This review is something of a follow-up to an earlier review that R&T did with a 1965 Barracuda S. That one lacked the disc brakes that the ’66 had. But there was another difference: the ’65 had the four speed manual and this ’66 came with the Torqueflite automatic, which makes for an interesting comparison.
The disc brakes were supplied by Kelsey-Hayes, and had noticeably less fade then the front drums of the ’65. But the system’s behavior in a panic stop test was anything but good. The rear drums locked up and there was drastic loss of directional control. The front-rear proportioning was far from ideal, but this issue would plague many American cars for years to come. What they all lacked was a height-sensitive proportioning valve, which increased or decreased pressure to the rear brakes depending on how much or little weight was on the rear axle. My Peugeot 404 had one, and it worked like a charm. I don’t know if American cars ever got around to using them before ABS braking made that issue moot.
The performance with the automatic in comparison to the previous four speed manual was a bit disappointing. It took 1.8 seconds longer to cover the 1/4 mile and was 5.3 seconds slower to 100 mph. Both had the same 235 hp four barrel 273 V8 and the same 3.23:1 rear axle ratio. Not surprisingly, the automatic car was a bit quicker off the line and to 30 mph. Its 0-60 time of 10.3 seconds is decent but not exactly quick.
Torqueflite equipped Mopars had a rep for being just about as fast as four speeds, but that depended to varying degrees on the specific engine. The rather small 273 V8 may not have had the torque to compensate for the automatics losses despite the advantages of being faster out of the hole.
My Father owned the exact duplicate of this car, silver with red interior, purchased 3 years old with 24K on the odometer.
I can personally verify that it equaled or bested the same generation’s 289 Mustang/automatic tranny in street acceleration runs.
The secret to this surprisingly sprightly performance was to watch the tachometer and “hand shift” the Torqueflite automatic transmission. If you just “stabbed it and steered it” the gear changes happened wayyyyyy too early for maximum acceleration.
Please don’t “aks” me how I know this.
🙂
Adjustment of the throttle valve linkage on a Torqueflite to a non-factory setting would raise the shift points nicely. I did it on every Torqueflite car I ever owned. Took about a minute to do.
Unfortunately, I must agree with the “R&T” observations on the Barracuda’s brakes. It stopped better/quicker than the ’63 Falcon Sprint that the ‘Cuda replaced; but still not what I had become accustomed to on my first car.
My ’67 Corvair Monza was slower than Dad’s ‘Cuda but had much better balanced, shorter stopping brakes. The first time I had to stop in a hurry, driving Dad’s car much faster than weather and traffic conditions warranted, I dayum near lost bladder control.
But I was a fast learner.
The real culprits are the very non-linear Bendix duo-servo drums…a fairly small pressure increase results in a substantial increase in braking.
There was nothing the matter with the design of the rear brakes; the real culprit was actually improper hydraulic system balance. Chrysler knew this (see links to the horse’s mouth I posted in another comment on this post) and shrugged.
Both my ‘93 Toyota Land Cruiser and my ‘97 T100 had brake proportioning valves activated by ride height (load and forward weight transfer) as well as ABS. Perhaps it was just a Toyota thing; maybe simpler to engineer in the proportioning for all vehicles, regardless of whether ABS was fitted for a particular market.
Yes, our Toyota trucks all had that simple, but very effective proportioning valve.
Curious that the test car has a Valiant emblem in the grille rather than the fish.
Please enlarge your provided pic and study it.
You will find a stylized barracuda fish in the center.
I rubbed Blue Coral wax off it many a time.
The test car in the magazine article is the one being referenced with a Valiant – not a Barracuda – emblem. That is a bit odd, that the one provided had the Valiant badge in lieu of the Barracuda one, especially when it would be photographed and posted in a well regarded nationally distributed magazine.
Hmmmm…perhaps the test car was an early production model? The previous models did indeed have the Valiant emblem in the center grille.
I recall this stylized fish emblem quite well; having used a worn out toothbrush to remove the excess from my many sloppy Blue Coral wax jobs on Dad’s car.
The 65s have no emblem on the grill. The fog lights have dime size blue and red Valiant shields at their centers. The leading edge of the hood has a short chrome casting engraved with “Barracuda”. This piece hides the hood release mechanism. 65s have no chrome fish unfortunately. The early 64 and a half Barracudas have “Valiant” in chrome script on the right rear edge of the trunk lid. This did not appear on the 65s.
I went outside to look at my 65 just now.
It is very possible that the 66 test Barracuda is not a regular production car. Maybe not a pilot car but I’ll bet it got some special prep before being made available to the press corps. That was pretty commonly done in those days. The grille badge may have been part of that for whatever reason. Maybe it was damaged by the yahoos at Motor Trend earlier in the week and the Valiant grill was what was available on short notice and no one took notice in the rush to get the car put together.
Really, how the hell should I know?
My 65 Barracuda came new with an odd assortment of components. It has the 180HP 273 2bbl with the 4 speed and the factory Hurst shifter. The 273 uses a unique small 9.5″ clutch like the six cylinder cars and mine has the dreaded 9″ drum brakes all around and 13″ wheels. No sway bars. It is basically a slant 6 spec chassis but with a v8 and 4 speed. It’s a bit strange but that is how they made it. It is undergoing some changes and upgrades now.
There are no fog lamps on the Barracuda. Those are the turn signals.
No, it says PLYMOUTH on the US-market cars, or VALIANT on the Canada/Mexico/Export units.
Y’might want to go take another look. 🤓
You know and I know they aren’t fog lights but I see no reason to inform the others just to add disappointment and unhappiness on top of their misery.
You are absolutely correct about the nameplate on the hood. I was pointing out that the 65 Barracuda did not say Valiant anywhere including the name plate. I meant to say Plymouth but wrote Barracuda and didn’t catch the mistake when I proofed my remark.
This might be the fault of my brain. It reminds me of a time when a friend of mine and I were trying to identify the flavor or seasoning in something. It was cumin and for some reason I said that you got cumin by grinding up coriander seeds. He corrected me but I insisted and was getting a little worked up when I actually listened to what I was saying and realized that I was wrong and had been for about several minutes. I was completely sober yet was so sure I was right and he was a blockhead. Then the little light went on and I realized that I was the stupid blockhead who was insisting so as to leave no doubt. Considered but rejected Seppuku.
Coriander gives you Cilantro. Cumin is ground into cumin powder. They are both members of the Parsley family but you don’t ever want to mix them up. Still not worth killing yourself over.
While the ’66 had some improvements over the 1965 car (mainly a decent, integrated gauge package), what ‘wasn’t’ an improvement was the front end. At least there was some attempt to differentiate the 1965 grille from the Valiant with turn signals that looked like foglights. The 1966 was simply identical to the now squared-off, angular Valiant front end, and it’s not surprising that the possibility exists that some of the cars came through with a Valiant emblem in the grille instead of the fish. The 1966 really did look like a fastback Valiant which, ironically, is how it was marketed in Canada (I think).
Given their pro-European/anti-American slant of this time period; this “Road & Track” road test is quite positive, “fair and balanced” and laudatory.
Yup, numb power steering, that they never fixed. I remember that from our ’69 318 Belvedere wagon, and a ’67 273 Coronet 4 dr. I remember my father walking in the door, soon after he bought it, and said he almost flipped it. A school bus pulled in front of him, and he kept over correcting, because he couldn’t feel the road.
Agree with the “numb” feeling of Mopar’s power steering system.
It seemed like GM was always (at least) one generation advanced with their power steering systems.
To be fair about it: FoMoCo’s power steering set up was little better than Mopar in this era.
Our wagon also had the cheap “greasy feeling” steering wheel.
Me three—there was zero road feel in the Chrysler power steering system, and no tactile feedback as to where the centre was. Fine when fetching groceries, and it made for E-Z parking manœuvres, but after a long highway trip one’s shoulders were tense, knotted up, and exhausted from constantly trying to find a centre that wasn’t there. And that was even with as much positive caster as could be dialled in without making problems; it was even worse with more typical alignment settings.
As with the unimplemented rear brake lockup fix I describe below, here too a good fix was possible for zero dollars (or damn near): thicker reaction springs in the power steering gearbox. Chrysler put them in cop-spec boxes—I’m not sure when they started, but I think it was sometime in the ’70s; certainly they were doing it by the ’80s, and it made a vast improvement.
The other problem with the Chrysler power steering system was pump catch: because the steering wheel was so easy to turn, it could also easily be spun so fast as to get ahead of the power steering pump. The effect during spirited driving was that the steering would seem to momentarily lock up until the pump caught back up. Yuck! The thicker reaction springs in the box greatly reduce this, and easy calibration adjustments to the pump clean it up the rest of the way, but Chrysler didn’t bother.
I never minded the numb power steering on my 1963 Sport Fury. Never had that problem on the road. I’ve never seen anyone else mention it, but it was easy to spin the wheel too fast and catch up with the power assist .
From maybe 1957 on all Chrysler power steering cars had 3.5 turns lock to lock, while a lot of others kept an unnecessarily same or similar to a manual steering car 5 or 5.5 turns. My 1956 Belvedere had slower power steering, I think, but it also had a bigger steering wheel so I’m not sure.
And until 1965 big Fords had an add-on PS unit, not built into the steering box, as did the original Mustang if so equipped. I think MoPars always had a dedicated PS steering box. I thought that late 60’s Galaxie power steering felt too heavy. I’ll take light and numb over heavy and numb.
My 1961 Lincoln’s steering was close to being as numb. Didn’t mind that either.
The fix was on the option list…but sadly, almost unknown: fast ratio (16:1) manual steering.
This wasn’t a fix, it was an exchange of one set of problems for another. Chrysler offered the quick-ratio (16:1) manual steering box as a race piece, and that’s what it was. If you weren’t racing, it very efficiently sapped all the joy out of driving the car: much too twitchy on the highway, too stiff around town, and unbearable in parking manœuvres. This was a bit of experience I did heed; next time I did a steering box swap on an A-body I installed a 20:1 manual box (Chrysler, aluminum housing, roller bearings—not the overpriced, overweight aftermarket thing). Perfectly delightful! That’s how they all should have come as standard equipment.
Having driven one recently, I found that not to be the case. The contrary-a fast-ratio box in a light Duster is a delight to drive. It’s as direct and precise as a modern car, connected and controlled. Not sure if his brother’s Satellite is getting that or a Borgeson power box.
My ’62 Lancer and ’65 Valiant were both a good bit lighter than even a light Duster—and my aluminum 225 engines were lighter than whatever might be in the Duster. My tires were likely smaller than those in whatever Duster you drove.
Whoever contemplates steering upgrades in A-body Mopars will have to make their own decision based on what sounds right to them and what kind of driving (and parking) they’ll be doing.
The Mopar A-bodies with front disc brakes did indeed lock up the rear drums if you so much as sneezed hard in the direction of the brake pedal. There was no need of anything so fancy and costly as a height-sensitive proportioning valve; Chrysler could have eliminated this problem completely for $0.00 per car by applying the fix they released in 1962 for police cars that were also prone to rear lockup: smaller-bore wheel cylinders in the rear brakes. Read about it from them here and here. Swapping on the 13/16″ rear cylinders completely cured the rear lockup on every one of numerous A-bodies I owned, without introducing any new problems.
Get that: Chrysler knew how to fix the problem at no cost, and the parts were right there on the shelf, but despite Consumer Reports and every single car magazine justifiably bitching about rear lockup on A-bodies with front discs, Chrysler stared at the sky and said “Huh, looks like rain” and kept putting in the big 15/16″ rear wheel cylinders.
The performance of this car was inline with it’s rivals equipped with a 289 (Ford) or a 283 (Chevy). Anything around 10 seconds to 60 was good for a regular passenger car. Hotter variants were soon ti follow. These are pretty small V8s, especially considering the era. Even though the big blocks were ultimately installed in these cars. It wasn’t until the Cuda got the 340 that it finally get the proper powerplant. The smaller V8s were well suited to the early pony cars and they were not excessively heavy, unlike the 390 that Ford later installed in the Mustang.
Parents 1970 Fiat 125S had a height/load sensitive proportioning valve along with it’s 4 wheel discs. That thing could stop, never got brake fade- despite repeated teenage attempts.
The US car industry led on so many fronts- disc brakes weren’t amongst them.
Cool info about the simple rear brake solution .
Could one also use a different / later year model P.S. pump to alleviate that problem ? .
This is one of my dream cars .
-Nate
A simple pump swap does not alleviate any of the P/S issues—the steering gearbox needs to be rebuilt “cop spec” with the thicker reaction springs (easy service to buy from Firm Feel or Steer & Gear), and the pump and its pulley chosen to match up with the engine’s RPM range.
Thank you .
Our Unit Repair section used to overhaul Dodge cop car steering pumps and boxes in house, I’ve never done more than a re seal .
They cautioned me about not setting the “Spool Valve” correctly as that would cause the car to turn to one extreme by itself . (?) .
I shoulda bought a first gen Barracuda when they were still $600 in VGC .
-Nate
Yup, the spool valve perched atop the steering gearbox must be exactly centred or the car will want to lead (with minor misadjustment) or veer (with major misadjustment) to one side or the other.
No, though the Saginaw pump is better than the others and relatively easy to “tune”. The best fix (other than the preferred one of using manual steering) is the new Borgeson high-precision box sold by Steer N Gear.
Ahhh, the good old days of power steering… when Pops could keep his Imperial on course by bumping its steering wheel around with the stem of his tobacco pipe, while cleaning it. lol
Pops would never have had an Imperial, I don’t remember him ever having an American made vehicle apart from some late 1950’s IHC Travelalls bought new .
-Nate
Height sensitive rear brake proportioning valves were on the 1984 and newer, Dodge and Plymouth mini vans. But to make them work properly you still needed to add 200 lbs to the cargo area and then the braking system was great. I used to buy 4 x 50 lb bags of sand, wrap them in garbage bags and duct tape and put 2 bags over each rear wheel. If you didn’t do this you would end up rear end first in the ditch or on the median when roads were snow or ice covered. We drove our 1985 Dodge Caravan like that for 20 years and over 300,000 miles all over Canada and the USA.