Plymouth Barracuda was the first pony car on market in 1964. Mustang went out on a market 16 days later. But why Mustang is a well known while Plymouth Barracuda is not so famous. The story is a bit sad. In 1964 Plymouth Valiant Barracuda was released featuring the noticeable glass rear end. But a couple of really huge mistakes by Chrysler bosses. Barracuda had worse engines and a bad marketing company. And Ford Mustang took the lead. Chrysler tried to recover losses and released Barracuda Formula S in 1965 with a better engine. But Mustang anyway kept its pole position by sales. Year by year sales of Plymouth Barracuda went down and down. The last attempt to change the situation was made in 1966 - a new design, a new engine. Plymouth Barracuda 1967 went out. Cool look, no glass rear end, and a better interior. But new huge engines brought new problems - lack of controllability. In 1968 Chrysler decided to add Hemi engine to Plymouth Barracuda. But this did not help and not only Ford Mustang but Chevrolet Camaro, Pontiac Firebird took over. And unfortunately, the very first pony car on market Plymouth Barracuda could not find a suitable place on it and disappeared.
Brief stats. Plymouth Barracuda 1964 - 1969 counts 265 991 cars produced while Ford Mustang in the same 1964 - 1968 years released 2 377 100 cars. Almost 10 times more. A sad story.
Comments
Post a Comment