Dana White's 1971 Plymouth Cuda Shown Coming to Life as the “UFC Street Fighter”

As such, it’s no wonder the good folks over at PowerNation TV's MuscleCar show went through all the trouble of finding a suitable candidate for the custom build. They eventually settled on a nice 1971 example that had many intact parts and a mostly original paint that allowed them to skip the sandblasting stage.

By the way, a little heads up. This video is almost an hour and 20 minutes long, so we advise clearing your schedule if classic car restoration and upgrade projects are your thing. These gearheads basically show everything from the moment they bring the Barracuda shell (with a missing six-cylinder engine) inside the garage and start tearing it apart.

It’s pretty obvious that “Project UFC Street Fighter” took a lot of time for completion, so anyone not feeling patient enough can skip the initial tear down, the engine setup (from the 27:30 mark), the placement of body parts (37:30), or even the paint job (55-minute mark) entirely.

The real action kicks off at the one-hour and six minutes mark when the ‘71 gets the final assembly, and from the 1:12:00 point on, this classic muscle car now wearing a 440ci engine swap literally comes to life with the first fire-up of the motor.

Probably to make sure that Mr. White won't unleash MMA fighters on the build crew if he finds anything that’s not perfect, the guys take the 1971 Plymouth Cuda out for a street cruise and a short highway pleasure ride (as well as a bit of hooning). They even arrive at a classic car event from the 1:19:15 mark to check out the crowd’s reaction to their neat muscle car restomod.