Missouri Dealer Won’t Sell Tuned 1970 Plymouth Barracuda for $56,500, Crate V8 Yay or Nay?

Visually, I think I prefer the grille they used for the 1971 model year, with the slots that looked almost like teeth, but to each their own. There’s nothing wrong with the 1970MY grille. Its rudimentary design works great together with the overall styling of the vehicle.

Now, if you’re in the business of selling classic Barracudas, then you probably know that a numbers-matching car is going to fetch you the most money. You can easily end up spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on one of these babies, especially if it’s an original Hemi ‘Cuda - not that the 440 Super Commando or the 440 Six Barrel are anything to scoff at.

What we’re looking at here is far removed from “peak ‘Cuda” status. It’s a 1970 Barracuda that’s been tuned visually and from a performance standpoint, and while the overall spec is somewhat interesting, the car still failed to sell at auction recently.

Its owner, a dealership out of Missouri, refused to sell it for just $56,500, which begs the question of discrepancy between the top bid and the reserve. All we can do is speculate, unfortunately.

The exterior has been repainted in red, featuring those hockey stick-style black ‘Cuda side graphics, to go with the black rear spoiler, a black tail panel, various other black accents, plus aftermarket headlights, deleted door handles, and a set of six-spoke ZE Forged 19” front and 20” rear wheels with Toyo Proxes 4 tires and Wilwood discs over drilled and slotted rotors.

This Barracuda also comes with rack-and-pinion steering, tubular front control arms, and front and rear coilovers.

Moving on to the interior, that’s where you’ll find modern-looking bolstered black leather front bucket seats, a center console, pistol-grip Hurst shifter, air conditioning, carbon fiber trim, a Lecarra steering wheel (with a tilting column), AutoMeter instrumentation and the auxiliary gauges. It’s a nice interior. I wouldn’t go as far as to call this a bona fide restomod, but it’s alright.

As for what’s lingering underneath the hood, first we should mention that this car left the factory with a 318 ci V8. That engine is long gone and in its place is a 6.1-liter Hemi V8 crate engine, reportedly installed back in 2015. It’s been fitted with a custom air intake and an aluminum radiator, sending its power to the rear wheels via a Tremec five-speed manual gearbox.

Unfortunately, this is far from a mint condition car. Aside from the chipped paint on the rear bumper, the selling dealer also notes that the rear end leaks fluid and the clutch only engages when the pedal is very close to the floor.