Today, it's about the old car; the '65 Barracuda that the boys and I have been fooling around with for the last several years.
The Barracuda was originally engineered as Plymouth's entry into the Mustang market. Oddly enough, it was introduced before the Mustang, though most people incorrectly assume it was a Johnny Come Lately answer to the Mustang.
Both the Mustang and the Barracuda were based on inexpensive compact cars; the Mustang was pretty much a Falcon chassis, while the Barracuda was based on the Valiant. Both the Falcon and the Valiant were solid, reliable, if unexciting little cars. Both were powered by a straight six engine, with a small V-8 as an option. The Barracuda, however, used Chrysler's 'Slant Six' engine, which allowed the engine to be placed lower to the ground, giving the car a better, lower center of gravity. The Barracuda also used Chrysler's 'Torsion Bar' front suspension, which was a much better setup than the coil springs on the Mustang. Combined with the uneven leaf spring rear suspension, the Barracuda could run rings around the Mustang in handling. Of course, the Mustang, with Ford's much deeper pockets behind it, had a much wider choice of engine/transmission power trains, and outsold the Barracuda 8-1.
The original Valiant based Barracuda soldiered on for three years, until it was replaced with an all new model in 1967, and finally the large, long 'E' body model that came out in 1970. With the great advances in the second and third generation models, the first, Valiant based cars quickly fell out of favor, and many were junked, or left to rust and rot (which they did very well).
The '65 that we have was originally a California car, which was kept by the original owner until some time in the late 1990's, when it was given to their grandson, who used it as a daily driver until early 2007. At that time the car was sold to a U-Haul shop owner in Las Fritas Arizona, who parked it on his lot and listed it on Ebay. That's where we came along.
Through the years, we've done mostly mechanical work on the car, things like a new exhaust, brakes, shocks, exhaust manifold, alternator, etc. And the body, which is what I call a '10 foot body' ('cause it looks good from 10 feet away), with it's cheap paint job, continued to get weatherworn and showed some signs of rust on the rear quarter panels.
Right now, the 'Cuda is getting it's body work done. The rear quarter panels are being repaired, along with the little rust/dings on the driver side door. After the body is repaired, new bumpers and a fresh coat of paint will freshen it up, and we expect many more years of fun at car shows and Sunday drives in it.
The work is being done by our local shop, and they're fitting it in between 'regular' jobs, so we don't expect to get the car back until it's time to go to Carlisle for the Chrysler Nationals in July. Going to be rough getting through the good weather without it, but we'll manage!