'65 Mustang Hi-po vs '65 Formula S

In 1965 my mom worked at Ralph Williams Chrysler Plymouth in West Seattle. She was offered a new 1965 Barracuda at cost. She picked the options that were not on most customers order sheets. It was a Robin egg Blue with a white stripe, Commando 273, 4 speed with a Suregrip 3.91 gear 8 3/4. It was fast but my mom did not drive it hard. We has a small camp trailer that she towed with it.

Fast forward to 1974, I was a PFC in the Army and my mom loaned it to me. I was not allowed to hop it up. But it was running bad so we did a compression test and #2 cylinder was dead. The camshaft had no lobe intake left. I had the cam replaced with a Hyd 262 degree RV cam. That was the only change I could do.

I was out at Ft Lewis WA and one of my team members has a stock 1966 Mustang GT and we went out on range road and lined up one day. It was 3 out of 5 runs that I won but not by too much. The 9 1/4 inch clutch was slipping too much.

In 1980 I had to sell it due to going to Germany.

Then in 1986 I found it for sale. VIN was right. It was pained BLACK, had a 383 4bbl, A727, Ford 9 inch and LBP all around. Has tall back Ford Bucket seats.

The guy bought it as a project for him and his son. But son's school grades were in the toilet so dad put the Barracuda on the market to scare the son, did not work. A month later I was driving by and seen the 'For Sale' sign and $700 later it was mine again. Still have it.

I love small towns.

The standard motor in the 65-66 mustang GT was the 225HP 289cid A-code motor.

The HiPo 271HP K-code was optional. And while they built over 12K K-codes, they built over 3 million 64-66 mustangs.

That makes the relative rarity of k-code among all 64-66 Mustangs (0.4%) greater than a 1970 Hemis in Barracudas (1.1%).

Also, standard rear end ratio on a A-code 64-66 mustang is 3.00 or 2.80.

Performance Mopar’s usually had deeper gear standard equipment than their GM or Ford counterparts.