Woulda shoulda Barracuda

WOULDA SHOULDA BARRACUDA 

My heart skipped a beat when I saw this ride. A 'cuda sitting on the sidewalk next to the BQE? Not any of your Williamsburg BQE either; this is the Gowanus Expressway section where they still have porn shops and XXX video rental places. WHAT IS IT DOING HERE???

I asked the dudes hanging in the open shop if it was a '70 but they said it was a 1973.
From the top: this is a 1973 Plymouth Barracuda with a slight misting of what could be Blue Sky on the corner closest to us. This looks like a truly legendary muscle car. Looks like one.
If you ever see one of these with 4 headlights it's a 1971.
*Special shout-out to the inspection sticker sitting int he windshield.

By 1973 the mightiest engines of yore had been plucked from availability leaving only the 318 and 340 V8s as the engine choices. To be fair the 340 is a great power plant with some racing cred. However as recently as 1971 the 383, 440, and 426 Hemi V8s were options.

The body shell itself is a holdover from 1970 when Plymouth finally divorced the Barracuda from the Valiant line. It certainly looks fun and athletic with its tall haunches big wheel wells. Funny enough in the early days of this generation you could order the reliable but unexciting 225 Slant 6 cylinder. To go even further in a miserly direction you could order a diminutive 198 Slant 6 in 1971 only. If you really hated yourself and wanted to be sad you could've ordered the A93 Barracuda Coupe which had an especially cheap interior and fixed rear quarter windows! To have a hardtop body style and deny the ability to roll down the rear windows is just cruel and odd. Very few were ordered and you can bet almost none exist today.

Those round taillights are '72-'74 only and I think they're the best looking example.

Beginning in '73 there were large federally mandated bumpers added front and rear. They actually looked alright on the Barracuda as they weren't quite as huge as they could've been. I'm assuming that our hero here is stripped for bodywork and that the components are inside.

Not that you can tell but the grill has an aggressive split example with a pronounced vented pointy center. On each side were individual rectangular cutouts outlined in red. The hood is original with its dual mock scoops. They look great when the "scoops" are painted black.
The 1970-1974 Barracuda is so popular that even later models like this are worth real money. I was once taken on a hairy test drive of a 'cuda that had either the 360 or 383 in it. The seller wanted to show it off so a friend of mine and myself climbed in and the guy slammed the gas to the floor! It was by FAR the most absurd test drive I've ever witnessed; donuts, drifting through corners, burnouts, and more donuts! The tires were screaming the entire time and I was flabbergasted and exhilarated. The 1992 asking price was super low, like $1,200 or something yet neither of us bought it. Then again we knew a local teenager with a yellow and white convertible 'cuda he was thinking of selling for $2,000! Woulda shoulda Barracuda.

Personal luxury sleeper from the go-go '80s

V6 WITH A NAPOLEON COMPLEX

Way out on some side street in deepest Brooklyn I passed this primer Regal. Then I noticed the black bumper and decided to pull a quick u-turn to satisfy my curiosity. I'm glad I did!

Would you believe that this was the fastest production car in the U.S. back in 1987? Not only that, but it managed the feat with a V6 engine!
What we have here is a 1987 Buick Grand National that started out wearing shiny black paint all over. This was the final year for the Grand National high performance package based on the Regal. All Grand Nationals sported a turbocharged V6 engine that could (and did) blow the doors off of any V8 powered car of the same year. Even the Corvette couldn't keep up on the dragstrip and that car is made of fiberglass! The Buick GN is old tech; big steel body on a full frame, and an engine up front powering the rear wheels.

There's that proud little emblem extolling the virtues of an under-4 liter engine!
Buick had been experimenting with turbos on their cars since the late '70s. In 1979 you could've walked into a Buick dealership and purchased a Century Turbo Coupe or a turbocharged LeSabre. The Century was a good idea but the LeSabre was too big and weighty for that first generation engine. This example from '87 featured an intercooler and other upgrades for a dramatic increase in horsepower and torque.

Finally in 1982 the GN was introduced looking much like the car above. In addition you could order a Buick T-Type which was a non-Grand National turbo Regal in white or gray. However the all shiny black GN stole the show. After a 1 year hiatus it would return from 1984-1987, with the most powerful and popular being the final year. There was a special top-of-the-heap GN in '87 called the GNX (the X stands for Experimental). At about 300hp and 420 foot lbs of torque they are the holy grail of all GN collectors. 
These wheels and the T-tops are hallmarks of a GN, as are the front and rear spoilers and the wing.

I'm not buying that single Georgia plate at ALL but if you want to park with impunity on the streets of Brooklyn 1 out of state plate is all you need. It somehow makes cars invisible to cops.

I tend to think this body style has held up very well in the grand scheme of things. It's boxy for sure but the long hood, short trunk look is a fine farewell to the cars of old. Almost immediately after this was built domestic cars took on the rounded, bulbous shape of the '90s. This still looks like a car from the previous 2 decades.

I figured I'd close this out with something I rarely do; post a photo from the internet. This is what the GN should look like; menacing, powerful, shiny, and BLACK. They never made tons of these and they've been popular since new so there are no real bargains out there. However you can probably find a decent driving example for under $10,000 and it will only go up.

Multi Colored Mopar with Badges of Steel!

DUSTED

Way up north in the hinterlands of Queens I ran across this multi colored beast:

This is a 1973 Plymouth Duster that seems to have originally been Autumn Bronze Metallic. Primer has started taking over, no doubt following creeping rust. This car is absolutely identical to the 1974 model with 1 exception; the front turn signal lenses on this car are clear as opposed to amber. 

 If you look closely you can see a small attachment to the top of the fender on this side only. This is a turn signal indicator that consisted of a fiber optic cable going from the inside of the turn signal to a little porthole lens on the fender. It was a visual reminder if you left it on, or if you needed to change the bulb. In this instance it tells us that this fender was a replacement from a car built on or after 1975 when they became standard.

Alright, why not remove the original badge and replace it with a much larger version fashioned out of steel? The look is spot on to the original that would've been mounted below this placement.

One quirk that was lost when this fender was replaced is a metal Chrysler/Plymouth pentastar logo. They were placed on the passenger side of all Mopar cars from the early '60s through the early '70s. The reason they were only on the passenger side was that people walking by on the sidewalk would see it when it was parked!

This car looks huge from this angle but it's remarkably well-proportioned in real life. They were considered compact when new!

The storage capacity of these rides is great; the backseat folds forward leaving a cargo area from the back of the trunk up to the front seats. Surfboards fit nicely.

The other side had those dog dish cop hubcaps, but this side has the sporty Rallye Wheels. With very few exceptions these came with the venerable Slant-6 or the 318 V8 under the hood. If you wanted a manual it was three-on-the-tree, or a floor mounted unit for an additional $14.

These cars are favorites of mine ever since I purchased a '72 Gold Duster in Providence for $60. The for sale sign on the car stated "No other car in R.I. but this one is chep! $100 OBO. Chep! Chep! Chep!" I went into the Store 24 where it was parked to see if there was a zero left off and the guy said "80 bucks, 60 bucks, whatever you got!"

I drove that car to Baltimore once, NYC dozens of times, and delivered pizzas in it for 6 months. Somebody ran a stop sign and smashed it up and I was paid $700 for it!

This particular ride looks a lot like the car I drove in California in 2006-2007. Mine was a '74 Dodge Dart Sport, with "Sport" indicating the fastback Duster body style. They are quick enough even with the 6 cylinder, quiet, pretty darn economical, and as reliable as a Swiss watch. I would love to have one again some day, so maybe I'll have to take a trip to Queens to check its status!