Blue's Barracuda
Posted: Sun Jan 08, 17 10:23 am
'68 Barracuda's are probably my favourite Mopar of all time, I've had a couple many years ago and have wanted another for a good few years now. when I bought the Valiant I couldn't decide which I'd rather have, so looked for both, the Valiant came up first so I happily went for that. I decided a Barracuda would be my retirement project and left it at that.
Then about a year ago I thought I've got a little bit of money earning nothing in a savings account, I've got the space, what am I waiting for?
Finding one wasn't easy, there's virtually none in the UK and what there are are RHD often in a sad state. I don't mind work but I didn't want a major project either.
So the brief was it had to be a '68, it had to be a fastback, V8, no rust and as complete and damage free as possible. Other than that I wasn't too fussed. So the search was on and I can tell you there's virtually nothing out there, and what little there was was either wrecks, race cars or crazily overpriced resto's.
Wrecks were under $10k, then nothing and the nice stuff starts at $20k and goes to $60k and then there's the cars that someone dropped a Hemi in and your into the $100K mark. Most of these cars don't sell and endlessly do the rounds of the usual internet sites and sellers.
So that's the background, in early November I spotted one on eBay as a buy it now and apart from being a bit scuffier than I ideally wanted, it fitted the brief. Problem was it was suspiciously cheap, a zero feedback seller who I rapidly deduced was almost certainly Mexican, it didn't inspire confidence.
So I watched it and continued searching. Then after a few weeks he dropped the price, I still couldn't make my mind up and then a day before the auction ended I thought what the hell and hit the button. At this point I hadn't spoken to or even contacted the seller, not what I'd recommend at all.
As it happened, when I called him the Mexican guy was happy enough to deal with me and sent me copies of the documents and was no problem to deal with at all. So, fast forward to Christmas Eve when Don kindly picked it up from Southampton for me I got to see what I'd actually bought, even though it had come out of Nevada, serious rust was my big worry. It was pretty much as described, no better no worse, phew!
Then about a year ago I thought I've got a little bit of money earning nothing in a savings account, I've got the space, what am I waiting for?
Finding one wasn't easy, there's virtually none in the UK and what there are are RHD often in a sad state. I don't mind work but I didn't want a major project either.
So the brief was it had to be a '68, it had to be a fastback, V8, no rust and as complete and damage free as possible. Other than that I wasn't too fussed. So the search was on and I can tell you there's virtually nothing out there, and what little there was was either wrecks, race cars or crazily overpriced resto's.
Wrecks were under $10k, then nothing and the nice stuff starts at $20k and goes to $60k and then there's the cars that someone dropped a Hemi in and your into the $100K mark. Most of these cars don't sell and endlessly do the rounds of the usual internet sites and sellers.
So that's the background, in early November I spotted one on eBay as a buy it now and apart from being a bit scuffier than I ideally wanted, it fitted the brief. Problem was it was suspiciously cheap, a zero feedback seller who I rapidly deduced was almost certainly Mexican, it didn't inspire confidence.
So I watched it and continued searching. Then after a few weeks he dropped the price, I still couldn't make my mind up and then a day before the auction ended I thought what the hell and hit the button. At this point I hadn't spoken to or even contacted the seller, not what I'd recommend at all.
As it happened, when I called him the Mexican guy was happy enough to deal with me and sent me copies of the documents and was no problem to deal with at all. So, fast forward to Christmas Eve when Don kindly picked it up from Southampton for me I got to see what I'd actually bought, even though it had come out of Nevada, serious rust was my big worry. It was pretty much as described, no better no worse, phew!