Barn-find Hemi ’Cuda uncovered in secret Midwest location
Ryan Brutt is a huge fan of muscle cars. Mopars, in particular. He chronicles his finds from small towns across the country in his YouTube channel, Auto Archaeology, and among his recent discoveries is one of the most sought-after muscle cars of all time. That’s right—a 1970 Hemi ’Cuda four-speed in the very desirable In Violet metallic.
The 426 Hemi is a legendary engine thanks to its monster cylinder heads that flow a tremendous amount of air and fuel. Combine the 425-hp, dual-quad engine with one of the lightest cars in Mopar’s fleet at the time and thus was born the Hemi ‘Cuda—a ready-made drag strip ruffian that many consider the pinnacle of Plymouth muscle car history. Combine that with one of the most iconic of Mopar’s High Impact colors and you’ve got the recipe for one seriously collectible Mopar. As we’ve seen in the past, the right color can make a Mopar muscle car a truly hot commodity, and In Violet is among the most desirable of all.
There’s a lot to unpack in this find, from the story of the car itself to how it ultimately ended up on Brutt’s channel. Initially, the current owner was in the market for a Dodge Challenger 440 Six Pack convertible but couldn’t find one. Instead he opted for its Plymouth cousin; the example he landed on just happened to be a Hemi four-speed model equipped with a shaker hood.
The Hemi’s air cleaner lid ordinarily makes for a fabulous sight when the hood is closed, but this one has had its twin four-barrel intake and shaker scoop removed in favor of a Hilborn mechanical fuel injection system. The stacks are gone, although it doesn’t take much to imagine a set of eight bell-mouthed stacks poking through the void where the shaker lid once lurked.
We called Brutt to learn more about this find and how it came together. The car came onto his radar back in 2015 but he didn’t get around to tracking it down until March 2018, when this video, posted last month, was filmed. He keeps a careful catalog of all leads and potential locations, with Google Earth and Google Streetview serving as his main tools. Naturally, he keeps a close eye on potential hiding spots in his travels, too.
Has the winter weather has put a damper on his auto archeology? Brutt noted that the lack of any seriously heavy snow in the Midwest this season has kept car spotting going a bit longer than usual. “It’s been a real good time to go hunting,” he said. “Leaves are off the trees and there aren’t any bugs. All the foliage is down.” That means longer sight lines and fewer hiding places for cars parked in side yards or down driveways. “I have 3000 pins on the map from 10 years of doing this,” Brutt added, noting that the majority of his leads are still unexplored; he often can only check up on out-of-the-way leads when plans to travel nearby overlap.
Our own Barn Find Hunter, Tom Cotter, has written and spoken at length about what it takes to turn up cool old cars, and Brutt has his own methods. Digital detective skills come in handy; in the case of this Cuda, he used some GeoGuessr tricks to home in on the location of the ‘Cuda based on a photo he found posted online. “This was probably the most hardcore sleuthing I’ve done,” Brutt told us.
We hope you let all this good advice sink in as a lesson but also as a warning: if you post a photo of your weathered Mopar muscle car online, the Auto Archeologist may come knocking.
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Finally, a comment without any bemoaning and groaning. You nailed it!
So glad I got my driver’s license and lived the muscle car era of the 70’s………will never forget that car period of my life…………..do I want to relive that period?…………not a chance, been there, done that. It is more fun to tell the stories from that muscle car era. As fast as these cars were THEN, an off the showroom floor WRX or any cheaply moded Honda will kill this Hemi today and get 30 miles to the gallon doing it.
Not only are the people who “look” for these cars in it for the money, they are smart enough to stay away from the money pit of restoring it. If you went back to the 80’s or early 90’s and you found a nice Camaro or Challenger or whatever, you took it to a body shop and got a quote for the body and paint work………cheap. By the mid 90’s the word body work on a muscle car was replaced by the word “RESTORATION”…………same work by the body shop but at 10X’s the price and 10X’s slower. The only thing that got work done on it back then was the body……..errr……I mean “RESTORATION” shops calculator………”we looked closer and found this……….ADD another $10,000 to my quote”
……….no thank you, this Hemi can rot as the owner would sooner live with memories.
I too lived during the days of the muscle cars, however, the cars I had were not exactly ‘muscley’. A 1968 Corvette roadster with a 327, a 1969 Camaro with a 327, and a 1972 Corvette with a 327. Not the fastest cars on the block, but I loved them all (especially the insurance premiums!)
Who’s the guy on TV that restores Chrysler cars? Let him at this one. He’ll tell you the color of the nuts on the hood hinges, printing on the windshield washer hoses……
“How would you restore this?”
I’d find a partner with deep pockets.
Basket case
I’m sure it ran when parked. Looking at the snow on the ground I would be afraid that the rust might outweigh the remaining metal but who knows. If I had this car I would restore it myself. I am almost finished with my 72 Vette and if I had to pay a so called restorer I’m sure the cost would be way more then what I have into it.
I’ll bet that HEMI motor is long gone. Front end is riding high in the picture.
Well… I should have watched the video… So, how much in the condition it’s in is it worth…50 K!??
It could be restored with a bunch of chinese parts and then sold at auction for too much money to someone who will never drive it. That’ll be OK because it probably won’t run very well anyway.
The important thing to find is the VIN plate. If it’s a real Hemi Cuda, it’s worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to the right restorer. It has to be restored with all the right parts and the correct color paint, and it has to be done by a professional.
My 69 mach 1 had one of those for lunch in 73. 428 and a C6 would launch great. A hemi 4 spd not so much. We launched, I heard the 426 over my 428 and looked in the rear view mirrior. He was fish tailing way over in my lane behind me. Beat him by 3 or 4 car lengths. The 1/4 of rubber he left stayed on the road a long time.
My 69 mach 1 had one of those for lunch in 73. 428 and a C6 would launch great. A hemi 4 spd not so much. We launched, I heard the 426 over my 428 and looked in the rear view mirrior. He was fish tailing way over in my lane behind me. Beat him by 3 or 4 car lengths. The 1/4 of rubber of rubber he left stayed on the road a long time.
How is paint that is barely there considered valuable?
My two itches are my 65 -442 convertible, & my 1970 455-4 speed 442 owned the 65 since 1970, & I bought the 70 in 1976 at the height of the gas crisis. Have owned them since then, driven them for years, put in my garage, did the wife & kids thing, now I’m back in the cars! Locals always want to buy them! I recently found a 67 Shelby (Positive numbers car) close by, but the entire front clip is removed. The Car is nose in, flush to the firewall, against a wall in the next town over. 9″ rear end, air dam vents in roof line, scoops on the rear quarters, cutouts for the dual exhaust…. Gotta big ITCH over that car! I can see my Bank account $$$$ dwindling as I think about it. Some decent cars are still out there. I’ve seen & spoken to a guy with a 71 318 Cuda Convertible been in a leaky 100-year-old barn for 20 + years…… I wonder what that’s worth??!!
I suppose being parked in plain sight hardly constitutes snooping, but I wonder just how much peering into peoples’ private property is part of the quest for “barn finds.” I may just be an old crank but just because you can see my house from the street hardly argues that such images should be posted on-line for the whole world. And aerial photos showing my back yard definitely cross the line, in my opinion.
I would send it to Springfield, OR to Mark Worman (Graveyard Carz) and resurrect that beast. What a car!
When you open the door, can you see your feet? Sure… Worth restoring (especially if the engine matches), and it will take the better part of maybe $200K at a Mopar specialist if you want it done by the end of the decade, but it will be proper Hemi to start with. Everything that is necessary to put it back together is available, but the expensive part is the 1000s of hrs of labor. Can you break even? Maybe. Keep it long enough, maybe eek out a profit. What I see is a car that will be put together, never driven or properly developed. Probably a museum queen. Hopefully, someone with the skills and time does it themselves, and actually drives the thing. ‘Hate to see it go to some flipper.