'71 Plymouth Cuda Sells for $3.5M

Love the car, it's a shame it won't be enjoyed by anyone. The good thing is they made enough base Cuda's that you could always buy one of those and convert it. Even those are getting expensive.

I like the basic look of those wheels, kind of a sleeper thing. I even have those hubcaps on my pickup!

The price doesn't suprize me at all!

Remember these types of cars have a wide following across the world and many of those car are sold overseas.     

Rememember ther ARE people with lots of money to spend on "toys" Cox engines being no exception.

SuperDave

I can remember seeing a white showroom leftover, 70' Hemi Cuda going for 1.2 Mill in a Barrette Jackson Auction about 10 years ago so it doesn't surprise me to see a 71' sell for what it did. The 71' is probably the most sought after year due to the some of the neat style changes such as the B-Pillar and non roll down rear window etc..
Although both the 70' and 71' are on my "I'd love to have them" list, the 64 with the Push Button trans. and the 65 Barracuda's (including the Formula S package) were always my favorites when it comes to the Barracuda's and Mopar's in general.
A couple of interesting notes about these cars were, before 1970, the A-Bodied Barracuda's were based on the Valiant until the radical re-design in 70' by John Herlitz and were based on the E-Body platform. 64 was the first year for the Barracuda and the last year for the Push Button transmission. Although, in 65' and maybe even 66', Chrysler used the left over  P.B. transmissions but converted them to column shift by using 2 cables. One cable for shifting and one cable for park.  

The closest I ever came to owning a Barracuda was my old 65' Valiant Wagon. It had a 225 Slant 6 that ran like a Singer sewing machine with a left over Push Button 904 trans. that was factory converted to Column Shift with factory add on A/C. Everything from the back of the front seat forward, was the same as the Barracuda. I got it from the original owner for $300.00 back in 2000. I had the car for almost five years and I wanted to restore it and change the K-Frame so I could put in a 340 but pretty much the whole back end of the car was ate up by rust and it needed all new sheet metal from the back seat all the way to and including the tail gate which was estimated at almost $5,000.00 just for sheet metal work alone. Being married with our son and having a new son on the way, I wasn't able to afford restoration costs. So I had to let it go.  Although I was sad to see it go, I did make a healthy profit!

Shawn

Here are a couple of pics of my old V.

This would have been a nice "period correct" V8 choice instead of the 340 Shawn... although the "slant-6" was indestructible.





and it would have "Put you ahead.. Handsomely" (check-out the R/H drive...)

roddie wrote:This would have been a nice "period correct" V8 choice instead of the 340 Shawn... although the "slant-6" was indestructible.





and it would have "Put you ahead.. Handsomely" (check-out the R/H drive...)

Oh yeah, the slant 6 was a great little engine and the 273 would've been cool but I wanted to restore it to more of a Street / Strip car.
BTW, That advert. for the right hand drive is neat. I never knew Chrysler offered a right hand drive Valiant.

Applications would have been for export and possibly rural postal delivery here in the U.S.

Australia was full of RHD Valiants. They were number 3 in the market after Holden (local GM derivative) and Ford back in the 60s. We had the RV1 fully imported and then assembled our own SV1 from CKD kits. Kept producing Valiants right up into the early 80s. Many RHD versions were also built in South Africa.
When I was 19 I bought an old S series (SV1) from a friend's dad. It had been used as a "paddock bomb" (something for kids to tear around in). I had another 2 for parts. The restoration took so long that too many other things came up in life so I quit the project. Selling all 3 as parts at swap-meets actually made me a very tidy sum. Paid $200 for the original car, sold the bare incomplete & partly repaired shell for $200 years later. Got $200 each for doors, of which I had 8.
Every time a look at an old Valiant I wish I had of finished it. Really cool car with a bunch of design features, such as tortion bar suspension, which made them unique. They are still held in fairly high regard out here, (though ridiculed by many of the ignorant).

Rod.

Oldenginerod wrote:Australia was full of RHD Valiants.  They were number 3 in the market after Holden (local GM derivative) and Ford back in the 60s.  We had the RV1 fully imported and then assembled our own SV1 from CKD kits.  Kept producing Valiants right up into the early 80s.  Many RHD versions were also built in South Africa.
When I was 19 I bought an old S series (SV1) from a friend's dad.  It had been used as a "paddock bomb" (something for kids to tear around in).  I had another 2 for parts.  The restoration took so long that too many other things came up in life so I quit the project.  Selling all 3 as parts at swap-meets actually made me a very tidy sum.  Paid $200 for the original car, sold the bare incomplete & partly repaired shell for $200 years later.  Got $200 each for doors, of which I had 8.
Every time a look at an old Valiant I wish I had of finished it.  Really cool car with a bunch of design features, such as tortion bar suspension, which made them unique.  They are still held in fairly high regard out here, (though ridiculed by many of the ignorant).

Rod.

It's funny that you mention the Valiant being popular in Australia. When I started restoring mine, I had to order some, interior pieces and weather stripping from a supplier in Australia as no one in the U.S. at the time made or stocked any of those parts for the wagon. The prices weren't bad but the shipping was outrageous!

Shawn