On to the second of our trio of 1965 sporty compacts, soon to be known as pony cars—except for the Corvair. C&D tested the Formula S version with the 235 hp 273 V8, which elevated the Barracuda from a Valiant with a big rear window to about as fine a GT car that was available in the US. It wasn’t a hot rod in the straight line like the K-Code Mustang, but it was decidedly better in handling anything other than a straight line.
Interesting that the text makes no comparison between the ‘Cuda’s and Mustang’s braking performance, nor mention of the four wheel drums. Puny 9” drums no less, though perhaps constrained by 13” wheels. Yet they liked the overall result on a twisty road, which shows that numbers and features don’t always translate into driving enjoyment.
One of my first cars was a Valiant Scamp with four-wheel drum brakes inside 14-inch wheels. It took me years to stop using yaw to slow my cars down.
The Commando 273 was a great engine, and evolved into the legendary 340. I wonder how well this car would have handled with A/C though, since I consider it a Barracuda requirement.
I learned to drive with four wheel drums. I’d read in magazines how discs faded less, etc, but I’d have been happy with just being able to slow down in a straight. My first car with unassisted front discs was a revelation.
Interesting beefs about drivetrain ratios. It’s not clear to me whether the 2.93 (it wasn’t 2.92) rear axle they disliked in the standard Baccaruda was behind a manual or automatic transmission; if automatic, their objection is nonsense—a 273-2bbl/auto A-body with 2.93s behaves quite nicely all around, including in highway overtaking, and the same car with 225/auto does fine with that gearing as well. A car with 273-2bbl/stick and 2.93s would be a bit of a slug off the line, but once going it would have no trouble, not even with overtaking; I suspect that gossippy nugget about Chrysler people calling it dicy never actually happened.
There are pretty clear clues this was a pre-release car they tested (“Formula S” name in the future tense, 13″ rather than 14″ wheels, 9″ rather than 10″ brakes, speculation about what tires would be supplied, etc), and I am inclined to count the 3.09 first gear as another likely prototype-car clue.
It’s general background knowledge in the A-body world that the V8 4-speed cars got exactly the close-ratio box the author pined for, with a 2.66 first gear, while the 6-cylinder 4-speed cars got the 3.09 first gear. A trawl through the factory parts cattledogs and service manuals muddies the waters further, because we run into a fairly common kind of ambiguity: the FPCs show one and the same A833 4-speed used in 6- and 8-cylinder A-body cars in ’64 and ’65, and not until 1966 does the 2.66 first gear appear for V8 A-bodies.
However, the ’65 service manual shows the 2.66 first gear available for the C-body with 361, 383, or 426 engine. So those parts were in the house, and further digging in the exploded views and parts lists suggests there would’ve been nothing stopping their use behind a 273 in an A-body in ’65 (common trans housing, common other parts in the transmission, etc).
The trouble is that Chrysler often didn’t do a very good cataloguing job where there were permutations of equipment, specification, and vehicle line. If there was only one variable for a part (say, whether the car had a 6- or 8-cylinder engine, or an automatic or manual transmission, or was an A- or B- or C-body) things were fine, but throw in another variable or two or three (which 8-cylinder engine, which rear axle ratio, which wheelbase, which production plant, before/after production dates…) and the charts get sloppy. Even in the final-revision catalogue for a given model year, you often have to look, for example, in the Belvedere-Coronet or Plymouth-Dodge column to find the right part for a V8 Valiant-Dart, because the part listed in the Valiant-Dart column is only applicable for 6-cylinder cars—and otherwise like that.
14″ wheels became available for the A-body in the US in ’65, though I don’t know exactly when in ’65. The final-edition ’65 FPC shows the expected three wheels: 13 × 4½”, 14 × 4½”, and 14 × 5½”, the latter noted as “Barracuda”, and the latter two noted as part numbers changed or added since the previous edition of the cattledog. The ’64 FPC lists only the 13 × 4½” wheel for A-bodies.
Brakewise: only 9″ drums listed in ’64, but 10″ drums appear in the ’65 book—and so do discs. The same Kelsey-Hayes 4-piston disc brakes used on the Mustang, actually. It’s more than a little unconscionable that a car with a 273 Commando was let out of the factory with the 9″ drum brakes designed to be adequate in a 1960 Valiant with a 170 engine.
I’m not the right kind of nerd to be able to quote and cite how many of a given year-make-model had particular brakes or a particular paint, or the optional ashtray light, etc. Perhaps a nerd of that type knows whether or not the test car’s grossly underspecified brakes and tires were typical of the cars people actually bought. I am the right kind of nerd to know where to go make enquiries, though!
Derp, I missed the most obvious clue that this was a pre-release car: the magazine is from October 1964, which means the testing was done at least a month or two before that.
(for some reason comments cannot be edited this morning, not even for the usual 15-minute timeframe)
Chrysler was still putting those miserable 9 inch drums in cars in 1971 when they built my Scamp. It was only a six, but I suspect that longer wheelbase hardtop was a heavier car than they were ever designed for, no matter how few cylinders were under the hood.
You’re very very right: those brakes were designed for the lightweight ’60 Valiant with its 106½” wheelbase. As the A-bodies grew bigger and heavier, with more and more optional equipment, the 9″ brakes grew more and more inadequate. Yet they remained standard equipment on 6-cylinder A-bodies right up through ’74, possibly at least partway into ’75. In ’73 they got a new 1⅛” front wheel cylinder bore (up from 1″) but that couldn’t come close to overcoming their inherent inadequacy.
Here’s at least part of the puzzle at least partly illuminated: the 1965 Barracuda brochure lists the Formula S package as including “wide 14-inch wheels with wide tread tires”. And it also lists disc brakes as a dealer-installed option (which another source, a very reliable expert on 1965 A-bodies, informs me availability on the dealer-installed disc brakes began in April ’65).
Oh, and I agree with their “Fair” grade for the instrumentation. That ’65 Valiant instrument cluster was a real downgrade from the ’64 panel.
That profile shot of the wraparound rear window sure looks like the original proposal for the 1962 Plymouth Fury Super Sport. I might go so far as to call the Valiant Barracuda Exner’s Last Stand (although it’s unlikely he had anything to do with it).
I had a 63 v8 fairlane coupe pretty fancy Tudor with 13 inch wheels
The tires would last about 10000 miles I eventually put on
14 inchers from the junkyard. Ford should be ashamed
“18-22mpg “from a 60s V8. Better then my 83 Rover 3500 and the same as me as my d Triumph 2000!. Better than most British 2lt plus sedan the
period. Better gearing perhaps?.
More like imaginative maths.
I’ve never driven a Barracuda, much less a Formula S, but I totally agree with Car and Driver – the exhaust note on the 235hp engine was pure heaven. These cars had a single, large rectangular shaped exhaust tip. I can’t remember exactly what they sounded like in person anymore, but they were my favorite to listen to – at least before the Hemi came out.
The next model year, 1966, all Barracudas received a revised dashboard with complete instrumentation, new tail lights and new front grille.
The awesome 273 4-BBL V8 engine continued as an option.
The 1st gen Barracuda finally got a proper instrument cluster for 1966. Unfortunately, the front end looked even ‘more’ like a Valiant than the two previous years, so much so, that it comes dangerously close to falling into the “what were they thinking” category.
Overall, a pretty complimentary article. Does show that Chrysler, despite its perennial laggard status, deserved some respect for its engineering prowess. Too bad they let us down so badly in the seventies.
I didn’t see any remarks about bad build quality!
I drove a ’65 Barracuda for several years but it only had the 225 and torque flight. No barn burner but it did handle well and radial tires made a big improvement. Previous to that I had a ’67 Mustang, 289, auto trans and while many may think those 9″ drums on the Plymouth were bad, they in-fact were far better than the standard drums on the Mustang. Much less pedal effort and straighter stopping. The Mustang was so bad I had to warn anyone else who drove it… “you’ll think the brakes aren’t working but just push harder”…
The 9″ brakes on my ’61 & ’63 Valiants were extremely strong, fully capable of locking all 4 wheels at 60 mph and keeping them locked until the pedal was released. Found that out the hard way on an emergency stop on the freeway. When I got the car stopped and looked in the rearview mirror I saw rubber dust from the tires blowing around. Of course, some of that must be attributed to those dinky 6.50×13 tires. Can’t say whether fade would be an issue on repetitive stops.
I think the original Pontiac GTO’s had 9 or 9.5 inch brakes, but you never see that addressed in all the articles of glowing praise for the GTO. A friend had a GTO with the drum brakes, and they were absolutely useless above 45 mph.
I really thought the Barracuda was a great looking car until I actually saw it in person. Just another Valiant with that god awful rear window tacked on. I will say they did get the styling right on the later models.
Even in 2-bbl low compression single exhaust tune, the 273 was a sweet little V-8. My A-100 had it coupled with the 727 Loadflite. 140 was the net hp rating, so the advertised 180 gross is probably accurate.