Plymouth ‘Cuda 1974 – 360 Stroker 408 Sixpack

1974 was the final year Plymouth built a Cuda, closing out a nameplate that started exactly a decade earlier. This particular car skips the factory-spec 360 and instead runs a stroked 408 with a three-carb six-pack setup. Here is what it took to build the high-output Cuda that Detroit never actually offered.

First Start!!

By 1974, the muscle car era was already dying, strangled by insurance surcharges and emissions rules, and the Barracuda line was about to go with it. Production ended on April 1 that year, ten years to the day after the very first Barracuda rolled out, making every 1974 ‘Cuda a small piece of a closing chapter. This particular car doesn’t wear its stock engine, though; somebody bored and stroked the factory 360 out to a full 408 cubic inches and bolted on a trio of two-barrel carburetors. What does a car built at the tail end of the muscle car era sound like with nearly 50 extra cubic inches under the hood?

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The Last ‘Cuda Off The Line

Only 11,734 Barracudas were built for the 1974 model year, with 4,989 of those wearing the performance-oriented ‘Cuda badge. The 360 replaced the outgoing 340 as the top factory engine option that year, rated at a modest 245 horsepower, a shadow of what earlier Hemi and 440 six-pack ‘Cudas had offered, but the last real performance choice buyers had before the nameplate disappeared entirely.

Turning A Tame 360 Into A 408 Six-Pack Screamer

Stroking a 360 to 408 cubic inches means fitting a longer-throw crankshaft and a larger bore, adding real displacement without changing the block’s external dimensions. Swapping in a factory-style six-pack intake, three two-barrel carburetors instead of one four-barrel, restores the kind of top-end breathing this era’s factory 360 never got, essentially building the high-output ‘Cuda Detroit never offered in 1974.

Why Stroker Builds Became Popular On Later Emissions-Era Mopars

By the early 1970s, tightening insurance requirements and emissions regulations had already choked most of the output out of factory small-blocks, pushing enthusiasts toward the aftermarket to recover what Detroit had taken away. Six-pack induction wasn’t a new idea for Mopar people either; it was a proven formula borrowed directly from earlier high-output 340 and 440 six-pack cars, so builders stroking a later 360 often reach for that same recipe rather than reinventing it. Builds like this represent how the muscle car hobby kept the spirit of the era alive well after the factories themselves had backed away from it.

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