’70 HEMI CUDA
There’s quite a story behind this car; it lived a hard life in a very short time but now it’s back to how Ma Mopar intended, with some important “fun to drive” upgrades.
Way back when, it came from the factory as en EF8 (Ivy Green Metallic) hemi car with an automatic tranny, 4 wheel power drum brakes and an 8 ¾” rear end. It was also ordered with the only known example of the H6FW green and white interior in a ‘70 Hemi ‘cuda.
The son of one of the original owners still lives in Yakima, and he’s provided some early history on the car, though it’s all a bit foggy after all this time. As the story goes:
Soon after purchasing the car in Puyallup, it was put to work drag racing at SIR, where it was painted pink and campaigned as the Pink Panther, complete with stuffed animal. Apparently that didn’t last long due to copyright infringement, so it was painted black with a period-correct lace job with Barry’s Hemi Cuda down the sides – and of course huge wide rear tires. After that, fender flares were added, the car was painted white and the green and white interior was dyed black.
One of the original owners was killed in a car accident, so the surviving owner drove it as a family car, but it was too much for the wife and drank too much gas, so the hemi was removed and crated and a 383 installed. The hemi was crated up and stored in a warehouse, from where it disappeared.
In the late 70’s, the car was sold and painted red, from which point the trail goes cold until the mid 80’s, when it re-appeared in the Seattle area and changed hands a couple of times as a project car that had some pretty dubious rust repairs and bondo work. Oddly enough, in the early 80’s the engine was found, but had been nearly split in two after being run in a top fuel dragster.
Galen Govier got involved in the late 80’s, decoded the fender tag (it’s actually a highly optioned, two-tag car), going over a ton of pictures from the then-owner, and reproducing the second tag that was severely corroded and documenting the car in the Chrysler Registry. Unfortunately no broadcast sheet was ever found.
Fast forward a few years to when the car was sitting in a local shop, paint and body done and then nothing else but boxes of original parts in varying states of repair. Oddly enough there was a numbers matching engine with the car, as well as a period correct transmission, but investigation by several “in the know” Mopar dignitaries indicated that it was actually a replacement block that had been restamped – a pity, as it would have been better left blank. Later paperwork indicates that the auto tranny was also restamped to be date-code correct, too.
As originality had already been compromised, the car was built to look as it came from the factory with the EF8 paint and H6FW interior (original dash just needed cleaned up and redyed, no cracks at all, and the 5 speaker AM/FM radio still worked). It was actually a stripe-delete from the factory, but that’s just not right – hemi cars deserve a hockey stripe! In the “fun to drive” upgrades department, a 3.54 Track Pack Dana 60 was swapped in, along with the 18 spline 4-speed from a wrecked ‘70 hemi Challenger. Finally, a set of period-correct Mopar front disc brakes were installed.
The car eventually made it to my garage via some serious horse trading and was recently inspected and verified by Galen Govier, with a full report in my office.
