Why Low Numbers in 1969?

in the summer of 1969, i had saved up about $500 ($1.00/hr.) from my work as a "pin-boy" at the bowling alley in my hometown owned by the same guy that owned the Chrysler-Plymouth dealership. i stopped by the dealership one saturday morning to look at a 68 fastback formula s barracuda that one of the mechanics had ordered special and had decided to sell. the owner guy was very friendly and he called me over to a desk in the showroom. he said i ought to wait until the fall because he had been to a private new model "dealer showing" in detroit and the 1970 plymouth Cuda was a completely new car and it was "beautiful." he also went on about all the "race stuff" that was available on the car. i asked him about the price and he said they were going to be about $800 more than the 69 Barracudas but that they were "worth it." that would have put them around $3600-$3800 dollars which was A LOT of money in 1969! i didn't listen to him and bought the 68 formula S from the mechanic for $2200.00. it only had a little over 12k miles on it. as it turned out, that car with all the modifications the mechanic had done ended up being the fastest car in my town.

there were more chevy and ford guys in my town than mopar fans and those guys were all excited about the "new" camero - the 69 Z/28 and SS-396 and the mustang mach-1 and Boss 302. as to the mopar guys, all the Plymouth dealerships were offering deals on a new 69 Roadrunner for around $2800.00 and that deal was hard to beat.

if you were a 18-25 year old male "car nut" in 1969, there were lots of choices of new cars to buy between $3000-$3600. for that kind of money, you could buy ANY muscle car from GM, Ford and Chrysler except a Corvette. AND muscle cars had been around for 5 years at that point and there were a lot of choices of used muscle cars. for $3000, you could buy ANY GTO 64-69; ANY Corvette 53-67; ANY mustang 65-68; any mopar 64-68. the 69 Barracuda was just one out of scores of cool cars that a "gear head" might consider buying in 1969.

and remember, "loyalty" to a car brand was MUCH stronger back then than it is now. there were "Ford" guys; "GM guys; and "mopar guys." whatever you were, THAT'S the car you bought!

there were lots of reasons why sales of the 1969 Barracuda were not as high as other similar cars that year.