By 1973, most of Plymouth’s real performance had already been regulated away — except for one engine nobody expected much from. Bud Lindemann puts this Cuda 340 through a full road test, and the stopwatch tells a story that surprised buyers who’d already written off the smog era. Watch to see exactly how quick a detuned Mopar could still be.
By 1973, the muscle car era was supposed to be over. Insurance surcharges, tightening emissions rules, and a fuel crisis just months away had already killed the Hemi and buried the 440 Six Pack in Plymouth’s own parts catalog. And yet here’s Bud Lindemann, stopwatch in hand, about to prove that one engine — smaller, smog-choked, and criminally underrated — still had enough fight left in it to embarrass cars that should have had no business losing.
The Last Real Performance Mopar Standing
By the time this 1973 Cuda rolled off the line, Plymouth’s performance lineup had already been gutted by the industry-wide retreat from big-inch muscle. The Hemi was gone. The 440 Six Pack was gone. What remained at the top of the realistic buyer’s list was the 340 cubic inch V8 — smaller than the engines that made the Cuda famous just a few years earlier, but, as commenters watching this test decades later have pointed out, seriously underrated for what it could actually do. Bud Lindemann’s road test exists specifically to make that case on camera, strapping a stopwatch to a car most contemporary buyers had already written off as a shadow of the real thing.
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9.8 Seconds to 70 — In the Smog Era
The number that keeps this test circulating among enthusiasts is 9.8 seconds to 70 miles per hour — a figure multiple viewers flag as genuinely impressive for a smog-era performance car choked by early catalytic hardware and increasingly strict tailpipe regulations. That’s not a number that would have embarrassed a 1969 or 1970 Cuda by much, and it’s a full second or more ahead of what most casual observers assumed a 1973 model could manage. Lindemann’s test captures exactly why the 340 earned its reputation among people who actually drove one, rather than people who just read the spec sheet and assumed the muscle car era had already quietly ended.
Why the 340 Was the Smartest Buy in 1973
By 1973, the 340 wasn’t just a good engine — it was arguably the only genuinely good performance option left in Plymouth’s lineup. The 440 four-barrel had been detuned down to roughly 280 horsepower under the weight of emissions equipment, and the smaller-displacement 340 punched well above that number’s shadow relative to its size and weight. Enthusiasts who lived through the period and comment on this footage today are unanimous on one point: if you wanted a genuinely quick new Mopar in 1973, the 340-powered Cuda or Duster was the only realistic answer left on the showroom floor, everything else having been strangled by the same regulatory pressure that eventually ended the muscle car era outright.
What the Magazines Actually Clocked
Period magazine tests back up what Lindemann’s stopwatch shows here. Multiple contemporary road tests, including Car and Driver’s own numbers, clocked the 1973 340 Cuda in the mid-15-second range in the quarter mile completely stock — and viewers who’ve researched the car further note that even modest changes like advancing the distributor timing, swapping in hotter plugs and wires, and removing the worst of the smog equipment could drop that number into the mid-14s without touching the engine’s internals. That’s a remarkable amount of untapped performance sitting in a car most people assumed was already performance-neutered from the factory.
Compact, Tight, and Nothing Like Today’s Cars
Compare this Cuda’s proportions to a modern muscle car and the difference is immediately obvious. Viewers who’ve owned both generations describe the 1973 body as tight, compact, and genuinely nimble in a way that’s been lost as Dodge and Chrysler’s modern equivalents have grown heavier and physically larger over the decades. That compactness isn’t incidental to the car’s quickness — less mass for the 340 to move is a meaningful part of why this Cuda could run with cars carrying significantly more displacement, and it’s a big reason enthusiasts still chase clean examples of this specific body style today.
A Driver Who Drove It Like He Meant It
Lindemann’s driving style is part of the appeal here too — commenters repeatedly point out that the test isn’t a gentle, cautious lap around a parking lot but a genuine full-throttle exercise, with the driver working the car hard enough that the reverse-camber turn captured on film has become a favorite freeze-frame moment among longtime fans of this footage. That’s the format vintage road tests specialized in: put the car through exactly the kind of driving a real owner might attempt, then let the film speak for itself rather than dressing it up with narration alone.
How the 340 Compared to What Was Left of the Big Blocks
It’s worth putting the 340 in context against the engines it effectively replaced at the top of Plymouth’s performance ladder. A 1973 buyer cross-shopping a 340 Cuda against a detuned 440 four-barrel was, on paper, choosing between roughly similar real-world performance for meaningfully less money, less weight over the front wheels, and noticeably sharper handling — a trade plenty of period buyers made willingly once they understood what the smaller engine could actually do. Commenters who cross-shopped both engines new describe the decision the same way decades later: the 340 wasn’t the consolation prize it looked like on a spec sheet, it was frequently the smarter buy outright.
The Owners Who Never Let Theirs Go
For at least one owner in the comments, this test isn’t just nostalgia — it’s a mirror. One viewer describes still owning his 1973 Cuda 340 four-speed, a Rallye Red car with a black top, interior, and stripe that he first spotted in 1987 and finally bought in 1994, now sitting at 60,000 miles and, in his words, running great. That’s the quiet through-line connecting this Bud Lindemann test to the present day: a car dismissed by some as the muscle car era’s tired final chapter has instead become exactly the kind of machine its original owners refused to let go of.
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I bought a 73 340 Cuda in October of 72 when the new 73 models came out. Paid $3300 for it. I loved that car. Like a dumbass I sold sold it 3 years later.
i was going to send you this. then i saw your name.
SWEET
Randy Tibbs, Eddie Pikulin