No hard proof exists to say that Chrysler intended to build a four-door E-body in the early Seventies. For that matter, no hard proof exists to say that Chrysler didn't, either. Dave Walden, however, believed in the idea so much that he decided to build a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda with two extra doors more or less from scratch. The resulting car, the only known four-door Barracuda in the world, will soon come up for auction.
According to the blog that Walden kept to document the car's build, he had already finished a few factory-correct restorations of other muscle-era Mopars and pony cars and was looking to do something different for his next project. In September 2010, he came across a rendering of a bluish-gray four-door Barracuda — Walden didn't specify whether it was a factory rendering, so it very well may have been one of Aaron Beck's E-body photochops, which Beck had posted in March of that year — and subsequently decided that the rendering needed to become reality.
Beck's vision specified a Barracuda—not a 'Cuda, which would have been a bridge too far, even for a photochopper accustomed to altering reality—powered by a 383 under a flat hood and fitted with redline tires on steelies with pie-pan caps. (For what it's worth, he also included a four-door Barracuda woodie station wagon and even a two-door Challenger hearse in his collection of renderings.) More significantly, Beck also decided his what-if four-door Barracuda deserved a pillarless hardtop treatment. Walden decided to take the build in a slightly different direction, envisioning a pillared sedan with a rally hood, Gator Grain vinyl top, and Lemon Twist Yellow paint.
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