It all began one day when I was reading classified ads in a local trade magazine. No, I was not looking for a car (I had a 65 Pontiac LaMans convertible at the time). I was looking at the music section. I enjoy playing guitar and I was looking for someone to get together with and jam here and there.

While searching the "Musicians Grapevine" I found another guitar player who lived fairly close and seemed to be on the same wave length, so I thought what's to loose and I gave him a call. Graig seemed like a good enough guy on the phone so we set up a time to meet and fart around on guitars.

On the night I headed out to Craig's, the air was warm and the wind was calm and I hadn't had a chance to drive my old Pontiac in some time. So, I decided to pull the cover off and take her for a spin. The scenery was great too, late spring, back roads in Pennsylvania and farmland. When I pulled up to Craig's place I drove down a long tree lined drive to a cozy little carriage house and I couldn't help but think this must be a great place to come home to. I pulled off the lane at the carriage house knowing from my directions that this is where Craig lived but, I did notice the lane kept going and I could see the roof of a much larger home.

Craig met me at the door and we stood around outside for a while and got acquainted. We threw a ball to his dog Bear, (Which was a fitting name). As we talked, a man came from the direction of the "Big" house and approached us. Craig spoke first and introduced us. His name was Darah. Darah said he saw my old car and wanted to come up and get a closer look. I said feel free to look around and we talked "cars" for a while. After some time of going over my LaMans, Darah asked if I wanted to see his old cars, and I thought WOO HOOO!!! And I said okay.

We walked back behind the carriage house and the whole "would be" backyard was a stone driveway / parking area. To the right was a barn with several cars parked in front of it, 90% of these vehicles (probably 20 in all) were convertibles! I was now in Heaven! There could be no mistake. I must have side swiped a Mack truck on the way over here and God just let me drive the rest of the way to Heaven.

The first car I saw on my left was a 68 SS Camaro convertible, original 350 4-speed car. Next to it was a Monza Spider convertible, Next was a 641/2 Mustang convertible. Looking to the right I saw a 63 Skylark convertible with the 263 aluminum V8. Then was a 4-door parts car (Darah said the convertible needed front-end parts, so he picked it up cheap).

Looking further to my right as the parking lot turned was "My Car". I knew it the second I saw it, even in the shape it was in I would love to own that car, A 67 Plymouth Barracuda Formula S convertible. I have never (believe it or not) even seen one of these cars before, the only Barracuda's I've seen were fastbacks and a couple sedans, but a convertible and WOW, what a great body style. It was love at first sight, I was smitten.

I asked Darah if he had plans to sell any of these cars. He said that the car's mostly belonged to his son, but he needed to clear out some space. So if he got an offer on any of them he would probably sell them. I asked what price range he was talking about and he said that he knew they were in rough shape but they are valuable restored. He also said that he would never get around to having them all restored, so I would like to keep one to restore. He had a guy offer him $1200 for the mustang but he figured it to be worth more like $1700 to $2000. But the others he would probable take $1000 each.

Well, needless to say, I started looking much closer at that Barracuda. I'll have to admit I took a close look at many of the cars but kept coming back to the Barracuda. I said to Darah -you know-you just don’t see cars like that one-I mean I see a lot of Camaros and Mustangs fixed up but I cant say I've ever seen one like that fixed up.

I had my mind made up by now. I had to get that car's title in my hand.

I struck a deal with Darah that gave me some time to sell my old Pontiac while he looked for the title and talked to his son.

To this day I don’t regret that spur of the moment decision. I went with my gut feeling and I'm glad I did. Also to this day I've never seen another car like mine. Yeah- the shebby or phord would have been a lot cheaper to fix up but even rough as a cob my car gets a lot of looks. Well- to make a long story longer I found out later that Darah (a pretty well to do sort) had got a couple of these cars but most of them were products of his sons teenage years. Seems they both liked convertibles and kept bringing different ones home. Darah said that when his son went to college he bought a Porsche and just lost interest in what was at home so here they sat. I for one thank Porsche for taking his interest.

So, anyway that's how it came down. I sold my LaMans, which was anything but original and I bought the Barracuda, for stats on the car see the "My Car" portion of my Web Page and if any one knows how many of these cars were made PLEASE drop me an e-mail.