The 1960s was undoubtedly the golden era of American muscle cars, a time when manufacturers created numerous low-volume special editions that could run way quicker than the regular models prowling Main Street, USA at the time. Today, the COPO Camaros, Ram Air V Pontiacs and Stage 1 Buicks from that decade are well known, but only the most diehard Mopar fans have heard of B029 Barracudas.

First published in the July 2025 issue of Street Machine

Packing fibreglass body panels, stripped interior, and a solid lifter-equipped 426 Hemi with 12.5:1 comp, the 1968 B029 Barracuda possessed all the heat needed to run 10-second quarter-mile times off the showroom floor. It’s thought only 50 of them were built, which makes them as rare as honest politicians, so they’re highly prized by collectors today.

It was definitely a model that Victorian Rodney Neindorf had on his ultimate hot-car wishlist, but being so rare, he knew he was never likely to come across one in the wild. “They don’t really come up unless someone builds a replica,” he says. Knowing this, Rodney decided to build his own take on Mopar’s biggest fish, envisioning an epic, Hemi-powered Barracuda that would run hard at the drags and put the frighteners on Ford and GM fans at the local cruise night.

That said, the 611ci monster Hemi that now powers this ’Cuda was originally intended for another of Rodney’s Mopars. “I took my ’72 Challenger to Calder and loved it, so we decided to build the Hemi and put it in that car,” he explains. “But then these things take time, and in that time, things changed because I saw the Barracuda.”

The ’67 model in question was owned by guy in Cranbourne, and Rodney’s initial offer to purchase it was turned down. “He wanted to restore it, because it’s a factory 273ci V8 car with a/c and power steering; I think he rejected my offer because he knew I was going to molest it,” he laughs. “Finally, two years later, he conceded defeat, as he didn’t have the time to restore it, so I got it for my original offer. We then worked on getting it registered before pulling the original engine and starting the build.”

The work got underway by Rodney ditching the usual Mopar torsion-beam suspension in favour of a full coil-over strut layout by Control Freak Suspensions, along with Viking shocks. The A-arm layout also saw the wobbly factory steering box swapped out for a Flaming River rack.

Up the back, the leaf springs were turfed and a custom triangulated four-link by Psidup Fabrications was installed, wearing coil-over struts and AFCO shocks. “Psidup also fabricated the six-point rollcage, subframe connectors and anti-roll bar,” Rodney says.

“The Control Freak front end sets the rack and-pinion to the front of the car, with Mustang stub axles, and this meant we could use off-the-shelf TTI 2.25in extractors,” he continues.

It was then time to install the mammoth Hemi, but despite the extra room freed up by the new front end, cramming the big mill into an engine bay designed for a small-block was no easy feat.

Built by Pro Race Engines, the aftermarket World Products Hemi block runs 4.5-inch siamese bores and is topped by Stage V Engineering Millennium heads. It swings 611 cubes thanks to a Callies crank with matching Callies rods, while the slugs are Arias units that measure up at 12:1 comp, and the cam is a custom solid-roller. “The engine builder had to clearance one side of the rods to clear the cam journal,” Rodney says. “It’s so tight in there.”

The Stage V heads are filled with good fruit like Keith Black rocker stands, Stage V rockers, Jet Engineering 3/8-inch pushrods, and 2.35-inch inlet and 2.02-inch exhaust valves. Keith Black also supplied the billet 90psi oil pump, which sucks out of the Russell oil pan.

QuickBitz tuned the angry elephant to 1040hp at the flywheel, with a world-turning 860lb-ft at 7500rpm. Oh, and there’s a massive 800hp worth of giggle gas lying in wait for when the time comes! “We’ve spun it to 8000rpm, but I wasn’t a massive fan of that,” says Rodney’s son Daniel, who handles driving duties on the strip.

Up top, the Indy Cylinder Heads tunnel ram wears a billet spacer by CAL Machineworks and a pair of 1600cc air-only EFI throttlebodies from EFI Hardware. A Haltech Elite 2500 ECU controls the sequentially firing ICE ignition and the 80lb/h injectors pumping 109-octane drum fuel into the ports.

“It has been a mission getting the Torqueflite to handle the Hemi’s torque, but we really wanted to keep as much Mopar hardware in the car as possible, so we kept rebuilding the trans with better parts,” Rodney says.

As the ’Flite now runs the best of everything from AA Transmissions in the USA and was assembled by Paul Rogers Transmissions locally, Rodney’s hoping a swap to a TH400 won’t be necessary. It wears a 5500rpm Shotgun converter and SFI-rated JW bellhousing, custom billet aluminium four-pinion front drum and a matching six-pinion rear drum. The input and output shafts are now billet items, with a reverse-pattern, manualised and transbraked valvebody and gear ratios changed to a 2.10 first, 1.29 second and 1.1 top.

The delay caused by Rodney and Daniel trying to iron out those trans issues did have one upside, as it offered the perfect opportunity to overhaul the Barracuda’s exterior. The tired red paint that had been thinly blown over the Plymouth back in America was really needing a freshen-up, so Rodney and Daniel reached out to Shawn Potter from Exotic Kustoms.

“We sent Shawn some photos of some American cars like ‘Psycho Fish’ and asked what it would cost to do a similar paintjob. He gave me a quote, and that sealed the deal,” Rodney says. “We got him the car in November 2024 after we blew the transmission up, and then Shawn called us on the Australia Day weekend to come up to his shop. We thought he was going to show us spray-outs, but it was the body of the car all done! He did three 12-hour days over that weekend just to lay the colour down.”

The Barracuda’s eye-popping new clothes are all made up of candies from House of Kolor, with a variety of classic custom paint effects like fish scales, panels, endless lines and more on show.

Yet despite Bad Fish’s show-stopping paint, Rodney and Daniel are still racing it, although plenty think they’re crazy. So far, the little A-body has run a PB of 9.58@143mph just on the motor, and if father and son can dial in the 60-foot times, the car should shortly be in the high eight-second zone, even without the spray. “We want to push the motor to its limit soon, because it’s going to get a freshen-up now it’s done about three-dozen passes,” says Rodney. Beyond that, there are aspirations to run well into the sevens once the giggle gas is turned on.

It might not be an original B029 Barracuda, but this Bad Fish has been built to run even harder on the strip, all while looking a million bucks. In our books, that’s a much better fate than being cloistered away in a collector’s garage!

RODNEY & DANIEL NEINDORF
1967 PLYMOUTH BARRACUDA

THANKS
Pro Race Engines; Exotic Kustoms; Soda Blast; Paul Rogers Transmissions; Psidup Fabrications; Elko Performance; Val Spares; Race Radiators; EFI Hardware; QuickBitz; Lisa and Daniel Tyson; Con and Andrea; Alan Jones at CAL Machineworks; G&R Towing; our friends and family for their support.