I've been dragging this around for ten years.
On some of my pages, if the pictures seem to cover the text, you might try increasing your screen resolution. Or not. I'm trying to think of a better fix for this.
I found the 'Cuda in the Bay Area (the San Francisco bay area for those of you not from around here); some guy ran it into an abutment on the Bay Bridge and wanted to get rid of it rather than fix it. I probably paid too much for it (especially considering the progress I've made thus far), but wanted a big block four-speed and couldn't afford one for the prices people were asking (of course, I got it when the market was hot, more fool me), so had to buy a wreck. It's one of 154 notchback 383 console four-speeds; nobody I've talked to has ever even seen one before.
This is how it's supposed to look; the other pictures show how it looked before I had it straightened. If I ever get it finished I'll put up pictures then, too.
It's taken years to get things done and parts collected; heck, it took almost a year to find somebody willing to weld the entire front end we'd cut off another car onto this one. The guy at the shop who did the work didn't think the car was worth it; he didn't think it was what I said it was. Well, he was wrong; I checked the vin before buying the car. Not many made, and far, far fewer left driving around now, thirty-one years later. Adding to the problem, I understand the radiator was shared with the 50 or so Hemi-powered race cars produced; fortunately, I found one.
So the whole car was bent. I don't think the guy who did the work did such a hot job, but if it ain't insurance work, there don't seem to be nobody wants t' touch a job like'n that 'un. I've spent a stupid amount of time sitting in it turning the wheel back and forth, or standing next to it popping open the flip-top gas cap (which I think is just a really cool idea; POP! it's open). It smells musty.
Part of the problem in this little project was that I got married, and of course Laur wasn't interested in investing any money in that pile of junk in the garage. Then my son was born, requiring more time spent on other things. Now that I'm divorced I hope I don't have to sell it before I get to drive it.
This car was one of the two things I bought after winning just over two grand in the lottery; the other was a television. If I was smart I would have invested my money in mutual funds, but I was a young guy and that money sure was burning a hole in my pocket. Who thinks of investment at that age? I was pretty excited, thinking I'd get it right back on the road, but after one thing and another I'm still waiting to drive it for the first time.
The passenger-side frame rail here that we're looking down on from inside the engine bay is supposed to be straight. What you can't see in this picture is that not only is it pretty bent, but it's folded back on itself, too. When you consider that the whole front end of the car was bent in a similar fashion, it's pretty impressive the guy driving wasn't killed or anything. Still got the original windshield in it, surprizingly enough.
In fact, the car ran and drove, after a fashion, when I bought it; it was driven onto the trailer we used to tow it home. My old Sport Satellite was also surprizingly tough; it was rear-ended three times while I owned it, and the only damage I could see was the bumper got pushed up against the sheet metal. One guy's Ford Probe, which as it happens was the first guy to rear-end me, was pretty much destroyed, while I just drove on home thinking how it was interesting that people with brakes that should work a whole lot better than those in a 25 year old Plymouth sure didn't seem able to stop when they needed to.
There's a guy who has a page devoted to 67-69 Barracuda's; I've sent him these very same pictures, so we'll see if he puts them up. Apparently, of the people who've contacted him saying they've seen big-block coupes, I'm the only one so far who can prove it. I don't know if that means there aren't any others left, or if people are just too lazy to scan some pictures and send them off; I'd hate to think they've all been destroyed. Like I said, there supposedly were only 155 (or 154, depending upon which edition of the Govier book you have, apparently) 383 4-speed coupes (or rather, hardtops; not convertable or fastback) made; of course there were even fewer convertables, but I think people took better care of them because they're convertables, so it seems like there are more of them around now. And this is a console 4-speed, as opposed to just a shift knob sticking up out of the transmission hump, which I guess nobody has seen. But it sure looks original.
One of the funny things about this car; it appears to be pretty low milage. The service tag on the door reads 60,164, and the odometer reads 60,165, which to me means the guy rammed this into the Bay Bridge one mile after having it serviced. I guess he was checking to see if it was in good tune. Really, really too bad he didn't take better care of it, but then, if he had I wouldn't have been able to afford it.
Going through the car, we found the broadcast sheet, which is the piece of paper the assembly line guys refer to to know what all to bolt to the car; there are usually a few scattered throughout the car, behind the glove box, under the carpet, places like that. Mine's pretty tattered, but it's all there. Perhaps I'll get a scan of that up here, too.
There was also a lot of sand in the carpet. My thought at the time was that someone had driven it out on a beach somewhere. I was thinking along the lines of Frankie and Annette having a beach party, but who knows. The carpet looked a lot better after I vaccummed it.
When I was really into all this, I started collecting Mopar musclecar ads from the late sixties and early seventies. Apparently I'm not the only one who had that bright idea, because now I see web sites with similar ads. I haven't seen all the ones I've got, though, so I'm hoping at some point to have a section devoted to these ads; I've probably got a dozen, mostly out of old Playboys for some reason. I saw one for a '68 GTX I wish I would have snagged. Oh, well.
Here on the right is the fender tag rubbing I did; pretty minimal options, as it turns out. I had it all decoded a while back, but have forgotten most of what it means. Yet another interesting thing about this car; I'd read that all big-block Forumla S cars were supposed to have front disc brakes, but this one's got drums. Maybe that's why it ran into the bridge; too much go, not enough whoa.
