways even in straight-line acceleration. The heavy-duty suspension options were reasonably adept at keeping the rear wheels on the ground in hard acceleration, but weren't much help with cornering or braking.

The other problem with the new body was depressing assembly quality. Earlier Barracudas had a reputation for rattles, but the hardware of the E-body was poorly designed and often badly assembled. The worst problem was the doors. Their elaborate molded-plastic trim panels acted as a sounding board, magnifying any rattles inside the heavy doors themselves. You could also jar the door open by flexing the outer sheet metal, an unwelcome quirk for cars that were already hard to insure.

On top of these weaknesses, the E-body Barracuda arrived just as the entire performance car market was collapsing. New federal emissions and safety rules, which tended to make the cars heavier and slower, didn't help, but the bigger problems were price and insurance. In 1965, you would have been hard pressed to spend more than $3,500 for a well-equipped Barracuda Formula S. In 1970, a six-cylinder base model with radio, power steering, and automatic would cost you around $3,100, and a fully loaded Hemi 'Cuda could top $5,000, well out of the price range of most of the buyers who would've wanted one. The pony cars, like their intermediate Supercar brethren, were rapidly pricing themselves out of the market. Sticker price was only part of the problem; insurance companies, alarmed at the proliferation of big-engined cars aimed at young buyers, were starting to impose punitive surcharges on Supercars. A driver under 25 with a high-performance car might face premiums of $1,200 or more a year, more than 25% of the car's original sticker price.


As disappointing as sales of the hardtop Barracuda were, they were fabulous compared to the convertible. Only 2,785 Barracuda convertibles were sold in 1970, a mere 1,388 in 1971, its final year. Our photo subject is an extremely rare and rather collectible car: only 374 'Cuda convertibles like this one were built in 1971.

Chrysler had invested a lot of money in the development of the E-body, and there was a lot riding on the new Barracuda. To the corporation's dismay, sales of the new Barracuda were disappointing. Only 55,499 were sold in 1970, better than 1969, but lackluster for a heavily promoted new model. Mustang sales were down for 1970, as well, but the Mustang still outsold the Barracuda by more than three to one. The Challenger did somewhat better, selling 76,935 cars, but many of those sales came mostly at the expense of Dodge's bigger, more expensive Charger, whose sales dropped a commensurate amount.

The Barracuda's fortunes were not helped by Plymouth's ill-fated Trans Am efforts. Plymouth hired Dan Gurney's All-American Racers to run the Barracuda in the 1970 Trans Am series, with the cars driven by Gurney and Swede Savage. A limited-edition street car was offered to the public to homologate the racers' cylinder heads, lightweight hood, and spoilers; it was dubbed AAR Cuda, without Gurney's permission. Alas, the competition cars fared poorly, never scoring better than second place. Combined with a series of embarrassing mechanical failures, the AAR ended up with the worst record of any factory team. The Dodge Challengers, driven by Sam Posey and Tony Adamowicz of Posey's Autodynamics, did little better, hampered by gearbox problems and a succession of blown engines.


The rear wing was an option in 1970 and 1971, and looks a lot like the similar wings used on Pontiac's GTO Judge and other contemporary Supercars. Its functional value is dubious, at best. The AAR Cuda and Challenger T/A had different, duckbill spoilers, which actually had some value at high speeds; they were offered to homologate them for Trans Am racing. This car has the optional "Elastometric" bumpers, which added hardened urethane foam over the un-chromed metal bumper.

In 1971, Chrysler followed the lead of General Motors by reducing the compression ratios of many of its engines, in preparation for the use of unleaded gasoline. The optional performance engines were little changed, but it would be their last hurrah. Barracuda sales plummeted to 18,690. In 1972, the Hemi was dropped, the convertible was discontinued, and the 383 and 440 were no longer offered in the E-body line. The 340, now the most powerful engine, had its claws clipped, losing its big valves and free-breathing heads, along with two full points of compression. The loss of the 383, 440, and Hemi had little effect on sales, evidence of how difficult the big engines had become to sell.

By the time the 1973 models debuted, Plymouth had already decided to pull the plug on the E-body. Even Mustang sales were down drastically, and the Camaro and Firebird were on death's door. The writing had been on the wall for some time. Stylist Milt Antonick had taken design studies of a four-generation Barracuda to a consumer focus group in Ohio in late 1969, with discouraging results; the muscle car age was over. An uninspiring 22,213 Barracudas were sold in 1973; 1974 sales, impacted by the OPEC oil embargo that lasted through much of the model year, were only 11,734. Production of both the Barracuda and Challenger ended in March 1974.


Massive engine call-out decals on the flanks might intimidate opponents in the Stop Light Grand Prix, but they no doubt failed to amuse insurance agents. Nor were they popular with Plymouth workers, who found that applying them correctly was challenging. This was the final year for the 383; it was dropped from the E-body line in 1972.

That isn't quite the end of the Barracuda story. We mentioned in our previous installment that Plymouth took a two-pronged approach to the Barracuda concept in the early seventies. The Barracuda itself was one; the other was the Plymouth Duster.

Plymouth's compact Valiant had been redesigned back in 1967. It sold well in 1968 and 1969, but by 1970 it was losing out to Chevy's Nova and the new Ford Maverick. While Valiants were decent cars, they were a little too boxy-looking for the tastes of younger buyers. Dodge managed to pep up sales of its similar Dart sedan with a sporty Swinger 340 model, but what the Valiant really needed was a sexier body -- which, as you may recall from our first installment, was the original motivation for the Barracuda.


The Duster wasn't exactly a pony car, but with the optional 340 (or later 360) engine, it had scorching performance. With a six-cylinder engine, it was Plymouth's most economical car, and the smallest model they offered (except for a handful of captive imports from Hillman and Mitsubishi) until the arrival of the Horizon in 1978.

There was nothing in Plymouth's plans about a new body style, and the budget for touching up the Valiant's styling for 1970 was only $15 million -- a very modest sum, even then. Nonetheless, Gene Weiss, Plymouth's product planner for compacts, decided to see what could be done with it. He enlisted the help of styling supervisor Milt Antonick (who had been largely responsible for the first- and second-generation Barracudas) and stylist Neil Walling, and asked them to design a new roofline for the Valiant hardtop. The radical rear window curvature Walling devised presented engineering challenges, so Weiss talked John Worthy from Advanced Car Engineering into helping them refine it for production, on the pretense that the windows were for a design study, not an actual car. Thanks to such subterfuge (and a total lack of management oversight), the entire project was ready in only six weeks.

Walling's design was a little awkward in some areas, a result of the need to reuse as much standard Valiant tooling as possible, but with its sloping, semi-fastback tail, substantial tumblehome, and bustle-like rear fenders, it looked notably sleeker than the standard Valiant sedans. Chrysler-Plymouth management was not exactly thrilled with Weiss' initiative, but they reluctantly endorsed it. Weiss suggested a tongue-in-check "C.K." (Clark Kent) sporty version akin to the Road Runner -- complete with licensed Superman "S" logo on the engine air cleaner -- but management shot that plan down outright, along with a subsequent proposal to name the car after Warner Brothers' Tasmanian Devil. Instead, Plymouth designers developed their own "dust devil" character, and the new car became the Plymouth Valiant Duster, replacing Valiant's existing two-door sedan.


Compared to the Valiant from which it was derived, the Duster's rear fenders are raised, its roof has greater slope, and the rear of the roof has really severe tumblehome. (Tumblehome is the angle of the roof sides relative to the vertical plane.) This shape required the most radically curved window glass Chrysler had ever attempted, which was the Duster's biggest development problem.

Although Plymouth never described it as such, the Duster was essentially a revival of the 1967-69 A-body Barracuda line. Like that now-defunct model, the Duster came standard with a Slant Six, with the 318 and 340 V8s optional. A six-cylinder Duster started at only $2,172, a highly attractive price in those days. The Duster 340, which had a base price of only $2,547, was a performance bargain. Not only was it cheaper than an E-body Barracuda with the same engine, it was lighter and faster. The stock suspension left much to be desired, but sufficiently motivated buyers could substitute the pieces from a 1967-69 Barracuda Formula S, most of which would bolt right in.

With performance comparable to the Barracuda, a significantly lower price, and an image less threatening to insurance agents, the Duster looked like a winner. Not everyone was fond of its styling, but even the harshest critics admitted it was a performance bargain.


Early Duster 340s could be ordered in some of the same lurid colors as the Barracuda and Road Runner. In good tune, a car like this was capable of 0-60 mph (0-97 kph) in well under 7 seconds, with the quarter mile (402 meters) in the low 14s -- very similar to the old Barracuda Formula S with the same engine.

To the great surprise of Plymouth management, the Duster was a smash hit. The irony was considerable; Plymouth could hardly give away the old A-body Barracuda, but the conceptually similar Duster sold an impressive 217,192 copies for 1970, 24,817 of which were Duster 340s. That was enough to outsell the Mustang by around 20,000 units, and it beat the E-body Barracuda by nearly four to one. With its minuscule tooling budget, such sales made the Duster a very profitable car, and helped to ease the sting of the E-body's lackluster sales.

Inevitably, the Duster outlived the Barracuda. Although the Barracuda was gone by early ’74, the Duster was sold with only modest changes until the end of the Valiant line in 1976. Total sales were a highly satisfactory 1,328,377. The nameplate was subsequently applied to an option package for the Plymouth Volare coupe, lasting until 1980. Even in its final year, 5,586 were sold. The name was briefly revived from 1992 to 1994 for a sporty version of the compact Plymouth Sundance. While Dodge reused the Challenger name several times over the years, there was never another Barracuda. With the demise of the Plymouth division in 2001 and Chrysler's current financial woes, there probably never will be.


From the A pillars forward, the Duster was basically identical to the Valiant sedan, and most of its overall dimensions were about the same. The 1970 model rode a 108-inch (2,743-mm) wheelbase and was 188.4 inches (4,785 mm) long, about two inches (51 mm) longer than the E-body Barracuda. '73 and later models, like this one, are a bit longer, thanks to the bulky, federally mandated crash bumpers. A V8 Duster weighed about 200 pounds (90 kg) less than a comparable Barracuda, giving it excellent performance.

What is the moral of the story? The success of the Duster suggests that the original plan for the Barracuda back in 1964 -- to spice up the Valiant line with a sexier fastback coupe -- was a perfectly viable one, doomed more by its awkward styling and clumsy marketing than any conceptual flaw. If Plymouth had introduced the Duster in 1967, it probably would have worked. For that matter, if Plymouth had introduced the E-body Barracuda in 1967, it probably would have sold a lot better than it did in 1970-71. Moreover, if Chrysler had stuck it out in the pony car market for a few more years, sales of the E-body might have picked up markedly -- just as they did for the Chevy Camaro and Pontiac Firebird, which rose from their early-seventies doldrums to some of their best-ever sales years towards the end of the decade.

The real failing of the Barracuda was not its styling, its name, or even its frequent gang-that-couldn't-shoot-straight marketing blunders. We think its biggest problem -- one that has bedeviled many other automakers over the course of the past four decades -- was that it was always a reactionary project, the result of myopic long-term planning. At every turn, Chrysler was reacting to the decisions of its competitors, rather than anticipating where the market was going.

The same could be said about automakers today who threw most of their resources into trucks and SUVs, at the expense of cars. Many of those trucks and SUVs are highly competent, competitive vehicles in a market segment that, as of this writing, has just vanished into a smoking hole in the ground, much as the Supercar market did in the early 1970s. The high-performance models of the Barracuda and Challenger are collector's items today because of their rarity. As desirable as their extroverted appearance and performance make them to modern collectors, in their day, they were so out of synch with the market that they had become all but unsalable.

Foresight is a tricky thing in business. Long-term planning is not sexy, and it does little to bolster quarterly profit numbers, which in many modern corporations are all that matters. On the other hand, when the tide turns, a little advance planning beats the hell out of 20/20 hindsight -- or Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

# # #

Our primary source for the history of the E-body Barracuda was Paul Zazarine, Barracuda and Challenger (Muscle Car Color History) (Osceola, WI: Motorbooks, International, 1991); most of our information on the origins of the Duster came from "Duster: The Plymouth That Almost Wasn't" by Curtis Redgap (2004, Valiant.org, http://www.valiant.org/duster.html, accessed 2 October 2008). Some additional information came from Auto Editors of Consumer Guide, Encyclopedia of American Cars: Over 65 Years of Automotive History, (Lincolnwood, IL: Publications International, 1996).

Road tests we consulted for this story included "Plymouth 'Cuda 383: True High-Performance at a Reasonable Price," Road Test, June 1970; Don Matthews, "AAR 'Cuda: The All-American Impulse Car," Sports Car Graphic, June 1970; Allan Girdler, "Swede Was My Copilot," Car Life, October 1970; "The Handler!" Cars, Hi-Performance, June 1971; Steve Kelly, "Beware the Quiet Fish," Hot Rod, June 1971; "Plymouth Barracuda: The end of the road is in sight and no one, it seems, is looking for the detour," Car and Driver, January 1972, all of which are reprinted in R.M. Clarke, ed., Barracuda Muscle Portfolio 1964-1974 (Cobham, Surrey: Brooklands Books, Ltd., 1995); and "Valiant Duster," Car and Driver, September 1969; Steve Kelly, "A new entry: DUSTER," Hot Rod, March 1970; A.B. Shuman, "Road testing the 340, 440-6 and Hemi 'Cudas: 'Isn't there an easier way to earn my Canadian Club?'" Motor Trend, May 1970; "AAR Cuda," Car and Driver, July 1970; and Rich Taylor, "Retrospect: '70 Plymouth AAR Cuda: Street-Rod in Trans-Am Clothing," Motor Trend, February 1993, all of which are reprinted in R.M. Clarke, ed., Plymouth 1964-1971: Muscle Portfolio (Cobham, Surrey: Brooklands Books Ltd., 2003).

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