- 1971 Was the Last Year For the
- Hemi-Powered Barracuda,
- and Here is a Fine Survivor!
Soon after the launch of the Mustang, it became obvious to the productplanners at Chrysler Corporation that if they wanted to capture a sizablepercentage of this tremendously large and growing pony car market, they neededto up the ante and develop a completely new “long nose, short deck” pony carplatform car. In 1966 the Corporate Product Planning Committee signed off tothe development of a new “E-body” car that would come out in time for the 1970model year introduction.
Product planning is one of the most important parts of the automobilebusiness. In the ever-changing world of automotive trends and styles, it is amajor challenge for the people in the industry that are in charge of upcomingproduct to be able to actually predict the future! Add in the lead timesinvolved (that can be up to four years in time) and it is easy to see thattiming is everything in the world of launching new car models.
In the mid-1960s, the “pony car” market was the rage in America, all ofcourse started with the April 17, 1964 debut of the famous Ford Mustang. Namedafter this astonishingly successful car, pony cars had a major impact in theauto industry, with Ford inventing the market segment and running full speedahead with basically no direct competition until September 29 of 1966, the dayGeneral Motors jumped into the market with their Chevy Camaro. And by then,Ford Motor Company had already created another pony car for their MercuryDivision, the 1967 Cougar, which was a more upscale luxury themed vehicle inthe same size category. Pontiac’s Firebird came in February of 1967, and AMC’sJavelin (released as a 1968 model year entry) arrived at showrooms in September1967.
Mother Mopar had big plans for the new E-body, which actually was to betwo cars, a replacement for the then-current Barracuda line and a new pony carentry for Dodge into the mix, named “Challenger” and with different sheet metalstyling and a slightly higher price tag. An internal market forecast study donein 1967 indicated that the sakes of this “compact specialty car” market wouldgrow to the level of (total for the industry) 1,500,000 units annually.
According to the numbers in the study, the planned involvement for thesenew E-body creations was to be approximately 15-percent of the total pie, whichequated to about 200,000 to 225,000 cars. Like any product launch, it wasuncertain how the public would react to the third-gen Barracudas and all-newChallengers, however there were high hopes for the people involved. Lookingback now, it was of course a rather daring move, but in the auto industry,sometimes you have to roll the dice and just go for it!
An important ingredient of the E-body was a larger engine compartment, onewith enough room to properly fit the Chrysler big block engines (383 and440-cid V8s) plus the 426 Hemi), as the plan was two-fold for these cars, topenetrate both the pony car market and with the big block / Hemi powerplants,these machines easily were considered true “muscle cars” which was also abooming market in 1966-7 when the E-body development was taking place.
The car came out of northern California originally and still has itsoriginal papers in the way of the Monroney Label (aka window sticker pricesheet) and Broadcast Sheet, commonly referred to as the “build sheet.” Withthis paper and because all the numbers matc the car, there’s no doubting it’sthe real deal.
This documentation shows that the Hemi engine came originally for the car(and cost an additional $883.90) and they way Chrysler priced these musclemachines back in the day, you had to also pay extra for a transmission whenordering the 426 engine (in this case, $229.35 for the heavy-duty 3-speedTorqueFlite). That is over eleven hundred bucks added to the base price($3,134.00) just for the privilege of owning a Hemi engine!
Add in the special “Super Track Pak” option that includes a huge Dana 60rear axle fitted with drag strip-friendly 4.10 cogs, some sticky rubber($154.95 for F-60 x 15 Goodyears with raised white letters) and a few creaturecomforts such as power steering and an AM radio, and the price shoots to justover five grand, which was some serious coin in 1971. All that money for a carwith taxicab hubcaps on it. But hey, it’s got a H-E-M-I and this was the lastyear they were available in a car. Quite frankly, that is all that matters.
3rd generation Barracudas featured sculpturedinteriors and the door panels were constructed using polypropylene plasticmaterial. One unique feature of the doors (besides being rather long and heavy)was that there was zero noise insulation value in the plastic door panelmaterial, so any glass rattling or linkage movement inside the door while itwas being slammed shut was not muffled in any way, it actually sounded likethere were loose part inside the doors on some cars. On this car, anaftermarket Autometer 8K electric tachometer was added to the steeringcolumn.
In the end, even with fantastic styling and high amounts of promotionalwork, advertising and media coverage, E-body cars fell short of the ambitioussales projections made. In the state of the marketplace during the time of thelaunch, people at that time wanted less expensive vehicles. In the 1970 sellingseason, it was not possible for Chrysler to sell anything approaching the salesfigure of 200,000 E-body cars; they were not the right cars for thetime.
Total sales of the E-body Barracuda, over its entire lifespan (1970 – 1974model years) was 320,068 units, averaging just 64,000 E-body cars sold peryear. Both the Plymouth Barracuda and Dodge Challenger were great looking carswith sexy silhouettes, offered a full range of engine options and werecompetitively priced in their field, but the timing was terrible for them toarrive when they did, just when the sales figures for the sporty car segmentstarted to plummet.
