34 year quest finally begins.

[Ohiowoodchuck]

I have been a member for a little while but I wanted to share my build with everyone and tell you a little about my search. This story began when I was a kid. From the time I was little I was always going out to my dad’s old barn and playing inside his red car. Every year just like clock work, my dad would air up the tires, charge the battery and roll the car out. He would check the timing on it and look over everything and make sure everything was in good shape. He would run it up and down the street for two or three days and then put it back in storage for the summer or winter. It was his 1974 Plymouth Cuda. I’m not sure when he bought the car. I believe he either bought it new or a year or two after it was new. Him and mom dated in it and honeymooned in and drove it for a couple years before I came along. The fender tag designates it as a Bs 318 3 speed car but some time after my dad purchased it, he went to the local scrapyard and bought a 340 and a 4 speed transmission for the car. My dad at the time worked night shift at Goodyear tire and rubber in Jackson Ohio and day shift as a mechanic at Vallery ford in Waverly Ohio. From all the accounts I’m able to research from his buddies, he worked almost every evening after 5 for a few hours rebuilding the 340 and the 4 speed. His buddies told me the rebuild went on for several months a few hours at a time. He put w2 heads on the 340 and a w2 intake. The details to his buddies are a little fuzzy after that because they couldn’t remember pistons, carb, cam or anything else. Just the amount of direct connection boxes my dad was carrying in after hours to a ford dealership. Even though my dad wasn’t a drinker the rest of his buddies were and they could remember most details past 7 in the evening. They did remind me that my dad did keep up the two jobs a day for four years because he couldn’t make up his mind where he wanted to work at. Here is a picture of the car in the driveway during his wedding to my mom in 1979, a picture of it in the driveway in the early 80’s and or course like every true man of the day, a picture of the engine. I was born in June of 1981 and of course my dad left me and my mom at the hospital to attend the spring nationals, with a couple of buddies at national trail raceway. I’m going to stop here for the night but I’ll add to the story later.

 

[Chryco Psycho]

Great story !

 

[Ohiowoodchuck]

Let’s fast forward a bit to 1990. I was 9 years old and the old barn, the car stayed in was leaning to one side pretty bad, so my dad pulls the car out and starts the process of tearing down the old barn. I think it took him all summer to get it on the ground and picked up. He had me working on tear down by pulling nails and stacking lumber. That fall the guy who owned the Napa auto parts in town came down to look at the car. Night one he looked it over, I asked my dad what he was doing, he said I’m selling the car son. It’s too much of a car for you to handle when you get older and I don’t want you getting hurt. I asked him to please not sell it and I didn’t care if I could drive it, I just wanted to keep it. Some of my best memories of the car was hot lapping it up the street in the spring and fall. I don’t think I have ever been in a faster car to this day although I know there is plenty out there. Must just been a childhood thing. The next night the guy from Napa came down and said are you sure and my dad said yes. He wrote him the check, and they left with the car. I can still remember sitting on the porch crying my eyes out as I could hear that motor wind out going out of town running down the road that parallels town coming back into town and pulled into the store and being parked. I don’t think I spoke to my dad for a week over what he just done, but at 9 years old. You don’t have a say in anything. I remember later in life asking the guy who bought the car about it. He told me he had tried to buy the car for years. He said he had spent a small fortune on his his Chevelle trying to beat the cuda and never could. He told me just out of blue one day my dad walked in to the store and said if you want that car I’ll take 4,000.00 for it and walked out. He didn’t know to believe him or not because my dad wasn’t a man of words. But he wasn’t lying. I remember as a kid riding my bicycle up there and looking at the car, I would always ask to buy it, by seeing if I could work it off in the store or on the guys farm but he always laughed. He told me my dad would hurt him if he entered into a deal with me on that car. I remember when he painted it and I would always have a friendly argument with him on how he screwed it up and the car was now orange and it was supposed to be red. This banter went on for four years then one day the car is gone from the parking spot. I pulled into the store on my bicycle and asked him where the car was, he said he had sold it and the car was gone for good. A few months after this, my dad starts gathering up parts and putting them outside. One Saturday morning a gentleman shows up in a truck and a stripped shirt. I overheard my dad tell him, there is everything I got left from the car. I saw my dad put some money in his shirt pocket and he helped the guy load up everything, I remember him telling the guy, I don’t want to hear about the car again and don’t bother me with any questions. I don’t know if that was regret or just my dad cause he didn’t like to be bothered by anybody. I’ll continue the story later and if you guys don’t want to hear it all just let me know.

 

[Challenger RTA]

pulling nails and stacking lumber

Good character builder! Did you straighten the nails too?

 

[Ohiowoodchuck]

Good character builder! Did you straighten the nails too?

Yes I did. I’m sure most of you remember the time when you saved everything, nothing got threw away and you was going to use that somewhere else sometime. I think there is actually a 2 gallon pail of the rusty nails still left at my moms in the cellar.

 

[mrmopar340]

More of the story please. And I think we all hope there is a happy ending to it.

 

[larry4406]

I hope this story ends with you being the new owner!

 

[Ohiowoodchuck]

Chasing leads. As I call it. So during high school, I worked for the first guy my dad sold the car to’s brother. It was A junk yard right behind the Napa in town. I was always asking him if he remembered the guy he sold it to and he could not. He was a great guy, he just had a weakness for alcohol, the ladies and some other things. A divorce lead him down an alcoholic path and he just forgot everything. I remember years later right before he passed away, we was sitting around talking and he looked at me and said you know, I’m really sorry I can’t remember who I sold that car to. He said now that I’m sober I really never wanted to sell that car but I was probably under the influence and named a price and the guy bought it. He did give me the names of several people he thought it was or could be or might know who it was. Then a light bulb went on in his head he also said you know I remember a guy telling me the car got away from the guy and he totaled it. So I think your search is over. I never let up though. I was determined to see it again or know that it was junked out. I followed every name he gave me. Even names he didn’t. I literally spoke to every Mopar man in the area, tracking down people who worked at all Mopar only junk yards in the area etc. no one had ever seen the car etc. this went on from the late 90’s until around 2016 time frame. I must say everyone was very helpful in my search. They would either give me phone numbers of other contacts or make calls trying to help me. I believe I wore out 4-5 colored photos of the car carrying it around asking people about the car. I even went to everyone of my dad’s buddies trying to find it. I lost my dad to cancer in 2008. He was only 55 years old. I think he knew where it was or what happened but every time I would ask him, he would tell me I didn’t need it and focus on a mini van with car seats and kids. Stay tuned guys the story is going to get good. I promise. Thanks for sticking around. Like mentioned earlier I have 34 years of my life into this search off and on. I didn’t have the money to buy it when I was a kid but I was hoping I could find it and work the amount off as farm help or something. I bailed hay and did just about every job imaginable as a kid. I had a strong back and a weak mind as they say.

 

[Ohiowoodchuck]

Meeting Rick…….
During September October time frame of 2016 my wife was attending church with one of her friends. On one Sunday morning she calls me and said you’re not going to believe this but there’s a white Cuda in the parking lot. I said we’ll find out whose it is. Of course she did. He was at the time a pastor of the church. She asked him if he was going to drive it back later that night and if I could come look at it. He said of course, he would drive it. So I went down there that night with a picture of my dad’s car. I looked all over his 70’s Barracuda Aar clone. I thought it was a decent drivers quality car and that’s what he advertised it as. He said he drives it from spring till fall and how he had it for around 40 some years. I then showed him a picture of my dad’s car and he said that looks like the one he is redoing but his never had the stripe etc. he told me where he lived and told me to come over sometime and we would talk mopar etc. I thought it neat meeting the man and how a decent cuda was only 20 minutes from my house. That was the only second cuda that I new of in two counties. Life got in the way and I never talked to Rick again after that night. I remember following up a few more leads after our meeting that night, but I just never took the time to go back and see him. In the meantime I had found a red 74 Barracuda auto car that I had already started redoing and making it look like my dads car it was already coded as a red car with a black stripe, so I figured that was good enough and I would just be happy with the clone car. Fast Forward a little to around early spring of 2020. My long time best friend of 34 years, we went to kindergarten together and have been friends every since, called me and said. You remember the guy you was telling me about who had the two cuda, I said yell what about him. He said that’s my wife’s uncle. I said that is neat. My buddy then told me to go down and talk to him cause he is getting older and pondering the idea of selling both cars. I said ok. I went down there a couple weekends later and was talking to him about the car. He told me how his son had bought it in the late 90’s from a car dealership in town and he had it for about 6 months then it got away from him and he rolled it over on his top. He told me his son moved away when he got out of the service and he hauled the car to Alabama cause his son was going to fix it and he never did. Time went by and the son owed dad some money and he wasn’t going to fix the car so dad took the car in exchange for calling it even in the money. So back from Alabama the car comes and dad takes it to a guy to begin the restoration. He told me he would sell it but he named a pretty steep price for it and told me it was about 45 minutes away getting a roof put on it. He took me outside his house and showed me the new fenders he had for the car and even the original ones off the car. The original ones which I thought was funny at the time looked orange and still had the fender mounted turn signals and wheel arch trim. I told him I would be back but then Covid happened, I went to working quite a bit and Rick was a older gentlemen and I wasn’t sure if you could believe what they was telling us or not, but I figured since I was younger and had some kids, I didn’t want to pass anything on to him.plus he acted like he really didn’t want to sell the car and wanted to keep going forward with his restoration of it. So life got in the way as usual and I never really thought about the car much anymore or bothering him about it, since I didn’t want to pay the number he threw out there and I was putting money in the car I was working on at the time. I’ll keep it going in a little bit guys.

 

[Ohiowoodchuck]

Forgot to add pics of Rick’s aar clone. I know he sold it last year at the mopar nationals. I think it went somewhere down south.

 

[Deathproofcuda]

 

[Cuda Hunter]

I'll join in for the story.

Question, the 70 barracuda, argent tail panel. Was it originally a BP gran coupe?

 

[Ohiowoodchuck]

I'll join in for the story.

Question, the 70 barracuda, argent tail panel. Was it originally a BP gran coupe?

I’m not 100 percent sure but I don’t believe it was. I don’t remember an overhead console in the car or wood grain trim or anything setting it apart from a regular Barracuda. I took the pictures before the service started and I looked the car all over in the dark. I remember him telling me that had completely redone it about 20 years prior to that year and he said he just made them look how they wanted because like most of the gearheads of that time, there wasn’t anything special about the fender tags or numbers matching engine etc. I do remember him telling me last year that a guy did verify that engine and transmission were checked and they were original to the car. It was/is a 383 auto car. I will ask him a few questions about it the next time I talk to him.

 

[Ohiowoodchuck]

I left off in early spring of 2020 and I just got busy working on my car and life and not giving the car much more thought. Every once in a while when my buddy and I would talk everyday life we would discuss the fenders and the orange paint color and think maybe it was my dads car but I never did actively pursue doing anymore research. I did go back to the family of the guy my dad sold the car to seeing if they had any pictures paperwork or anything I could use to try to find the car and that was always unsuccessful. They would look for me but never found anything. The dvm in ohios system didn’t go back far enough under his name to try to find it. I did find a sweetheart of a girl who done some ‘’ research as we will call it’’ to try to help me find it with no luck. It was shortly after July 4th of 2024 my buddy calls me and said Rick is done with the car. He is getting older and can’t find nobody to work on it and he doesn’t want to full with it anymore and if I’m interested I need to go look at it cause he was taking both cars to the nationals to sell in August. I said ok let’s go down there. So I went down there with my buddy to check it out. Here is some pictures of the ol girl when I found her after 34 years of being away from her.

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[Cuda Hunter]

Sweet!!

 

[Ohiowoodchuck]

The ol girl was in pretty bad shape. When they rolled it over and left it sitting outside and the tarp blew off and nobody recovered it, the rain had ruined the floor pan in it. They had done a good job of replacing the floor pan and of course they had found a rough donor roof panel to put on it. Then they kid of got careless with slinging bondo and putting patch’s in the car. The original 340 my dad built was long gone. But the 4 speed was still in it. Rick had bought a fresh rebuilt 318 and had a guy drop in it and got it running. The wiring was trashed because he had wired up a toggle switch to turn the ignition on and rain had ruined the dash pad structure and the dash frame. It had also destroyed the seat bottoms and the tracks. The old girl needed a lot of work. I never told him it was dad’s car etc but he had already dropped the price to make it appealing. Wasn’t worth what I paid for it but I didn’t really want to haggle with him for a couple reasons. I took a couple days to make my decision. I never did have the vin from the car so I needed proof that was it. The fender tag came back as a 318 3 speed car with of course a white stripe. You could tell the car was red at one time with the organasol tail panel. He even had the magnum wheels that came off the car and low and behold the date code on the tires came back to like 1992 and they were the exact brand the guy loved to put on his cars. The final proof I needed was I took pictures to a guy who use to work at the Napa store and helped him paint the car. I asked him if he could tell me any patches they put on the car. He described them all to a t before I even showed him the pictures. This was the final evidence I needed to seal all doubt. I called Rick back on Tuesday night and told him I would take it and I went down Saturday after work and paid him for the car. I picked it up a couple weekends later.

 

[Ohiowoodchuck]

Thanks Cuda Hunter for fixing the pictures. You’re a good man. Appreciate it.

 

[Ohiowoodchuck]

I called another buddy of mine who does body work and old cars the weekend I paid for the car and asked if he had a winter project yet and luckily he said no. He usually likes to to do one large redo over the winter and work on smaller projects thorough the year. He told me it would around October before he could start on it. He did come over to the house one weekend and we inventoried everything, made a material list and got a game plan on how we needed to proceed. Around the first of November I got my large sheetmetal order from AMD. I was expecting boxes to be scattered in the back of a semi, I didn’t realize they would be stacked on a pallet to the ceiling. Here is the large order in the back of the truck.

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[Deathproofcuda]

Congrats on getting your old man's car back! That's gotta feel awesome. Good luck with the project. Looking forward to the updates. Assuming you'll go back to the original color and stripe scheme??? That was a good looking car back in the day.

 

[mrmopar340]

Man it's awesome you got the car back. I wish I still had some of the stuff that went through my hand.

Definitely perseverance and following your heart on it paid off.