Family-Owned 1965 Barracuda Refused To Die for 21 Years, the Slant Six Is Barely Alive

Perhaps the birthday of the Barracuda wasn’t the luckiest – April 1, 1964, must have made everyone believe it was a Chrysler practical joke. It wasn’t, but when the Mustang was unveiled two weeks later at the New York World Fair, everyone fell head over (w)heels for the new car type. What did the Ford have that the Plymouth lacked? Maybe a gigantic marketing campaign, a better-sounding name, a more attractive design, a lower price, more options, or all of the above, or simply good fortunes on its side.

The fact of the matter is that the Barracuda was a sales slug. At the same time, the Mustang broke free from the sales predictions’ corral and surpassed all expectations. The following years were identical – the sporty Plymouth was a pale shadow of the rampaging Ford, never getting past 65,000 units in a year. By comparison, the Mustang sold 22,000 cars in its first DAY on the market, reaching the first million a year and a half later.

1965 was Barracuda’s best-selling year, with 64,596 examples (the Ford rival moved over 559,000 cars). The Plymouth came in one body style and offered three engines—the 225 Slant Six and two V8s, both 273 cubic inches big but with different carburetion and output. The Mopar Leaning Tower of Power equipped a strong 24,758-unit lot and could be mated to either one of the two manual gearboxes (three and four-speed) or the Torqueflite three-speed automatic.

It was advertised as a 2,500-dollar car for five adults (the base manufacturer’s suggested retail price). It was a fastback with a very large rear window and a very generous luggage space, thanks to its collapsible panel in the trunk. At 14.4 square feet (1.33 square meters), the wraparound window was the largest piece of glass installed on any production car at the time.

The nimble little car was a far cry from the Valiant it was based on, but it didn’t convince buyers in the same manner. Still, one Florida man was bought by the pony car’s offerings and got one new. He held on to it until he moved to a better place, so the vehicle was left on Earth for the original buyer's family. The man’s son inherited the Barracuda but didn’t enjoy it for too long.

Before his passing, the first owner restored the Plymouth in the late nineties, and his son and grandson were handed down a good driver. Unfortunately, a few short years later, the Mopar refused to cooperate and was consequently and definitively pushed to the back of the yard, under a shelter, and left there. The odometer read 14,323 miles (23,050 kilometers), but the real question is how many times it rolled over in the last six decades.

One man’s automotive loss is a rat pack’s accommodation opportunity, so the Chrysler became a permanent rodent residence. In Florida, from 2003 until 2024 – you can imagine what the interior smells like. If you can’t, grab a six-pack of beers and a cauldron of popcorn and play the two-and-a-half-hour-short YouTube video below.

Derek Bieri spent several days resuscitating this moldy, stinky, and stubbornly defunct Barracuda, tackling the starter, the ignition, the fuel pump, the brakes, the timing, and everything else in between several times before getting the Plymouth back on the road. It’s probably one of the longest rescues he’s done after buying the car sight unseen upon meeting a couple of his vlog fans (the son and grandson of the original buyer).

In its defense, the Slant Six didn’t pose much of a problem in itself. Still, the carburetor needed a full rebuild (performed on the spot), and the YouTuber behind the Vice Grip Garage channel burned down two starter motors – the original and a replacement – before getting the 3.7-liter inline-six-cylinder engine to run again.

In 1965, Chrysler claimed 145 hp and 215 lb-ft (147 PS, 292 Nm) from the one-barrel carbureted motor with an 8.4:1 compression. The low-priced Plymouth came standard with a three-speed manual (column-shifted in this particular case). A pair of V8 engines were offered—one came as standard, and the other was optional.

Two hundred seventy-three cubic inches (4.5 liters) wasn’t particularly impressive by size or specs. Still, it was a step up from the unimpressive but otherwise reliable Six. The V8 came with two- or four-barrel carburetion, and the power output varied from 180 hp and 260 lb-ft (183 PS, 353 Nm) to 235 hp and 280 lb-ft (238 PS, 380 Nm).

No real muscle for the Barracuda back in 1965 – unless the customer went for the Formula S package with the top-tier Commando V8 (see above for output numbers – it’s the four-barrel, 10.5:1 compression eight-cylinder). Due to a relatively unhospitable engine bay, only the 383 big-block would find its way under the hood of the Barracuda, beginning with the second generation in 1967.

That’s one of the reasons Chrysler went for a white canvas design for 1970, building an entirely new platform for the Barracuda specifically to host every single Mopar motor of its era, from the 198-cube Six to the 426 Hemi elephant. Unfrotunately, by the time it came on the market, it was far too little, far too late to turn the tables. Ten years to the day after its launch, on April 1, 1974, the Plymouth Barracuda ceased to exist forever.

[YOUTUBE= https://youtu.be/VociPiFBMj0]