1970  'CUDA
Owner: Stu Wilson

My love affair with Mopars, and in particular, 1970 Barracudas, started in high school. I was going into Grade 10 and had recently obtained my driver's license. As fate would have it, my aunt had recently passed away and had willed her 1970 Gran Coupe Barracuda to me. She had purchased the Barracuda new from Patrick Dodge in Saskatoon in 1970 and was the only and original owner of the car.

While it was not the hottest color (T6 Burnt Tan Metallic), or the most muscular (318, 2-bbl automatic, 2.76 gears), it was a Mopar Muscle Car. I spent long hours making her Barracuda "my" car. Of course, it "had to have" ET 5 spoke mags with G50 x 14's on the back and to make it go I had 4.56 gears installed (what a mistake!!!).

My Barracuda and I stayed together all through high school and seven years of university. I moved to Calgary for my first job in the oil industry in 1984. My lifestyle changed once here and I found myself spending a lot of time in the mountains. My Barracuda simply was not very practical for backwoods camping and hauling. Nor was my income sufficient to allow me to keep my Barracuda and buy a more practical truck. To make the decision of selling it easier, I came home one day to find a note on the windshield begging me to sell. The fellow had been looking for a 70 Gran Coupe in excellent shape for many years and instantly fell in love with my car. I felt the car was going to a good home, we struck a deal and I sold the car to him.

My longing for another Cuda never left and by the time the year 2001 rolled around, I REALLY wanted to own another one. All my family heard from me was "Cuda this and Cuda that". I finally had sufficient money saved to buy another Cuda, so my search began in earnest for my second 70 Cuda. I put my name out on any and all Mopar websites I could find. My budget did not allow me to seriously consider anything other than a 340 or 383 automatic car so that was my target car.

I opened up my Hotmail the morning of Saturday, July 28, 2001 (I still have the e-mail!!) to find an e-mail from a fellow in Winkler Manitoba wondering if I still was looking for a Cuda. He outline the basics of the car – originally a 383 4 bbl auto Gran Coupe that hat been cloned into a Cuda. (Since my first Barracuda was a Gran Coupe, the idea of having a cloned Cuda, big block Gran Coupe sat well with me. While it would have been nice to have an numbers matching real Cuda, my past love affair with my first Gran Coupe made having another one quite agreeable to me). The fellow gave a "pretty accurate" description of the car, one thing led to another and the next thing I knew I was on my way to Regina to get the car from him. Once I had it tailored up I headed back to Calgary.

At home, I started seeing all the things that were incorrect on the car. (I really wanted a very stock look and my new treasure disappointed me in this area). Many things were not correct – wrong year and cracked dash pad, poor chrome, all kinds of chrome under the hood, wrong front seats, wrong steering wheel, "well worn" Gran Coupe door panels, wrong and missing seat belts, wrong mirrors, wrong radio and on and on. While these were not major items individually, they still represented many hours of part finding and installation – you all know this story I am sure. I thus began the job of putting my Cuda into a very stock and original looking car. I have had help locating parts from many people, Dean Tilleman, Tim at Heavy Metal Auto Wreckers in Trochu, Dale at Flatla Auto Wrecking in Tilley, Terry McCann in Ontario, Joel, e-bay (yes, I have had to buy things from e-bay!!) and many others from whom I made part purchases.

I also did some research on my car’s roots. I contacted the fellow I purchased the car from in Winkler and he referred me to a fellow east of Winnipeg who had done much of the "restoration" and cloning of my car. He sent me photos of the restoration and indicated to me that the car had originally come from Thunder Bay. How was I to track down the original owner from over 30 years ago!!!! Well, back to the Mopar websites. I located a fellow in Thunder Bay selling B-body parts and a few odd E-body parts. I contacted him and by an absolute stroke of luck, he did remember my car back when it was new. Of course he remembered it the way it was produced at the factory – K5 Burnt Orange Metallic, burnt orange metallic interior and black vinyl roof. Unfortunately, he could not remember the couple's names that owned the car, only that they had lived on University Drive in Thunder Bay. He also remembered that they moved to Winnipeg. This WAS my car. Try as I might, my search ended here. (If anyone can help out with more history of my car it would be greatly appreciated).

While I was busy trying to make my Cuda look great, I realized too that the non-numbers matching, 1969, 383 4 bbl. in the car was in its twilight years. A friend in Red Deer was gracious enough to sell me a fresh rebuilt 1971 383. I had this engine delivered to Tim's Auto Service & Towing in Hay Lakes (recommended by a buddy), drove my Cuda up to Tim's and we spent a LONG weekend doing the engine swap. (Many thanks Tim & Shawn!!) I had originally planned on driving my Cuda back home after the engine swap, but, as you may recall from spring 2003, I picked the weekend of the MASSIVE spring snowstorm to do the engine transplant. Needless to say, the car stayed in Hay Lakes and I went home on the bus. After a couple of weeks, another buddy (thank goodness for countless buddies!!!) brought my Cuda home on a trailer. I was really excited to have a fresh engine and tire smoking performance. NOT!!! My engine needed a break-in period, but even after a 1000 new miles, the performance was not what I had been hoping for. On Joel's recommendation, I had Neil Patrick come by and set up my carb and perform a minor tune-up on the engine – MAGIC!!! My lacklustre performance was significantly improved – still not a tire melter, but much better. (Now of course, after reading Joel's article on his 383 Challenger, I am craving his type of performance – a call to Neil is in the works).

After two years, I finally had my Cuda looking pretty much the way I wanted – very stock and original in appearance in all areas, under the hood, exterior and interior. I still had a few non-stock items to get changed out, but I now had a car I truly was starting to feel proud of. THEN DISASTER STRUCK. Last August, I was doing some grinding and prep work in the trunk. I had finished for the night and put the car away in the garage and went to bed. The next morning I woke up and proceeded to the garage to take my Cuda to work. When I opened the garage door, a wall of smoke greeted me. In near panic, I realized it was my car that was burning. I quickly pushed the car out of the garage and immediately tried to locate the source of all the smoke. When I opened a door a wall of smoke from the interior knocked me back. I was finally able to get into the car to see that the rear seat was what was burning. In complete panic mode, I located my wrenches and quickly removed the rear seats (or what was left of them) hosed everything down and pretty much sat down and cried. My Cuda was in ruin. A spark from the previous nights grinding had gotten into the old seat stuffing and had smouldered all night.

The interior of the car was essentially a write off. I had an insurance estimate done and it meant almost a complete replacement of the interior (many thanks to Meloche Monnex, my insurance company, for being very fair and understanding of my situation. They handled my claim quickly, professionally and with incredible sympathy for my plight). I took my car to K & L Autobody, where Ken performed the required repainting and Warren handled the interior replacement and repair. (Many thanks to Warren, he did an outstanding job salvaging and reconditioning interior parts and installing the many new interior items that were required – high marks to Warren's workmanship). My car was with K & L until January of 2004 when I loaded it up on a flat deck and hauled my Cuda home. After nearly 5 months in the body shop, it is in dire need of a complete and thorough cleaning. But that is one of the loves of a Mopar nut, making our toys look as good as we can. I will soon have the car clean, shiny and polished and ready to enjoy my car to the max once again. Unfortunately that "old muscle car smell" has been replaced with a lingering and more sickly "melted plastic" odour that for the time being will get covered up with a tacky "pine tree air freshener".

There are still some items that need to be addressed (a bit of rust here and there and the lusting for Joel's kind of tire melting ability) but I now (again!) have a Cuda that I am proud of and love to drive. While trailer queens have there place in documenting and preserving these cars – I believe in using them for the originally designed purpose - to be driven FAST from point A to point B!