This is a real "little old lady" and "car in a barn" story.

In August or September 1964, Lusia and Paul Torres were in a California Chrysler dealership browsing through the 1965 Barracuda brochure, deciding on the option list for their new car. Paul wanted to order the Formula S package with the Commando 273, sport suspension and the 4 speed transmission with the Hurst shifter. Lusia vetoed the Commando, but Paul got the 273 2 barrel, 4 speed and the heavy duty shocks. They also picked the 13 inch whitewall tires with the bolt on style wheel covers. A padded dash brought the interior up to the latest safety standards. They picked the dark blue metallic (EE1) paint code and light blue (P4B) interior. As the car was built in the Los Angeles factory, not far from the dealership, the delivery time was fairly short. The car was built on October 3^rd, 1964.

In 1968, Lusia and Paul emigrated to Prince George, BC and put on some highway miles travelling back and forth between their old home and the new one.

Sometime around 1973 or 1974, they divorced and Lusia became sole owner of the car. She remarried and her husband used the car to go fishing occasionally. On one trip, while loading a small boat on the roof racks, a wind came up and bounced the boat around, putting some small dents and scratches on the roof of the car. When Lusia saw the damage, she immediately informed her husband that he would not ever drive the car again. He then informed her that if he wasn’t going to drive it, he wouldn’t insure it, either, and decided to put it into long term storage. He was very meticulous about preparing the car. His son was given the job of wire wheeling all of the undercoating from the car and re-coating everything again very heavily. The engine was filled up to the carburetor with oil, the fuel system was drained and filled with ATF, most of the chrome was removed and the whole car was covered with preservative oil. A small barn-like building was erected to store the car in and sealed up. This was 1974. The husband worked for the railroad and occasionally mentioned a few words about the Barracuda to his fellow workers. After several years an urban legend grew about this untouched, original Barracuda stored quietly away. No one saw this car for 26 years.

Fast forward to the year 2000.

The husband was now ready for retirement and had a friend, Alan Sisson, who helped him prepare for it. The fellow also had stored a 1967 Dart GT 273 back around 1981, and was ready to sell both cars. Alan was in the right place at the right time and bought both cars. After many hours of cleaning, polishing and replacing a few deteriorated parts, Alan and his wife, Sheila were ready to drive the Barracuda. It was only driven on dry sunny days for two summers, when, after much deliberation, it was decided to sell the Barracuda to finance the restoration of the Dart.

Now this is where it becomes evident that being a member of our wonderful club is very important.

Jim Overholt (Logan Lake) has been looking for an early sixties Valiant convertible for almost a year now. I have been keeping an eye out for anything that he might be interested in and passing leads along to him when possible. On September 3^rd, Jim phoned me and asked me to check out a car for him that was in Vernon. During that conversation, I mentioned to him that we were looking for a 1965 Barracuda 4 speed car. He said that he knew of one in Prince George and that he had already had a friend of his look at it for him. Jim wasn’t interested in the car, so he gave me the phone number of the owner. I immediately phoned to see if the car was still for sale. Sheila answered the phone and said it was. I explained that we would not be able to come to look at the car until September 13^th and asked what it would take to make sure the car was still there when we came up. She just asked me for my phone number and said she would contact me if anything came up. I offered a large deposit, but she said it wasn’t necessary.

At this point, I want to say how impressed we are with the integrity of this couple, because, as many of you have experienced, this kind of promise is often made and not kept.

We had to go to Vancouver Island the next morning, and it was very difficult to head south instead of north.

Two nights later, I phoned again and spoke with Alan, giving him some of our Mopar history and explaining why we were so interested in the car. (For those of you who don’t know already, I built Pat a 65 Cuda race car in 1970 and she was very successful with it. She had mentioned only a month or so ago that she would like to have another one, and it had to be a 4 speed 273.) Alan was already a Mopar guy, so he understood and held onto the car for us. I phoned a couple more times just to keep in touch and get a few more details on the car. After several sleepless nights, we left home at 5:50 AM on Friday the 13^th,2002, ignoring any superstitious thoughts. We arrived at their house around 1:30 PM, and luckily, Sheila had the day off and was at home, so we immediately started a close inspection of the car. Pat and Sheila spent the time decoding the build sheet while I jacked the car up and did a close inspection of the whole underside and the mechanicals. After a compression test and a look at the under hood components, I was satisfied that it was in very good condition. Around 4:00 Alan arrived from work and we went for a short test drive. The engine sounded smooth and the tranny worked well.

After some more Mopar talk where Sheila and Alan joined our club, we sealed the deal and got plates and insurance.

I drove the car to Pat's brother's place in Quesnel, where we stayed the night. Saturday morning we filled the tank and headed for home. The 273 has lots of power, as Pat couldn’t keep up in the Dakota when I pulled out to pass traffic. No down shifting was necessary. Everything operated smoothly and gave no trouble all the way home, 500 miles.

We intend to keep the car as stock as possible, because it is so close to original now. When we took possession, the mileage was only 65,131.

Watch for us on the road, as this is our summer daily driver.