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A 1968 Pontiac Firebird convertible offered buyers a full menu of engines from a modest six-cylinder up to a 335-horsepower V8. A 1971 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda offered exactly one engine and only seven surviving convertibles. See how two completely different factory philosophies now translate into wildly different price tags at auction, ranging into the millions for the rarer of the two.
A 1968 Pontiac Firebird convertible and a 1971 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda convertible represent two totally different paths to muscle car stardom, one built on volume and options, the other on scarcity so extreme most Mopar dealers never saw one. The production numbers behind each tell a story that still shapes their value today. Read on to find out just how far apart those numbers really are.
Pontiac needed an answer to the Camaro and it needed one immediately, so the first Firebird arrived only weeks after its corporate cousin, sharing bones but tuned to feel like a Pontiac rather than a rebadged Chevrolet. Fewer than 16,000 buyers chose the convertible that first year. The engine lineup, meanwhile, does not match what most people assume about early Firebirds, and one commonly claimed engine was not available at all.