Curious Yellow 1971 Plymouth ‘Cuda Was Born a 440 3-Speed, Now Its V8 Is Better Than Ever

Alas, we’re here to talk about the third-gen car, also known as the E-Body Barracuda, which was produced between 1970 and 1974. As soon as you saw this thing on the street, you knew it wasn’t just another car, but rather a symbol of power and performance. It really did put the ‘joy’ in ‘joy ride’.

It also looked tremendous, pure eye candy. It was basically a shorter, tighter E-Body Challenger, and it immediately managed to dispense with its predecessor’s “economy car” persona. It shook off that stigma like a dog shaking off being wet.

As you can imagine, performance was never in question, and Hemi units aside, the ‘Cuda (high performance variants were marketed as such) also came with a couple of hot 440 ci options, a Four-Barrel Super Commando with 375 horsepower and a Six Barrel with triple 2-barrel carburetors and 390 horsepower. It’s the latter that we’ll be discussing here today.

More specifically, we’ll be talking about this 1971 ‘Cuda, which just sold for $111,000 while featuring a wide range of visual and performance-enhancing modifications. This car left the factory wearing Curious Yellow, which happens to work well alongside the black vinyl roof, black billboard stripes, and the Shaker hood with pins. Other dark highlights include the rear wing and the rear window louvers.

As for the wheels, they measure 15-inches in diameter and are wearing Cooper Cobra Radial G/T tires, measuring 215/70 at the front and 235/70 at the rear.

Inside, you’ll find black front bucket seats with a matching dashboard, door panels and rear bench, but also ‘Cuda-branded floor mats, woodgrain accents (dash, center console), a Custom Autosound stereo, and a wood-rimmed steering wheel fronting the Rallye instrumentation.

So far, so good, right? Well, I know you’re mostly interested in the engine, so I won’t leave you hanging much longer. It’s a replacement 440 ci V8, boasting a .010” overbore, replacement pistons, valves and rods, ‘906’ heads and a cast-iron manifold. Assuming it’s still putting down around 390 horsepower, it all goes to the rear wheels via a replacement TorqueFlite three-speed automatic gearbox with an SMR 2800-rpm-stall torque converter.

Last but not least, this ‘Cuda comes with a TTi dual exhaust system with 2.5” mandrel-bent tubing and Dynomax mufflers. This thing sounds proper.

The only question that remains is whether or not this car is actually worth $111,000. Well, it probably is worth that much to the person that bought it, clearly. Personally, I’m not that stoked about the spec, but it’s not disappointing either. I’d give it an 8/10 as far as third-gen ‘Cudas go.