Plymouth Barracuda 1973 images

By 1973, insurance surcharges, emissions rules, and new bumper regulations had already reshaped the muscle car era that once defined Plymouth’s Barracuda. The E-body soldiered on regardless, sharing its platform with the Dodge Challenger. Production numbers from this final full season tell a quieter, less celebrated story than the Hemi-powered years that usually get the attention.

There are changes for the 1973 Barracuda with the addition of the energy absorbing bumpers to meet 5 mph (8 km/h) government mandated impact regulations. The engines offered initially in ’73 are the 318 and the 340 with a high performance 360 added to the options sheet later in the year.Â All three of these engines are somewhat detuned to meet EPA requirements, and they all run fine on unleaded gasoline. There is a four speed manual transmission with a Hurst shifter available for the 240 and 360 engines only, but there were as many as three of the 318 also equipped with the four speed, either by factory error or by special order.

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By 1973, the muscle car era that had defined Plymouth’s Barracuda just a few years earlier was already fading fast, squeezed by insurance surcharges, tightening emissions rules, and new federal bumper regulations that reshaped how these cars looked and drove. The Barracuda soldiered on regardless, sharing its Chrysler E-body platform with the Dodge Challenger and still offering genuine performance engines even as the broader market cooled. Production numbers from this final full season tell a story the sales brochures never did.

An E-Body in Its Final Full Season

The third-generation Barracuda, produced from 1970 through 1974, was built exclusively on Chrysler’s E-body platform alongside its Dodge Challenger sibling — a completely different design from the compact-based Barracudas that came before it. Offered only as a two-door hardtop or convertible, the E-body Barracuda represented Plymouth’s most focused pony car effort, even as the segment it competed in began shrinking around it.

Production Numbers That Tell the Real Story

For 1973, Plymouth built just 11,587 standard Barracudas alongside 10,626 of the higher-trim ‘Cuda, priced from $2,940 and $3,120 respectively — modest totals compared to the model’s late-1960s heyday. Riding on a 108-inch wheelbase and measuring 193 inches long, the 1973 Barracuda’s dimensions stayed consistent with prior E-body years, but its declining production numbers foreshadowed the nameplate’s discontinuation after just one more season in 1974.

A Lineup Trimmed Down to the Essentials

The changes for 1973 weren’t just cosmetic — the six-cylinder engine option disappeared entirely, leaving buyers with only the 318 and 340 V8s to choose from, a sign of how narrowly Plymouth had to focus its remaining resources on the cars that still sold. It’s a smaller, quieter chapter of the Barracuda story than the Hemi-powered years that get most of the attention, but it’s the chapter that shows how the muscle car era actually ended.

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