 |
A properly built 1970 Plymouth ‘Cuda needs no introduction, which is exactly why the first question anyone asks is what is under the hood. The 1970 model year brought an all-new E-body platform engineered wide enough to accept engines no earlier Barracuda could physically hold, and that decision defined everything the car became. Read on for what Plymouth offered that year, how to separate a real ‘Cuda from a tribute, and where the rust always hides.
A 1970 Plymouth ‘Cuda with a Cummins turbodiesel under the hood sounds like a punchline until you see the build quality and the dyno numbers behind it. Weaver Customs channeled and chopped the body, dropped it onto a Roadster Shop chassis, and fitted the kind of drivetrain nobody expects in an E-body. The result has collected hardware at serious Mopar events. Read on to find out why the ‘Torc’ works so much better than it should.
Only one automaker ever sold a factory street car wearing two different tire sizes front to rear, and it was not a styling decision. Plymouth needed 2,724 examples built in a five-week sprint to satisfy a racing rulebook, and Dan Gurney’s fingerprints are all over the result. This Alpine White AAR ‘Cuda carries a 340 topped with three two-barrel carburetors and a fiberglass hood. Read on for the rulebook that shaped every strange choice on it.
Dropping a 440-cubic-inch big block into a Barracuda meant giving up power steering and power brakes entirely, because there was simply nowhere left to put them. Plymouth did it anyway, and the result was one of the most single-minded muscle cars Detroit ever sold. Here is why the engine barely fit, how few were actually built, what the weight distribution did to the way it drives, and why a well-sorted 440 Cuda still stops a car show cold.