(EXPANDED FROM 4/10/2024)
A Car and Driver article on the just-introduced 1964 Plymouth Barracuda adopted an unusual format — a transcript of a conversation with a Chrysler official.
When a road tester complained that the car’s underpinnings didn’t match its sporty styling, the Chrysler official insisted that he “had the wrong idea about the car in the first place. This car is designed to have broad appeal” (1964, p. 75).
What kind of appeal? “Well, we figure that there are a lot of people out there driving station wagons, for instance, who don’t need a station wagon — who might like to have something a little more sporty” (1964, p. 75).
The Car and Driver road tester was skeptical. “Boy, I don’t know. As far as price and design concept are concerned, you’re going to be in direct competition with the Mustang, and I’m afraid the Mustang will murder your car in its tune.” The Chrysler official responded by saying, “Oh, I think we’ll be in good shape as far as that’s concerned” (1964, p. 75).
Why didn’t the Barracuda sell as well as the Mustang?
Chrysler turned out to be hilariously wrong about the Barracuda. Output peaked at only around 65,000 units in 1965 at the same time that the Mustang was blowing past 559,000 units — and would rise to almost 608,000 units in 1966.
Let’s talk more about Car and Driver’s specific beef with the Barracuda. In light of the Chrysler Corporation’s reputation for superior performance, the magazine was disappointed that you couldn’t order early Barracudas with more powerful engines, heavy-duty shocks, anti-sway bars and a short manual steering ratio.
In the next few years performance goodies were added to the options list. A Car and Driver (1966) road test of a Barracuda Formula S was much more favorable.
Alas, that didn’t appear to help sales much. The first-generation Barracuda, which was built from mid-1964 through 1966, did get “murdered” by the Mustang. However, the primary problem was more likely the car’s styling than its mechanicals.
In all honesty, Chrysler got exactly what it paid for
Richard M. Langworth and Jan P. Norbye sounded like a Chrysler press release when they argued that the original Barracuda “offered a combination of sporty looks, good performance and handling, room for four, and unusual utility” (1985, p. 195).
Let’s get real: Plopping an overly-glassy fastback onto Valiant sheet metal wasn’t terribly sporty. It might have worked at least somewhat better if the wheelbase and rear deck had been shortened. Or if that was too costly, Chrysler could have at least given the rear quarter and back end a sportier, coke-bottle shape instead of recycling the Valiant’s straight-edged sheet metal and taillights.
Chrysler got what it paid for — incremental sales from a cheap-to-produce Valiant variant. Ordinarily, that might have been a reasonable bet, but Ford had simultaneously gambled big on the Mustang. So rather than looking clever, the Barracuda ended up looking half baked.
That’s too bad because Chrysler had a kernel of a good idea — a sporty coupe with the greater versatility of a folding-down back seat and a pass-through tunnel to the trunk. This was an all-too-rare example of packaging innovation by a postwar American automaker.
More ambitious 1967-69 models sold more poorly
The 1967-69 Barracuda showed what could be done when the designers were given more latitude. The all-new sheet metal no longer had to be shared with the Valiant. That resulted in a much better-looking car . . . at least with the fastback body style. A newly added convertible and notchback arguably missed the mark styling-wise.
That may help to explain why the Barracuda tended to sell more poorly than its much-less-ambitious predecessor. Pony cars were all about trendy styling, and only the fastback came close to having it.
To make matters worse, the competition got much more intense, with new entries in 1967 from Chevrolet, Pontiac, Mercury and in 1968 from AMC. And just as everyone had jumped into the pony car field, it began a remarkably rapid fall in sales.
In addition, underneath the Barracuda’s now-unique sheet metal still lurked the Valiant’s overly long wheelbase and deck. That gave the car a less sporty appearance than the competition, all of which had adopted a long-hood, short-deck look. This was particularly apparent with the Barracuda’s notchback body style, which had a peculiar hunchback quality.
The Duster proved to be the better Barracuda
Ironically, Chrysler might have had the last laugh if it had stuck with the Barracuda fastback’s size and utility when the car was redesigned in 1970. By that point buyers were starting to gravitate to more practical sporty coupes. Instead, the Barracuda switched to a mid-sized platform, the styling slavishly copied the Chevrolet Camaro, and the fastback’s versatile packaging was ditched.
A Plymouth Duster ended up being a better deal — and sold accordingly. Indeed, the car’s semi-fastback styling arguably worked better in most respects than either the first- or second-generation Barracuda. And once the Duster offered a fold-down back seat as an option, it also had the original Barracuda’s utility.
One could conclude that Chrysler never got right the Barracuda. However, the nameplate’s chronic lack of success did arguably pave the way for the Duster, which turned out to be one of the automaker’s most successful cars of the 1970s.
It’s too bad it took Chrysler so long to figure out the right formula. A Duster-like semi-fastback that wasn’t just a top-end model might have been a more formidable response to the original Mustang.
NOTES:
This story was originally posted on April 10, 2024 and expanded on Sept. 9, 2026. Production figures and specifications came from the auto editors ofย Consumer Guideย (2006) and Gunnell (2002).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, Ill.
- Car and Driver; 1964. “Plymouth Barracuda.” May issue: pp. 74-75.
- ——; 1966. “Barracuda Formula S.” June issue: pp. 45-48, 88.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Langworth, Richard M. and Jan P. Norbye; 1985.ย The Complete History of Chrysler Corporation 1924-1985.ย Publications International, Skokie, IL.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- fordheritagevault.com: Ford Mustang (1967)
- oldcaradvertising.com: Plymouth Barracuda (1966, 1967)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Plymouth Barracuda (1965); Plymouth Duster (1974)
You did a nice job playing with the 65 Corvair styling, could you try your hand with the Barracuda? Kind of smaller Dual Ghia design?
Howard, that’s a good idea. I’ve been keeping my eye out for the right image but have more limited technical capabilities than previously because my Photoshop software doesn’t work on my computer’s new operating system. Thus, I’ve had to make do with InDesign, which still clunkily works.
This is a useful reminder that I need to settle on a more affordable alternative to Adobe products, e.g., I also need to update my photo-editing software and have gotten bogged down weighing the strengths and weaknesses of the different choices. If I may complain for a moment: Shame on Adobe for profit taking to such a degree that it is driving small-time operators like me away.
Steve, I don’t know what platform you’re on Mac, Win or Linux) but there are attractive alternatives. There is a company called Affinity that makes software called Serif with a suite of programs that are attractively priced for both Mac and Win. They’re also not on subscription. However, they just recently merged with the online graphics provider Canva, and I don’t know what this means for their software yet. They say they will always have perpetual licenses, etc. etc… I suspect they will emulate the others and have a subscription based web-browser version based in the cloud before long. But, it IS very attractively priced, maybe get it while you can?
Additionally, if you’re on Win, my favorite alternative is still CorelDRAW. It does a fair amount of what Creative Cloud does, but without all of the extra stuff*, if you’re just looking for graphics capabilities. You can buy a regular license, go with a relatively inexpensive subscription model (boo!) and they have some web-based features also. I’ve used Corel over the years (although not currently) and it’s been good software.
If you’re on Linux, I really don’t have any recommendations, it looks like you’ll be scouring the web for recommendations.
*As an aside, I have the entire Creative Cloud at work, but I don’t do animation for example. I would like to have a stripped down graphics production version that doesn’t include all of the other stuff at a more reasonable price. The other deal killer for us is that there’s a substantial price discount if you have five or more seats; however my company only has four, so we pay the higher per seat price rather than the site license. Grrrrr…
George, that’s helpful advice — and I will ask follow-up questions once I return from the road and can look at my research.
I’m on a Mac platform. What makes software decisions a bit more complex is that what I choose for a Photoshop replacement can impact what I get to replace Lightroom and InDesign. They don’t all have to be from the same vendor but they need to be compatible.
The most important program I have used is Lightroom, which I draw upon daily in the production of Indie Auto. I mostly use it to organize my images but it also has some basic editing capabilities. That’s more convenient than having to import the image into another program just to lighten an old magazine ad or remove a sun spot on a photo I just took.
I use Lightroom enough that it is easier to justify a subscription than for Photoshop and InDesign, which I only use occasionally. There is some utility in a cloud-based system, but I still have a bias toward physically controlling my content. So finding an alternative to Lightroom should arguably be the first decision, with the others following from that.
We could wonder what if the Barracuda got some Duster design cue more earlier like 1967 or menaged to hide his Valiant origins like a customized front end like the customized Barracuda by George Barris known as Fireball 500 driven by actor Frankie Avalon?
It seems the Barracuda was designed to go head to head with the Futura. Without true pony cars I could see it going into six figure sales easily. Although it was introduced a couple weeks earlier than the Mustang at the time it was regarded as something thrown together to compete. Also, while the Mustang was a car model in its own right, the Barracuda was treated as a Valiant option package. I wonder how the salesmen were trained on selling it?
The problem with the Chrysler-Plymouth division was that salesmen and women had too many cars on the showroom floor to offer, so the motivation was to sell Chryslers instead of Plymouths. Further, if someone wanted a sporty, performance Plymouth, why not move them into a Sport Fury with a big V-8 (1964)? The biggest engine in the Valiant in 1964 was a 273-cu.-in. engine (until the 1967 redesign). At least the Formula S came with Goodyear Blue Streak tires !
While the fastback trend was big between 1963 and 1966, (ignited by Bill Mitchell’s Corvette Stingray Coupe), who in their right mind specified the huge rear window in the 1964-1966 Baccaruda ? Not only was the glass very heavy, in any kind of sunshine, the interior must have been very warm, requiring Chrysler’s very best Airtemp air conditioning. (I know, I lived in 1980 in Memphis, Tennessee with a car featuring a heavily-tinted T-Top, requiring that the air was on anytime the sun was out. The size of the T-Top panels were minimal compared to that of the Baccaruda.) Then came the 1966-1967 Dodge Charger with its large, flat back window. One has to wonder if Chrysler’s top executives and stylists had stock in the supplying plate glass companies !
It could be interesting to wonder what if Plymouth had come with the rear window style of the 1967 Barracuda or even the Australian Charger for 1964 instead of the current one? And speaking of the Australian Charger… https://www.indieauto.org/2023/09/29/1970-plymouth-barracuda-should-have-been-like-an-australian-valiant-charger/
Then, Ford once studied various names before they chosen Mustang, like Torino and Cougar (who’ll be used for other models later) for example. I wonder if Chrysler had toyed with other nameplates before they choose Barracuda?
As I learned more about Chrysler’s styling studios from the early 60’s, I’ve long thought that the Barracuda was influenced heavily by the 1962 Plymouth Styling Concept https://forums.aaca.org/topic/207869-1962-plymouth-styling-concept/ along with the previously mentioned Stingray Coupes.
I think it’s a logical progression, along with the other styling concepts and production cars at about the same time, even the original Mustang body had a fastback version in the following year. The fastback styling craze lasted several years and produced some great looking vehicles.
Additionally, I drove a 273/four-speed 1966 Barracuda for a while in the late 70’s, it was a sweet little car.