Thanks.
I have been wanting to build a hemi powered A body for a while. I have started gathering pieces, but dont have a car yet to put it in. I lean toward a fastback barracuda because i had one many years ago. I will be honest it wasnt pretty, but it was reliable as all get out. It was a 273 hipo, 904 with a 3.23 sure grip. Rust everywhere. I had it as a daily driver and at that time I had a 70 six pack mr norms bee with under 19k miles on it. Wow that was 17 years ago.
I debate if it is cheaper to build a dart though. My thinking is the dart has less trim to worry about finding, replacing or restoring. What do you think?
Funny I replied to your post on Moparts too about S/S clones.
I've owned a 68 Barracuda for 13 years and a 68 Dart for 5 years. I hit the swaps around here. And used to hit the junkyard when they were decent.
The 68 Barracuda is much more expensive to get parts for. There are a lot of Barracuda only stuff on those cars. And of course they made a lot less Barracudas than 68 Darts. The barracuda speciality trim is a killer.
The cost to get into a starter car is more with the Barracuda too.
For example the 68 Dart grille is not that hard to find in real good undented used condition with turn signals that might need the lenses replaced, about $150-$225. They are protect pretty well. They do repro the hood molding.
Barracuda grill surrounds are tough to find and get real banged up. And the plastic grill inserts get broken sometimes and the turn signal surround are usually pitted. You've just got more parts to go bad and deal with. There is no nosecone or lower valence on a Dart. Those are $125-$175 each used.
68 Barracuda trunk inserts are like $400-$500 restored. Dart S/S car didn't even have trunk inserts. Compare BEA parts repro lenses and tailight housings. 68 Dart tailight lenses are not too hard to find good used, so you might not need those new anyway.
Rearquarter sheet metal is more on a Barracuda and rear glass trim is probably $50-75 more than a dart.
Interior is going to be close. BEA rallye fascia is like $700 all new no core. You'll have to take your Dart dash, radio, and glove fascias to CVplaters. Guessing at $200 difference
if you have good cores.
There my little rundown. Maybe it helped??
Interesting that I see a lot of people looking to make 68 S/S clones. There was someone are here on FABO back east that seemed to be lining up these cars to do one after the next.
