Designer John Herlitz joined the Plymouth studio from GM. He was asked to design a concept/show car for the Barracuda program. It was called Barracuda SX. When the project to design an all new body for the Barracuda began, Plymouth management deceided to have the new 'Cuda resemble the SX as much as possible. Before the work on the clay model began, Herlitz was called to National Guard duty, and Samsen was assigned to supervise the modeling.
My 1964 sketch for the 1967 Barracuda Project. It was deceided to have a smaller backlite than that on the previous Barracuda. I designed the "hatchback" model for 1967 and revised the front end and hood. I had always liked "real" eggcrate grilles, but high cost kept them out of most car designs. I noticed the aluminum eggcrate grilles on the overhead flourescent lights; they were very thin so they wouldn't block much cooling air, and must be cheap. I obtained some of the eggcrate and had it trimmed to fit the Barracuda's grille. It passed the tests for exterior use, and was used in the production cars.
An article in Automobile Quarterly tells of the 1967 Barracuda program:
My '67 Barracuda bringing my sailboat back from California.
