1967 Plymouth Barracuda – Tony’s Terror
When’s the last time you bought a 1967 Plymouth Barracuda for $300? For Tony Cabanilla, it was in 1974 when he picked up this ’67. Before this, the car had been passed around in his group of friends; one guy won it in a poker game, another swooped it after winning a game of pool.
Always a Salinas, California car it was bought new at a dealership before trading hands through a number of locals. Still, the car was a runner and in decent shape when Tony got his hands on it. And since acquiring the car all those years ago he hasn’t thought of letting it go, instead making it more and more his own over the years.
Painted in his garage in 1998 by Tony’s good friend Kenny, the 1967 Plymouth Barracuda strikes a perfect balance with old school drag vibes and nearly 700hp. Packing this kind of punch the car is far from a garage queen. Tony takes the car out to the strip as often as he can and recently broke into the 9s. His best quarter mile time to date is a 9.94 at 135mph, but he implied that this number will continue to get shaved down.
To get there, Tony started with a 440 block which has been bumped up to 493 cubic inches. Bored .030 over with a 4:15 crank, Scott Brown flat tappet cam with .660 lift, CNC-ported Indy SR aluminum cylinder heads, and Ross Racing flat top pistons, this is a motor that means serious business. The end result is a 12.5:1 compression ratio and about 700 naturally aspirated horses, err fishes.
Induction is handled by a 1050cfm Dominator carburetor sitting atop a high-rise Indy intake and after the fuel and air is turned to horsepower, the remnants loudly exit through 2” Hooker headers. From here the exhaust is blown out a side-exit setup which houses 3.5” Borla race mufflers.
With the power sent through a 727 transmission and out back to a 8 ¾ “ Mopar rear end beefed up with a Moser spool and axles, this is a car well built to withstand the abuse of the drag strip. With 4.56 gears pushing the meaty 33×18.5-15 Hoosier rubber, it’s a setup that hooks up too. The Centerline wheels measure 15×3.5 up front and a massive 15×14 in the rear.
Of course, to really get the traction you need a suspension setup to match. Drag race torsion bars with Calver Racing 90/10 shocks reside up front, with an Altson ladder bar setup sorts the handling in the rear.
The car’s been back-halved to make it all fit, which was done in 1994 by Magnum Force Race Car Manufacturing in Campbell, CA. Inside the car you’ll also find Summit Racing seats with RJH’s Racing harnesses tucked into a fully-caged interior. A B&M Pro Ratchet shifter sits between the seats, while the dash remains largely intact. Although the factory dash remains it’s been supplemented with a Grant steering wheel as well as a handful of gauges from Stewart Warner and Autometer.
All-in-all, it’s a very complete drag car which also sees the street quite often. With the light-to-dark orange fade coupled with purple and black, it’s a bold design that looks so good some twenty years later. It’s aggressive as all hell and has the power to back it up.
All that’s left for Tony to do is keep sending it down the strip!
