REFURBISHED FISH

This Low-Mileage Barracuda is an Ex-Drag Racer Now Restored to Showroom Condition

- John Machaquiero

When Brad Forester started looking for a car, he had a very narrowly defined set of criteria the car needed to meet. Chief among them, the car had to be a Mopar, and it had to be an A-Body. That was his mission, but as he points out, “I looked at a lot of Darts and Dusters, and every one of them looked like it needed a ton of work. I wasn’t looking for a project car.” His initial desire was to find a nice, solid car that was unmolested and still in factory condition. However, after two years of unsuccessful searching, he had to expand his horizons and consider a resto mod or Pro Touring car as a viable alternative.

In November 2013, he got a lead from a friend of a friend who told him about a 1969 Barracuda that was for sale on eBay. By the time Brad logged in, the listing had expired. He managed to find the archived listing that described the car as an “extremely low mileage former race car that has been restored to an all-factory stock condition.” That line hit his sweet spot of curiosity, so he called Bill Miller, the seller, to inquire about the car and its status. The good news was that it hadn’t been sold. Even better, the seller lived just 3 miles up the road from his house. Bill told him that it was still in the garage and invited Brad to stop by and take a look at it. As soon as he laid eyes on the car, Brad was ready to pull the trigger with a solid offer. “When I first saw the car,” he notes, “I knew it was the one.” Visually it checked all the right boxes; however, that was just the tip of the iceberg. At the time, the odometer was only showing approximately 4,100 miles.