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The Voracious Fish photo galleries are broken into 3 phases:
Phase One (now finished) was getting the car into useable, running condition.
Phase Two (current phase) involves turning the fish into a decent daily driver, enjoying the heck out of it and gathering parts for Phase Three.
Phase Three (hopefully soon, but maybe never) will be a moderate to heavy restoration into something remarkable, but still driveable and fun!
Why a 1965 Barracuda? I've enjoyed old cars since my childhood and during my teens I watched my brother and some friends enjoying their muscle cars, but I never had one of my own. At 18 I finally got my drivers license and went to buy a 1969 AMC Javelin for $900. My father came with me and succeeded in talking me out of it. I ended up with a van instead because I needed it for work and it was the practical choice. In hindsight the Javelin was a better choice and would have required less work than my old 1974 Ford Van did, but I didn't have a clue then.
Somewhere around that time (mid '80's) I spotted a gold glassback Barracuda. At first I wasn't sure what it was, but I was sure it was cool and unique. It was an early muscle car with an old granny grocery-getter appeal. One day in the late 1990's I visited a cruise night somewhere and got the itch for a cool car again. I wasn't getting any younger and began to look at muscle cars for sale on the Internet. I found myself looking at glassback Barracudas and about a month before getting married I dreamed of using one as a wedding chariot. This sealed the decision to find one. I joined The Early Barracuda/Valiant mailing list and learned as much as I could about Barracudas. Compared to other Mopar Muscle these days, a Barracuda was still affordable too! I liked the idea of a car created during the dawn of the muscle car era, a car with that granny appeal but still cool enough to cruise in. I became consumed with the idea of owning a Barracuda.
Why this particular black on red Barracuda? I searched TRADERONLINE.COM and found 50 different Barracudas for sale but one particular Barracuda stood out, a black Formula S with red interior. I knew I wanted a Formula S and I always wanted a red interior (it reminded me of my childhood cruising in my Dad's 1964 Ford Country Squire station wagon. It was basically a Galaxy 500 with a 390 4-barrel, dual exhaust and it had a bright red interior!)
Here is the FOR SALE picture of the Formula S I wanted. It was wearing some '69 Dart GTS wheel covers and an old pair of Cragars! It was in Minneapolis, USA, about a 2 day drive from me here in Ottawa, Canada. The car was built in Los Angeles, California and delivered to Texas. Its first 30 years of life are a bit sketchy. It ended up in northern Minnesota where it apparently sat in a garage for 8 years awaiting restoration. The owner finally decided he had too many projects and put the car outside with a sign on it. Enter Jay from Minneapolis who bought it off the side of the road for his daughter in 1995. He knew it was special and ended up with another car for her. The Barracuda sat for the next 4 years outside under a tarp. After a few phone calls and emails Jay sent us a video of the car. It looked good. I found a mechanic nearby to go check out the car for me. I sent him some money and he reported back that the car was in really good condition with very little rust. The car was non-running, but he reported the engine would turn and everything looked good. He noted the dual-point distributor and black crinkle valve covers were missing but there were some spare tires in the back seat and a whole lot of mold and mildew to make up for it! Some sticks of wood were holding up the ripped headliner, so getting inside to navigate it out of the mud it was sitting in shouldn't be a problem! He said if I didn't buy it, he was going to! Another guy in Florida was considering the car as well, so my wife Lisa and I just decided to go for it. We bought it without ever actually seeing it! We negotiated fast and set about getting the car here in time for our wedding on September 25, 1999. It was difficult to find a delivery company that would ship a non-running car, but finally we managed to get it here.