This Week on Hagerty Marketplace: Pony Cars Bookend a Swedish Classic
Welcome to This Week on Hagerty Marketplace, a recurring recap of the previous week’s most noteworthy cars and significant sales from the Hagerty Marketplace online auctions.
We’re featuring a pair of pony cars that bookend a Swedish classic this week—all three may be spoken for, but there are plenty of appealing cars and trucks on Hagerty Marketplace. If you want one of them for a Christmas present for someone, bid. If you want one of them for your own Christmas present, share the link!
1970 Plymouth AAR Barracuda Tribute
Sold for $69,550
Chrysler may have been a bit late to the high-powered pony-car wars of the later 1960s and early 1970s, but it made up ground quickly on the Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro with models like the 1970 Plymouth AAR ‘Cuda. AAR, of course, stands for All American Racers, the tuning shop owned by Formula 1 champ Dan Gurney. Chrysler hired Gurney to develop the performance version of the Barracuda to race against the Mustang and Camaro in the highly competitive Trans Am series, and Chrysler dedicated a production-model version of the race car for the 1970 model year only.
To say that the AAR ‘Cuda is highly collectible is an understatement. This is a tribute car, made from a Barracuda that originally had the 383-cubic-inch V-8 but is now fitted with a third-generation 6.1-liter Hemi V-8, mated to the classic A833 four-speed manual transmission with a pistol-grip shifter, connected through a McLeod clutch. It’s equipped with air conditioning from Vintage Air and wears 17-inch Rallye wheels from Year One. Much of the body has been replaced with new parts, painted Stryker Purple Metallic with Granite Graphite Gray Metallic on the hood and AAR stripes. The interior received a similar updating.
Underneath, new parts include the driveshaft, front disc brakes from Classic Performance, a new fuel tank and fuel pump, and a new aluminum radiator with an electric fan. The build was just completed earlier this month by High Octane Restorations of Savannah, Georgia. Selling for just under $70,000, it has much of the personality of the classic AAR ‘Cuda, but it’s modern enough to serve as a daily driver. Well bought.
1966 Volvo 1800S
Sold for $23,000
Seen for the first time by somebody who doesn’t know what it is, the 1800S often elicits a surprised response: “That’s a Volvo?” Yes, it is, possibly the most beautiful car ever built by the Swedish company, though it was actually assembled in Great Britain before production moved to Sweden in 1963. Nonetheless, from its introduction in 1961, the 1800S made people think differently about the marque.
The 1800S has a 1.8-liter, overhead-valve, twin-carb four-cylinder under the hood, pumping out 115 horsepower. Transmission is a four-speed synchromesh manual, with overdrive. This car appears to be largely original, with updates that include the installation of three-point Volvo seat belts, four new tires, and a 2002 respray in the original Light Blue color. Interior upholstery is black leather and vinyl.
1986 Ford Mustang GT Convertible
Sold for $13,910
Those Fox-bodied Ford Mustangs have held up well, haven’t they? Especially, we think, in GT trim like this one, powered by the so-durable 210-horsepower, fuel-injected 5.0-liter V-8, connected to a four-speed automatic transmission. This car was delivered new in California and spent much of its life there before it was sold to its second owner in 2009, who kept the Mustang until selling it here.
The consignor says the car has been garaged for the past 15 years and has received regular maintenance and oil changes. In 2017, it was repainted in the original Bright Red color and re-decaled, with the factory seats recovered in leather, which sit beneath a new white convertible top. The General G-Max 225/55ZR16 tires were new in 2023. This pony car should have a lot of enjoyable, open-top miles left in it.
