Barracuda (pronounced bar-uh-koo-duh)
(1) Any
of several elongated, predaceous, tropical and subtropical marine fishes of the
genus Sphyraena, certain species of
which are used for food.
(2)
Slang term for a treacherous, greedy person (obsolete); slang term for one who
uses harsh or predatory means to compete.
(3) A
car produced by the Plymouth division of Chrysler Corporation in three
generations between 1964-1974.
1670-1680:
From American Spanish, thought derived from customary use in the Caribbean, borrowed
from the Latin American Spanish barracuda, perhaps from a Cariban word, most
likely the Valencian-Catalan barracó (snaggletooth), first recorded as barracoutha.
The 1971
Plymouth Hemi 'Cuda at auction
While
the 1964 Ford Mustang is credited with creating the pony-car market, it was
actually the Plymouth Barracuda which came first, released seventeen days earlier. Ford’s idea was to drape a sexy new body over
an existing, low-cost, platform and drive-train and Chrysler chose the same
route, using the sub-compact Valiant as Ford were using their Falcon.
1965 Ford MustangUnfortunately,
despite the project having been in the works for years, a sudden awareness Ford
were well advanced meant Chrysler’s lower-budget development was rushed. Despite the Valiant’s platform and drive-train
being in some aspects better than the Falcon, Plymouth’s
Barracuda was a bit of a flop, outsold by its competitor initially by around ten
to one, numbers which got worse. While
the Mustang got what was called “the body from central casting”, from the
windscreen forward, the Barracuda retained the sheet-metal from the mundane
Valiant, onto which was grafted a rear end which was adventurous but
stylistically disconnected from the front.
1964 Plymouth BarracudaIt was an awkward discombobulation although, with the back-seat able to
be folded down to transform the rear passenger compartment into a large luggage
space, it was clever design.
1971 Jensen FFThe
novelty of that rear-end was a giant rear window which, at 14.4 square feet
(1.34m3), was at the time the largest ever installed in a production
car. In 1966, even grander glazing was seen on the Jensen Interceptor, styled by Italy’s Carrozzeria Touring,
but there it was ascetically successful, the lines of the big trans-Atlantic
hybrid more suited to such an expanse of glass.
1967 Plymouth BarracudaThe
extraordinary success of the Mustang nevertheless encouraged Chrysler to
persist and the Barracuda, though still on the Valiant platform, was re-styled
for 1967, this time with the vaguely Italianesque influences seen also in 1966 in
the revision to Chevrolet’s doomed, rear-engined Corvair. As a design, it worked well and offered both
notchback and convertible coachwork as well as a fastback but, because of the
economic necessity of retaining some aspects of the Valiant’s structure, wasn’t
able to realise the short-deck, long-hood look with which the Mustang had
established the pony car design motif used still today.
1969 Pontiac Firebird Trans AmGeneral
Motors’ (GM) answer to the Mustang wasn’t as constrained by the fiscal
frugality which had imposed so many compromises on the Barracuda, the Chevrolet
Camaro and the substantially similar Pontiac Firebird both introduced in 1966 with
a curvaceous interpretation of the short-deck, long-hood idea which maintained
a relationship with the GM’s then voguish “coke-bottle” designs. In a twist on the pony car
process, the Camaro and Firebird were built on an entirely new platform which would
later be used for Chevrolet’s new competitor for the Valiant and Falcon, the
Nova. Just as the pedestrian platforms
had restricted the freedom to design the Barracuda, so the Camaro’s
underpinnings imposed compromises in space utilization on the Nova, a few
inches of the passenger compartment sacrificed to fashion. For 1967, Ford released an updated Mustang, visually
similar to the original but notably wider, matching the Camaro and Firebird in
easily accommodating big-block engines, not something Chrysler easily could do with the Barracuda.
1969 Plymouth 'Cuda 440However,
this was the 1960s and though Chrysler couldn’t easily install a big-block, they
could with difficulty and so they did, most with a 383 cubic inch (6.3 litre)
V8 and, in 1969, in a package now called ‘Cuda, a few with the 440 (7.2
litre). At first glance it looked a bargain, the big engine not all that expensive but having ticked the box, the buyer then found added a number of "mandatory options" so the total package did add a hefty premium to the basic cost. The bulk of the 440 was such
that the plumbing needed for disc brakes wouldn’t fit so the monster had to be
stopped with the antiquated drum-type and nor was there space for power
steering, quite a sacrifice in a car with so much weight sitting atop the front
wheels. The prototype built with a
manual gearbox frequently snapped so many rear suspension components the
engineers were forced to insist on an automatic transmission, the fluid cushion softening
the impact between torque and tarmac.
Still, in a straight line, the things were quick enough to entice almost 350 buyers. To this day the 440 remains the second-largest engine used in a pony car, only the Pontiac 455 (7.5 litre) offering more displacement.
1968 Plymouth Barracuda ConvertibleThe
better choice, introduced late in 1967, was an enlarged version of Chrysler’s
LA, small-block V8, now bored-out to 340 cubic inches (5.6 litre); it wouldn’t
be the biggest of the LA series but it was the best. A high-revving, free-breathing thing from the
days when only the most rudimentary emission controls were required, the toxic
little (a relative term) 340 gave the ‘Cuda performance in a straight line barely
inferior to the 440, coupled with markedly improved braking and cornering
prowess. One of the outstanding engines
of the era and debatably the best small-block, it lasted, gradually detuned,
until 1973 by which time interest in performance cars had declined in parallel
with the engineers ability to produce them while also complying with the
increasingly onerous anti-pollution rules.
1968 Hemi 'Cuda, ex factoryOf
course, for some even a 440 ‘Cuda wouldn't be enough and anticipating this, in 1968, Plymouth took the metaphorical shoehorn and installed the 426 cubic
inch (6.9 litre) Street Hemi V8, a (slightly) civilised version of their racing
engine. Fifty were built (though one
normally reliable source claims it was seventy) and with fibreglass panels and all manner of acid-dipping tricks to reduce weight, Plymouth didn’t even
try to pretend the things were intended for anywhere except the drag
strip. The power-to-weight ratio of the
1968 Hemi ‘Cudas remains the highest of the era.
1971 Plymouth 'CudaThe
third and final iteration of the Barracuda was introduced as a 1970 model and
lasted until 1974. Abandoning both the
delicate lines of the second generation and the fastback body, the lines were
influenced more by the Camaro than the Mustang and it was wide enough for any
engine in the inventory. This time the range comprised (1) the Barracuda which could be configured with either straight-six or one of the milder V8s, (2) the Gran 'Cuda which offered slightly more powerful V8s and some additional luxury appointments including the novelty of an overhead console (though obviously not available in the convertible) and (3) the 'Cuda which was oriented towards high-performance and available with the 340, 383, 440 and 426 units, the wide (E-body) platform able to handle any engine/transmission
combination. Perhaps the best looking of
all the pony cars, sales encouragingly spiked for 1970, even the Hemi ‘Cuda
attracting over 650 buyers, despite the big engine increasing the price by about a third and it would have been more popular still, had not the insurance premiums for such machines risen do high. With this level of success, the
future of the car seemed assured although the reaction of the press was not
uncritical, one review of the Dodge Hemi Challenger (the ‘Cuda’s substantially
similar stable-mate), finding it an example of “…lavish execution with little
thought to practical application”.
1971 Plymouth 'Cuda ConvertibleCircumstances
however conspired to doom the ‘Cuda, the Hemi, the Challenger and almost the
whole muscle car ecosystem. Some of the
pony cars would survive but for quite some time only as caricatures of their wild
predecessors. Rapidly piling up were
safety and emission control regulations which were consuming an increasing
proportion of manufacturers’ budgets but just as lethal was the crackdown by
the insurance industry on what were admittedly dangerously overpowered cars
which, by international standards, were extraordinarily cheap and often within
the price range of the 17-25 year old males most prone to high-speed accidents
on highways. During 1970, the insurance
industry looked at the data and adjusted the premiums. By late 1970, were it possible to buy
insurance for a Hemi ‘Cuda and its ilk, it was prohibitively expensive and
sales flopped from around 650 in 1970 to barely more than a hundred the next
year, of which but a dozen-odd were convertibles.
It was
nearly over. Although the Barracuda
survived, the convertible and the big-block engines didn’t re-appear after 1971
and the once vibrant 340 was soon replaced by a more placid 360. Sales continued to fall, soon below the point
where the expensive to produce E-body was no longer viable, production of both
Barracuda and Challenger ending in 1974.
Even without the factors which led to the extinction however, the first
oil-crisis, which began in October 1973, would likely have finished them off,
the Mustang having (temporarily) vacated that market segment and the Camaro and
Firebird survived only because they were cheaper to build so GM could profitably maintain
production at lower levels. Later in the decade, GM would be glad about that for the Camaro and Firebird enjoyed long, profitable Indian summers. That career wasn't shared by the Javelin, American Motors’ belated pony car which, although actually more successful than
the Barracuda, outlived it only by months.
1971 Hemi 'Cuda Convertible at 2021 auctionIt was as
an extinct species the third generations ‘Cudas achieved their greatest success...
as used cars. In 2014, one of the twelve
1971 Hemi ‘Cuda convertibles sold at auction for US$3.5 million and in 2021,
another attracted a bit of US$4.8 million without reaching the reserve.