Lightweight fiberglass, no backseat but all engine, this is the wildest Barracuda ever built
Published on Oct 06, 2025 at 8:40 AM (UTC+4)
by Molly Davidson
Last updated on Oct 03, 2025 at 2:18 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Emma Matthews
Imagine a Barracuda that left the factory with no paint, no mirrors, and no back seat.
Fiberglass panels up front, paper-thin glass, an interior stripped bare.
Under the hood, a race-bred HEMI is usually reserved for dragsters.
It wasn’t a street car, it was a weapon – the wildest ‘Cuda ever built.
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The secret Plymouth built for drag racing
This was the Plymouth Barracuda at its most extreme – rebuilt as a Super Stock drag racer in the late ’60s.
Chrysler wanted wins in NHRA and AHRA, so it created a package no sane driver could use on the street.
Just 72 cars were converted by Hurst Performance between 1967 and 1969, all fastbacks with either a 4-speed manual or 3-speed auto.
The highlight was the engine: a full-race 426 HEMI with dual Holleys, a cross-ram intake, 12.5:1 compression, and Hooker headers.
This wasn’t the tamer ‘street HEMI’ you could option in a Road Runner or regular ’Cuda – it was the competition version, built only for the quarter mile.
Everything else was sacrificed for speed.
Plymouth stripped these cars down to nothing: fiberglass panels in place of steel, thin glass instead of the usual weighty panes.
Every comfort was also deleted – heater, mirrors, insulation, even the back seat.
They rolled out in gray primer with gel-coated fiberglass, looking half-finished but ready for the strip.
Why it really was the wildest Barracuda ever built
No other Barracuda, before or after, came close to this level of factory insanity.
Compared to a street HEMI ’Cuda, these things were another species – lighter, rawer, barely legal outside the strip.
Plymouth even reminded dealers to treat them as ‘not for passenger use.’
Most originals were raced hard, wrecked, or modified into oblivion.
The handful that survive today are unicorns – not because they were collectible, but because they weren’t meant to last.
The Barracuda may have started life as a humble Valiant with a fastback roof, but in HEMI Super Stock form, it mutated into a fiberglass, bare-bones drag monster.
And that’s why it still holds the crown as the wildest Barracuda ever built.
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Molly Davidson is a Junior Content Writer at Supercar Blondie. Based in Melbourne, she holds a double Bachelor’s degree in Arts/Law from Swinburne University and a Master’s of Writing and Publishing from RMIT. Molly has contributed to a range of magazines and journals, developing a strong interest in lifestyle and car news content. When she’s not writing, she’s spending quality time with her rescue English staffy, Boof.
