Could Be the Most Original 1971 Plymouth Hemi ’Cuda on the Planet

Plymouth built only 114 Hemi Cudas for 1971, with just 12 convertibles among them, numbers so small that two brothers who wrote down an impossibly specific wish list, unrestored, four-speed, original owner, build sheet included, figured the search would take years. They found their car in three weeks. Genuine, documented originals from this ultra-low-production run have sold for well over a million dollars at auction.

â€œOK, if we do it, it needs to be a 1971 Hemi â€™Cuda, unrestored, a High Impact color, a build sheet, a four-speed, and from the original owner.â€

Lars Skroder was talking with his brother Tor when he said those words back in February 2013. The brothers began collecting quality muscle cars some years ago, focused mostly on Chrysler performance models. Their process is deliberate and selective. When a low-interest investment Tor had made was coming due, with little hope of improvement, he told Lars they should buy another car instead of letting the money just â€œsit in a bank.â€ Lars suggested a few other financial possibilities, but Tor insisted on adding one more treasure to the garage. Younger brother Lars then threw down the gauntlet and listed the impossible. Figuring it would take months, if not years, to find something that matched those requirements, just three weeks later Lars located the exact car he had imagined.

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Two brothers wrote down a wish list so specific it sounded impossible to fulfill: a numbers-matching, unrestored, four-speed Hemi Cuda in a High Impact color, complete with its original build sheet, from the first and only owner. Most collectors spend years, sometimes decades, chasing a car that checks even half those boxes. Lars Skroder figured his search would take months if not years; instead, he found the exact car within three weeks. What makes that kind of find almost statistically impossible is just how few of these cars Plymouth actually built in the first place.

A Production Run That Barely Existed

Total 1971 Hemi Cuda production across both body styles was just 114 cars, with only 12 convertibles built that year out of 21 across the full 1970 to 1971 run. Narrow that further to four-speed manual cars and the number drops to roughly 53, and pulling the convertibles out of that group leaves only about 48 four-speed hardtops. That explains why the brothers set such low expectations for how fast they would find one.

Why Unrestored Matters More Than Rare

Rising insurance costs and tightening emissions rules pushed Detroit away from big-block muscle cars almost immediately after 1971, and few Hemi Cudas from that era survived without at least one repaint or engine rebuild by the time collectors started actively hunting them decades later. A genuinely original, first-owner example with its paperwork intact is effectively a different, far scarcer category of car than a numbers-matching restoration.

What That Rarity Is Worth Today

Values for genuine 1971 Hemi Cudas, especially convertibles and documented low-mileage originals, have reached well into seven figures at auction in recent years, with some examples selling for between 2 million and 3.5 million dollars. That is a reminder of just how much weight words like original and documented carry next to a car built in numbers this small.

The Color Was Part of the Requirement, Not an Afterthought

Plymouth’s High Impact colors, shades like Sassy Grass Green, Lemon Twist, and Curious Yellow, were a deliberate marketing push aimed at younger buyers, and cars ordered in those hues stand out even among other numbers-matching Hemi Cudas. Insisting on a High Impact color as part of the search meant Lars and Tor were not just looking for any original Hemi Cuda, they wanted one that captured the loudest possible version of the era.

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