71 Cuda Convertible SS/E come back to life

Can't wait to have this on the road. Dad raced this car in 73-74. Was originally a 383 4 speed barracuda. Converted to a 426 and raced in SS/E. Car still had the Hemi that was ran back in 73-74 when I got it. I'm going a little different on this one as the goal is to make it a touring type of car. We can't grow this hobby if the only place kids can see these types of cars are at special events and museums. They need to see them going down the road. Travis Hess (Tuki) is completing the paint work. The 426 has a pro flow FI on it and friendly gearing to allow proper interstate driving. Hope to have the car back end of Feb. We'll have some assembly to finish and hope to have it on the road going to events in March!

Beautiful car no matter how you look at it. Enjoy the ride!
Terry W.

It's gonna be awesome!

Cool that it will get some publicity - it's hard to stir enthusiasm among the greater population when the cars are hidden away.
Takes some balls to drive a car that valuable on the street, but it will definitely make the day for a lot of folks !

Incredible! Question; Back in the day..why would someone choose a Vert over a hardtop for racing? I don’t understand the advantage.

Today's progress

PNC - it was a weight-break deal, to position a car/engine combo at an advantage in a specific class.
Ballast (often hidden) also played a part, too, and could/would be added within limits.

Awesome and so neat, thanks for doing it. I’m excited to see the progress. Thanks for showing

thank you for sharing the restoration process !

Cool car. I check out Tuki's paint jobs on his Instagram page every so often. If you want a retro race car paint scheme he is the guy.

What rims and tires go on a car like this so it can be street driven?

Wheel/time combo Isn't fully sorted yet. We still need to do some assembly once it gets back to Burlington. Then we'll figure that out. I outsourced a good chunk of this due to our space limitations. We have multiple projects we're trying to finish up now. Trying to button up a lot of 1-2 weeks projects so we can get down to just 1 big project at a time and just do maintenance on things as needed.

Will this car also be on display at the museum? I need to get around to visiting the museum.

It's getting very tight in there. The goal is to drive it, a lot. It would be at any of the events we put on at the museum however.

It would be great if you bring it to Rockingham and Farmington Mopar shows this spring. Your Dad with it of course!

More updates!

Really nice story!!!

The work being done looks excellent!

Being uninformed, a question that I have is; what is the best time period to wait before putting sticker decals over fresh paint? I realize that back in the day racers needed to get their race cars done and on to the race track asap. Plus the factories put sticker decals on cars as they went down the assembly line. Is “shrinkage “ a concern?

i have wondered the same thing.
i realize paint and materials are galaxies ahead of those 50+ years ago, but with today's costs involved, one would not want to ruin fresh paint by installing stickers or decals too soon, especially after doing a multiple color/design that has taken considerable time and effort to apply.

I'll hazzard a guess, we aren't looking at any decals

We will be putting decals on the car to complete the look, as it was raced. I'll default to Travis Hess on when those should actually be applied!

Vaughn gets his name added. He was quite the character according to my Dad.

I recall yakking with your Dad back in the late '80s/early '90s and I think he mentioned that car was kind of a hand ful to drive and they had a time taming that beast down...is this THAT car?

The latest updates

Did your dad tell you how much controversary that car caused at the Winternationals that year? It was a bunch, If I'm remembering correctly they enter it as a 1971 model year, not a 1970
Same thing on Landy's 1971 SS/ D car, he was on his way back to his shop after being told his car was not legal due to something on that car that was wrong that I never got the straight scoop, on (I think it was that he had a 1970 T/A Hood on the car and told NHRA that Dodge had ran out of the shaker parts when his car was "built") NHRA finally relented and let him come back the next day and race that weekend, he got beat in the first round of class on Friday
BTW, your Dad was and hopefully still is a great man, thanks be to God for people like him

It was an original 383 car so no gills. They made him cut them in, which he did by hand. You can tell when looking at them closely haha.

Beyond the obvious financial involvement, is there any kind of story behind Brooklyn Heavy's association with this car?

Car is incredible. Thanks for sharing.

Let's all chip in for an open-headers ticket fund !

More updates!

humm

It looks so much better now that it has it's character back.