Barracuda

Folding the rear seat back created a cargo space nearly six feet long, while a trunk lid behind the rear glass allowed it to be accessed from the outside.

Developed on the more pedestrian Valiant platform, the Barracuda was one of a number of short-wheelbase, two-door coupes that ranged from modest performers, to fire-breathing, rip-snorting pavement scorchers, but generally didn't corner or brake with corresponding authority.

As pony cars went though, it handled power-on directional changes as well as any of its kind and its aficionados were as rabid and loyal as any others. Today, no gathering of self-respecting car buffs is complete without at least a few sterling examples of these simpler times in automotive technology.

Original badging that defined it as the Plymouth Valiant Barracuda lasted only a year - in 1965 it became known simply as the Plymouth Barracuda. A tachometer was added to the instrument cluster and the 180-hp Commando 273V8 boosted the lineup, giving the Formula S package a 0-100 km/h time of eight seconds. Plymouth watched second year sales soar by three times, to 34,596 units. It was already a success.

It wasn't long before the Barracuda almost completely abandoned any pretense of economy or day-to-day utilitarianism, as Plymouth became caught up in the horsepower wars of the times.

The Barracuda's first makeover came in 1967 with a wheelbase lengthened by two inches, while additional room was made under the hood to shoehorn in the optional 383-cidV8. A convertible model was added along with a Euro-inspired hardtop. "We should get some of the sports car business now," one prominent Illinois Chrysler-Plymouth dealer was widely quoted as saying at the time. Sales jumped 40 per cent that year, to 62,534 units.

Chrysler introduced the 'Cuda tag in 1969, the year it added the monster 375-hp, 440-cid VS to the menu of available engine options. While Plymouth could now boast the largest engine among the pony car set, it left no room under the hood for either Power steering or power brakes, and excessive wheel spin on hard launches tended to vaporize the rear tires, resulting in mid-pack quarter-mile times of only 14 seconds.

What many consider to be the ultimate, most beautiful Barracuda debuted in 1970, finally abandoning its Valiant roots and sharing for the first time its broad shouldered, long hood/short deck "E -body' platform with the equally lovely Dodge Challenger.

Engine options at the turn of the '70s decade began with a "slant six" making 145-hp, to a fear-inspiring 425-hp Hemi V8 in the top-of-the-food-chain Hemi 'Cuda. Bristling with 426 inches of twin-carbV8 inhaling through a hood-mounted "shaker" scoop, it tripped the quarter-mile timing lights in under 13.5 seconds, electrifying the air around it with its deep-throated, voice-of-God exhaust signature.

Barracudas gained quad headlights in a mild 1971 facelift, dropped the ragtop model in 1972 and remained relatively unchanged until its retirement in 1974, the victim of fast-declining pony car demand.

The final nails in the Barracuda's coffin were hammered in by the fuel crisis of 1973-74, stringent government-imposed emissions regulations and by insurance companies which no longer wanted muscle car business and raised premiums astronomically to discourage them.

In its final year, the sporty 'Cuda retained an echo of the model's performance past, with a new emissions- minded 360-cid V8 option to replace the venerable 340. Sales were the worst ever in the model's final year - only 5,000 'Cudas and 6,700 base models were sold.

One of the most colorful periods in North American automobile culture had come to a sudden end.