Yahoo Autos What It's Like to Drive an Ultra Rare 1970 Hemi Cuda Race Car
I recently moved to a really small town. Everyone knows everyone and you get to know who owns which car and so on. Shortly after moving here, I was out walking my dog one night when I heard a distinctive rumble–a Hemi–down on Main Street. I turned and from a hundred yards or so away, I saw a white 1970 Hemi roll slowly by, with the "hockey stick" clearly visible on the rear quarter. A few days later, I saw the car parked in front of a house two blocks away. Its owner, Richard, was standing next to it. We soon became friends. Stuff like that happens all the time in Small Town America.
Richard bought the 1970 Hemi Cuda in 1973 and has taken very good care of it ever since. He stores it in a barn outside of town, which explains why I did not see it that often. When he bought it, he tracked back the previous owners all the way to the selling dealer. The original owner had ordered the car with the "Super Track Pack" option. It came with the Hemi, topped with the Shaker hood scoop. That put power through an automatic Hemi Torqueflite into a rearend with a Dana 4.10. While many purists would prefer a 4-speed, the automatic allowed a driver to take the car to a dragstrip and just stomp on the gas.
Richard is retired now, but that doesn't mean he has slowed down any. In the years since he bought the Cuda, he has upgraded it a little. He put in a steeper rear gear–a 4.56 allows him to launch a little faster–and tweaked the tranny. Now, it has to be shifted through the gears, even though the Torqueflite is still behind the Hemi.
The Cuda has street tires, although the rears are a bit beefier than what you might expect. Even so, Richard owns a pair of slicks for it and has clocked a 12.05 ET in a quarter mile with them on the car. After talking to Richard at length about his car, I realized that he really needed to read my book on winged cars. I stopped by and gave him a copy one day and he asked if I might want to go for a ride in the Hemi Cuda. "Why Yes, I would." Who would have seen that coming?
It was a few weeks before he had the chance to take me and he didn't give me any warning. I was inside my house watching TV when my show got drowned out by something rumbling in my front yard. I didn't have to peel back the tinfoil on my windows to know who it was and what he was driving. I grabbed my GoPros and headed out.
Richard took the wheel for the first half of the drive and then let me drive the second half. I've driven a lot of cool cars in my life (Chrysler Turbine Car, Bobby Isaac's K&K Daytona, a GTS Viper and so on) but this one ranks right up with the best of them. Hemis are legendary and Richard's is such a cool variant. I had never driven an automatic configured in this manner so I had to keep asking Richard to make sure I was shifting at the right times.
But there is really no way to describe the feeling you get when you step on the gas to a Hemi, and see a Shaker hood rumble in response. And this car is a true survivor with fewer than 50,000 miles on the odometer. So, I invite you to watch the video I shot. Hey, I'm not Martin Scorsese and this video was shot in low light. But I think you will get the picture of what we do in small towns to entertain ourselves.
Steve Lehto is a writer and attorney from Michigan. He specializes in Lemon Law and frequently writes about cars and the law. His most recent books include Preston Tucker and His Battle to Build the Car of Tomorrow, and Dodge Daytona and Plymouth Superbird: Design, Development, Production and Competition. He also has a podcast where he talks about these things.
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