We've known about this car for awhile, but couldn't get to an agreement. Finally got there. Has the original motor from 1973. Car was purchased in detroit as a 383 barracuda. Driven to NC where the Hemi was dropped in and Dad ran it in SS/E for a few races. Going to go through the engine, put a 4 speed back in it (has a Nash 5 speed now) and put it back like it was in 73. With one exception, I'll make it streetable. I want one of the race cars done where we can have fun driving it around vs just being able to trailer it to and from shows. Figure this is the perfect candidate. We'll start on it over the summer and hope to debut it next Carlisle. I'll be documenting the project on Facebook at McCandless Antique Auto if you want to follow along. I haven't seen the car in person yet. I'm out of town, but Dad was there at 7am when the driver showed up so he could look over it. Can't wait!

Epic, so neat. Totally agree with your plan also. That will be a lot of fun.

That's pretty cool!

Good for you guys!Great story great car!Cant wait to see it in person!Thanks for sharing.

Seems to me the best outcome for the car and the McCandless family.

Such a neat piece of drag racing history.

Glad you got it bought.

That fantastic! Be great to see it out on the street.

That's great. Love to see this.

Was there a reason he chose to utilize a convertible back in 73? I'm not familiar with NHRA class designation so I'm not sure if verts are categorized any different, if that's why.

Wasn't his call, mopar said do it, so they did it. They were going after a specific class.

Pretty sure the hard top was in SS/D, convertible got to run SS/E.

Cool car,I saw it for sale,glad you got to aquire it!

Will be great to follow this.
Car looks pretty sinister as it sits right now.

There was a lot of controversy about that car in 1973, HUH
For those that don't know or heard of that car and NHRA screwing all the Mopar Pro Stock racer by giving the SB Chevy racers a advantage on the pounds per cubic inch rule used back then
Mopar decided to make all of its Mopar sponsored Pro Stock racers go back to Super Stock racing and had each sponsored racer build a car for one of the top SS classes from SS/A and SS/AA all the way down to SS/G and SS/GA.
One of the other SS racers in SS/EA filed a protest saying Mopar never made any 1971 Hemi Cuda convertibles, which they hadn't
The head of the Mopar drag racing department ended up having a letter made on Mopar stationary saying they had made either 7 or 12 of those cars to get it in for the Winternationals Similar letter on Dick Landy's 1971 Hemi Challenger using a 1970 Dodge T/A fiberglass hood on his 1971 car
What is the old adage to do anything to win

Why was it used for only a few races?

Most of those racers did a lot of paid match racing back then, most of them made a lot of money doing that.
NHRA Super Stock racing, when they won, back then didn't pay much so most of them gave up the SS racing and went back to match racing. I'm sure some of them lost their deal with Mopar but a lot of them didn't

Congrats! You guys are doing great with collecting the old race cars. It wasn't too long ago I remember you finding the RO23 car.

I think this is the same car. I took these when I was 12 years old in September 1974. It was the 1974 Funny Car Nationals at New England Dragway. Not sure if your dad still drove it at that time, or if the car was sold to someone else.

Great looking car!

Cool!!!