1966 Plymouth Valiant & Barracuda Dealer Promo Film Mopar is a registered trademark of Chrysler Group LLC. Master Tech series training materials are the property of Chrysler Group LLC and are used with permission. MyMopar.com
My great uncle had a '66 Barracuda with the formula S package. It was gold on black. He got rid of it in '70 when the E body Challenger/Cuda came out, and bought a gold on black Barracuda gran coupe with the 383, but I don't remember him ever complaining about the '66.
273ci Barracuda S with acrylic paint! Power, economy & beauty. One of my dream cars. Just needed wider tires. PS: I did have a '69 Dodge Dart GT with the 273. Wish I still had it.
I drove a 65 Barracuda in High School. Dad died in 1976 and I inherited it. 273 V8 auto. 7 step anti rust procedure? They must have missed 6 steps on mine - boy did it rust! I had to Bondo the top of the fenders a couple of times to keep it from spouting like a whale on wet roads!
We had one of these with a slant 6 in the mid 70's. We were poor and that car would run on industrial cleaning compound from my fathers job. There were many times there was no money for gas so the cleaning compound went into the tank. That engine just ran and ran and ran.
I used to buy old mopars with noisey tapping slant six off people that though the engines were dying. Solid lifters. A valve cover gasket and feeler gauge and they ran unbelievably good. A two hundred dollars car became a eight hundred one quick
@@notsosilentmajority1 working on a 64 cuda and they said it had a newer engine. The engine has points and is blue. Probably a 318 but haven't had time to find engine number. Just blue block and points in a 64 that sat in a barn for 40 yeas
@@markandrews2942 All of my first cars had points. We were able to work on our cars by ourselves, like you are doing. Now, the auto manufacturers have made it difficult to do anything yourself on your vehicle. Congrats on the barn find. Apparently the first Barracuda's were actually Valiant/Barracuda's with the Barracuda being an option package for the Valiant. Here's a link with some interesting information about the 64 Cuda. Best of luck. www.musclecarfacts.com/plymouth-barracuda/32-1964-barracuda/
My Grandpa was recently looking through some old paperwork he had. He found the price sheet when he bought a 66 Valiant V100 brand new, He traded a 63 Valiant Wagon for it. The one thing I thought was crazy only paid $2,300 for it out the door. His payment was $63 a month.
I had a 66 formula S , black with white interior gold brown carpet and dash pad etc it was beautiful and I was the second owner, ported and polished the head's put the D 500 cam that dodge used and some other tweaks she ran the 1/4 in the mid 12s and could have done better if I wanted to cut the fenders for headers, that is one car I still miss it was good looking dependable and a great handling car, the first owner actually gave me the trophy and paper work he won in 67 at a scca road race, he was first in class and 3rd overall, not bad for a stock daily driver, she crumpled like a tin can though when I tried to take a turn at close to 100 , apparently I'd missed the signs that said 15 mph ahead, damnit at least I walked away though 😥
Wish they made something simple now. A car that you could buy new and maintain yourself for 30 years. All I would want is a small v8 and automatic transmission power steering/brakes and a/c. I don't need nor want any digital crap, no displays or sat nav. Never understood why anyone would need sat nav, if you don't know where you're going then you have bigger problems than a sat nav can fix.
A couple years back, I bought a brand new 2016 Mustang GT. I had to Special Order my car because I wanted a BASE GT (no leather, no heated/cooled seats, no sat nav, no satellite radio, no nothing!) There was only ONE base GT in blue in Western Canada, but it had Recaro's and I had no need for that. So, they had to special order me one. Funny thing was, when I went to pick up the car, a couple salesman wanted to come see "the guy" who had ordered his cheeseburger with no cheese. But the older fellow at the place knew exactly what I'd done. Heck, we spent more time talking about all the crap that could go wrong with the car had I ordered the frilly version. To add insult to injury; a friend of mine bought a 2015 Ecoboost off the lot. His has all the frills. But already, his leather seats look like hell, the puddle lights that project the "Mustang" on the ground don't work anymore; his satellite radio subscription expired and it's ridiculously expensive to renew.... and the list of things that don't work grows every day. Hell, if I could've got mine with roll-up windows, I'd have done that! What Ford considers "basic", I consider "loaded". Pretty funny that today, you have to "Special Order" the basic version.
That’s why I hold onto my 06 Dakota, with the 287 CID V8, column shift, and just an extended cab but not overly big like the newer trucks. Easy enough to maintain and keeps going, you can’t get anything close to that nowadays
The '63-'66 narrow-body Elwood Engel Valiants are my favorites. For some reason the '66 has had its styling toned-down a bit from the '64-5; a certain Ford Falcon look is creeping in.
I had a two door with the 225 slant six. The only complaints I had were the rather spongy north american suspension and the 13 inch wheels which limited the size of the brake drums which were prone to fading. Touring Junkyards failed to locate a set of disk brakes. I rather liked the car but since we did not know much about undercoating for Rust prevention then, It died from body rot long before the engine was worn out.
If you had a mopar with a spongy suspension then it either had worn parts or the shocks were shot. Chrysler's torsion bar suspension was superior to anything offered, and it's strong points were cornering stability, as well as superior stability on the highway, without the wallowing and pitching of typical coil springs. The torsion bar setup was also superior in preventing nosedive during braking.
That's funny, my 64 valiant had only one spot of rust, and it is from Chicago 😂 I guess it was hit or miss. My car also had 180k miles on the original engine 😂
The horn toot every 15 seconds made me put a gun to my head. I turned the sound off at 4:34 and put the S&W J-Frame away. I'm too much of a chicken to ever do something so stupid. I did own a gold 1966 Barracuda. I loved that little car. I bought it in 1984 from some old guy for $400 bucks. I kept it for 5 years until some kid came along and bought it from me for $250 bucks.
Our government, not applying high tariffs that mirrored foreign tariffs on US cars, is what killed brands like Plymouth and others. Who doesn't miss these old cars?
I have a 66’ Valiant Signet 225 /6 3spd in gold. I’m in the process of putting in a 70’s OD A-833 4spd Holset hx-30 with blow through Holley sniper TBI. Hopefully be high 300’s at the wheels, mid 20’s mpg 12’s in the 1/4.
My '66 was a metallic bronze Barracuda with white vinyl upholstery, 180-horse 273, Torque-flight, optional suspension and shocks and 14-inch wheels. My '72 was a metallic Grasshopper Green Hornet Sportabout with a green interior, the 258 cid engine, Torque-flight (AMC called it by another name but it was the same transmission sourced from Chrysler) optional suspension and shocks and 14-inch wheels. The length, width, and wheelbase were within a fraction of an inch of those of the Barracuda. The biggest difference was that the Sportabout was a 4-door. To this day, I consider that size of vehicle to be nearly ideal for the vast majority of families. Can someone tell me which model of 2019 vehicle(s) come the closest to being as maneuverable and as utilitarian but with AWD? (The state of Maine doesn't allow tire chains on paved public roads.)
Any advertisement for the Barracuda should have shown a young couple "turning in" for the night at a campground. Put a thick yoga pad down there and two giant pillows, there was room for two! Trust me, I know this for fact!
@@paulh6591 i was more thinking of the botched design of the early 60s, which resulted in a market share loss in the compact segment which Chrysler couldnt recover from until the Iacocca era with the K car
The Valiant was probably the most reliable car of its era, and it sold well. I don't think an innovative, ground-up compact with torsion bar suspension, unibody construction, the the most reliable transmission and engine (904, /6) of its competitors is a botch by any measure. Frankly, when it came out in '60, the competitors had only a 2-speed auto and a generator, not a 3-speed auto and a modern alternator like the Valiant. My feeling is that the true forward-looking segment leaders were the Lark and Rambler, but soon after, the Dart/Valiant, Corvair, Chevy II, Falcon were all worthy entries in the compact arena. The area where all the US manufacturers fell down is in their failure to build a good subcompact, always preferring to farm that segment out to a Japanese company with whom the U.S. maker had an investment stake. Discontinuing the Valiant, then having reliability problems with its successor (Aspen, Volare) and the bloated, dowdy lard bucket luxury personal cars, the landau roof, opera window clown cars of the late '70s are what had Chrysler on the ropes. So much lipstick on those pigs. @@kmyre
@@kmyre Perhaps you are referring to the outrageous Virgil Exner styling of the '60-61 and to some extent the '62 models. It's that boldness which put Dodge and Plymouth back on the map from being a solidly-engineered but dowdy styled car brand. But it was too bold to last, and the window of its success was closing; thus the Spartan yet elegant Elwood Engel designs of '63-'66. The Valiant was probably the most reliable car of its era, and it sold well. I don't think an innovative, ground-up compact with torsion bar suspension, unibody construction, the the most reliable transmission and engine (904, /6) of its competitors is a botch by any measure. Frankly, when it came out in '60, the competitors had only a 2-speed auto and a generator, not a 3-speed auto and a modern alternator like the Valiant. My feeling is that the true forward-looking segment leaders were the Lark and Rambler, but soon after, the Dart/Valiant, Corvair, Chevy II, Falcon were all worthy entries in the compact arena. The area where all the US manufacturers fell down is in their failure to build a good subcompact, always preferring to farm that segment out to a Japanese company with whom the U.S. maker had an investment stake. Discontinuing the Valiant, then having reliability problems with its successor (Aspen, Volare) and the bloated, dowdy lard bucket luxury personal cars, the landau roof, opera window clown cars of the late '70s are what had Chrysler on the ropes. So much lipstick on those pigs.
Mmm. Lovely cars. If they still made them I’d buy one today - if the corrosion problems were solved. How did the US go from making great cars like this to Tesla? Very sad.
I want the Barracuda, with a Chevy 4.3 v6 and 5speed manual, also with a modded rear suspension losing the leafs in favor of 6 way adjustable coils on a 4 link or ladder bar, disc brakes on all 4 corners and 373 gear.
