Regular Car Reviews: 1966 Plymouth Barracuda

Regular Car Reviews rarely reviews a car the normal way, and its take on a 1966 Plymouth Barracuda is no exception – sarcasm first, specs eventually, and a running joke that the car looks best from the rear. Underneath the format is a genuinely overlooked first-generation Cuda, built on Valiant bones and defined by one of the largest fastback rear windows of its era. Nearly a decade after it was filmed, viewers are still reverse-engineering the host’s formula in the comments. Watch to see if you can spot all four steps.

Most car reviews open by telling you exactly what a car is within the first ten seconds. Regular Car Reviews has built an entire channel on making you wait for it, burying the actual subject under so much deadpan misdirection and sarcastic asides that by the time the host finally says the model name out loud, it almost lands like the punchline to a joke you did not know you were watching. This review is no different, except the car underneath the routine happens to be one of Plymouth’s strangest and most overlooked muscle car experiments, a Barracuda from the one generation nearly everybody forgets ever existed. The description calls it a gentleman’s GT car that looks best from the rear, which somehow manages to tell you almost nothing and everything about it at the same time.

The Forgotten First-Generation Fastback

This is a first-generation Barracuda, built and sold only from mid-1964 through 1966 before Plymouth completely redesigned the car for 1967, which is exactly why so few casual fans can picture it when the name comes up. It shares almost nothing visually or culturally with the far more famous 1970 E-body Barracuda and Cuda models that dominate muscle car auctions and magazine covers today, and that gap in recognition is a big part of why Regular Car Reviews gravitates toward cars like this one in the first place, cars that had a real identity and a real following in period but have since been almost entirely written out of the muscle car conversation.

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Built on a Valiant, Not a Muscle Car Platform

Underneath the fastback bodywork, the first-generation Barracuda shared its unibody chassis and much of its running gear directly with the humble Plymouth Valiant compact, meaning the very first Cuda was fundamentally an economy car dressed up with a sportier roofline rather than a purpose-built performance platform from the ground up. That distinction separates it philosophically from purpose-built muscle cars like the Charger or the GTO, and it is exactly the kind of detail that explains why the channel frames this one as a gentleman’s GT car rather than reaching for the muscle car label at all.

Why Regular Car Reviews Exists

The commenter who laid out Regular Car Reviews’ format step by step was not exaggerating, and it is worth understanding why that structure exists at all. The channel opens with a sarcastic cold read, follows it with what regulars call an acoustic intro of pure engine sound, formally reintroduces the car by name only after that setup, and then layers in oddball editorializing about exactly who should and should not consider buying one. That refusal to review cars the way traditional automotive journalism does is precisely what built the channel’s cult following over the better part of a decade.

That Rear Window Is the Whole Argument

The description’s claim that the car looks best from the rear is not a throwaway joke either. The first-generation Barracuda’s signature feature was a massive wraparound fastback rear window, one of the largest single pieces of curved glass fitted to any production car of its era, a genuine engineering and manufacturing flex for Plymouth in 1964 through 1966 that was expensive to produce and rarely attempted again at that scale. That backlight is still the angle most first-generation Cuda collectors photograph first today, decades after the rest of the car’s silhouette stopped registering with most enthusiasts.

A V8 Option Most Buyers Skipped

Under the hood, the 1966 Barracuda’s most desirable option was the Commando 273 V8, essentially the only genuine V8 offered across the entire first-generation Cuda lineup until the larger 383 arrived for the redesigned 1967 and 1968 models. It was a small, eager, high-revving engine rather than a torque monster, which positioned the car firmly as a driver’s car built for back roads and stoplight confidence rather than a dedicated quarter-mile weapon, reinforcing exactly why Regular Car Reviews treats it as a GT car instead of a straight-line bruiser.

Ted Stoltz and the Unsung Photography Credit

The description’s specific thank-you to Ted Stoltz for helping with photography is a small detail, but it says something real about how this channel actually operates. Regular Car Reviews has always leaned on community-sourced cars and volunteer help rather than studio rentals or manufacturer press loans, and a credit like this one signals a genuine, hands-on, grassroots production behind a video that looks far more polished than its budget would suggest.

A Decade-Old Review Still Shaping the Conversation

Posted back in 2016, the review has since crossed six hundred thousand views and continues to draw fresh comments picking apart the host’s exact formula nearly a decade later, which is a remarkable shelf life for what began as a niche, sarcastic take on a car most people had genuinely forgotten existed. That kind of staying power is a big part of why Regular Car Reviews is now considered one of the more durable and influential voices in online car culture rather than a passing internet fad.

Why This Generation Is Finally Getting Its Due

None of that would matter if the underlying car were not genuinely interesting on its own terms. A first-generation Barracuda in clean, unmolested condition is increasingly hard to find precisely because so few were preserved once the far more famous 1970 Cuda absorbed all the collector attention and restoration dollars, which makes a well-documented example like the one Regular Car Reviews tracked down for this shoot worth studying regardless of how the host chooses to frame it. Whatever the host says with his tongue in his cheek, the car itself earns a second look.

Collector interest in first-generation Cudas has been climbing quietly for years now, largely because buyers priced out of the far more expensive 1970 Hemi Cuda market have started looking one generation earlier for something more attainable that still carries the same nameplate and the same basic engineering DNA. A well-preserved 1966 example with its original Commando 273 still under the hood, of the kind featured here, sits right at the intersection of that growing demand and a genuinely small surviving supply.

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