Hellcat Swapped 1967 Plymouth Barracuda is Nothing Short of Perfection

It seems like we stumble upon some classic muscle car Hellcat swap that catches us drooling in mass quantities every few months or so. This time around, it's a 1967 Plymouth Barracuda built by Schwartz Performance of Harvard, Illinois. Of course, when the bare body shell first arrived at their shop, it was going to take thousands of hours of labor to get where the shop wanted it to be.

Indeed, nothing but the body shell, without the front clip, was present in the beginning. Now, most people would throw their hands up and wave the white flag at a build this intensive. Clearly, this shop has techs built of sterner stuff. It starts, of course, with a strong foundation.

In this case, it's a custom G-Machine performance bolt-on chassis from Schwartz performance. From there, Ridetech single-adjustable coilovers were added at all four corners alongside splined front & rear sway bars for a ride and handling experience far beyond what was possible in the 1960s.

If you're to liken a restomod to a good sandwich, this chassis and suspension configuration is like a fat slice of sourdough where the meat is made of eight cylinders and tire smoke. Said engine comes not out of a Charger Widebody that someone wrapped around a tree, but instead from the Hellcrate line of Mopar crate motors.

All that 707 supercharged horsepower is fed through an in-house constructed custom exhaust system and performance-built GM 4L80E transmission with a US-SHIFT electronic transmission controller. From there, a TrueTrac differential with 3.70-gears lets you apply rubber to the road far more ferociously than 55 years ago.

Don't think even for a second that Schwartz Performance didn't take the opportunity to add their own touches to this Hellcat crate engine. It installed a custom low-profile intercooler manifold and custom coil pack covers for a look distinctly all its own. For lubrication, the custom builder added a Milodon low profile rear sump Hellcat oil pan.

The entire engine is then painted in a heat-reflective metallic silver. It's not quite the gold-lined engine bay in a McLaren F1, but it's sure better than nothing. Because Hellcat engines are well and good until you need to stop them flying along at well past the speed limit, four Baer six-piston calipers with 14-inch (355 mm) rotors present a greatly upgraded stopping distance compared to even the OEM brakes on a modern Challenger Hellcat.

It's all tied together with a stunning Tanzanite Blue Metallic paint color carried over from BMW of all places. This goes along with 18x8.5 and 18x11 Forgeline GT3C wheels with that classic Barracuda center cap. Moving to the interior, a fully custom dash panel was fabricated with a gauge carrier fashioned from a finely milled piece of aluminum for a luxurious vibe that the Barracuda didn't even sport when it left the factory floor in the late 60s.

The OEM-style custom center console with billet switches adds another layer of refinement to proceedings that looks like it could have left the factory that way. Though, if an OEM look was what they were going for, the modern-looking Lokar shifter might spoil it a bit. But if you're going to nit-pick to that degree, chances are good you've never built a custom car and are just another online armchair critic.

If you ask us, this has to be one of the finest Hellcat swaps to ever see the light of day.