The car lived on streets and strips, outran police, then spent two decades hidden away before returning to the road.
Among every car ever built, the Plymouth AAR ‘Cuda has always held a special place for me. The reason is deeply personal. When my son was about a year old, I bought him his first Hot Wheels car: a yellow AAR. It quickly became his favorite toy. He ate with it, slept with it, played with it, and took it everywhere. He still owns that little car today, even though his collection eventually grew much larger and he moved well beyond the age when toy cars were his primary obsession. That makes it impossible for me to ignore a compelling story about a real AAR ‘Cuda.
The AAR ‘Cuda was the street-going result of Chrysler’s push into the 1970 Trans Am racing season with its new E-body platform. Plymouth teamed up with Dan Gurney’s All-American Racers (AAR), creating a homologation special that became one of the most memorable street weapons of the muscle-car era.
Its heart was the Mopar 340 six-barrel small-block, a one-year offering that arrived at an awkward moment. The engine was developed for the homologation program that allowed the E-body cars to compete in Trans Am, powering both the Plymouth AAR Cuda and its Dodge counterpart, the Challenger T/A. Both became far more influential in the memories of enthusiasts than their racing records might suggest.
The racing AARs driven by Gurney and Swede Savage encountered a string of mechanical problems. They recorded no victories and ended the fiercely contested 1970 championship in fifth place overall, while the Boss 302 ultimately claimed the title.
The production AAR had plenty to separate it from ordinary E-bodies. Its fiberglass hood carried a huge functional scoop, while front dive planes, a ducktail spoiler, and side-exit exhaust gave the car an unmistakable appearance. Plymouth also fitted the AAR with staggered E60-15 front and G60-15 rear tires, making it the first American production car to use that setup.
Plymouth built the cars for only five weeks, producing 2,724 examples. The price was $3,966 apiece.
Beneath that dramatic fiberglass hood was a 340-cubic-inch V8 breathing through three two-barrel carburetors. Enthusiasts commonly call the setup a Six Pack, although Plymouth officially called it a Six-Barrel. Six Pack was Dodge’s name for the same basic architecture, but the catchier nickname eventually became common for both members of the Mopar pony-car family.
The factory rated the engine at 290 horsepower at 5,000 rpm and 345 pound-feet of torque at 3,400 rpm, figures deliberately kept conservative for insurance purposes. With all that hardware working together, the AAR could accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 5.8 seconds.
The quarter-mile took 14.4 seconds, with the car crossing the traps at 99.5 mph.
That combination of rarity, performance, and unmistakable styling makes surviving AAR ‘Cudas special today. One particularly remarkable example was documented by Keith Noel on the Mopar Keith Noel Automotive YouTube channel, and its story begins with an owner who bought the car in 1973.
The AAR is now 56 years old, yet examples like this can still evoke the feeling of seeing one sitting in a showroom when these cars were new. Bill Amit was one of the enthusiasts who experienced that era firsthand, and his connection with this particular Plymouth lasted for more than five decades.
The car eventually drew broader attention after appearing on the cover of Ryan Brutt’s “Barnfinds” book. Brutt, host of the Auto Archaeology YouTube series, has documented numerous remarkable classic Mopars, and this one ranks among the most intriguing.
When the AAR was first brought out of its long storage, the combination of heavy dust and poor lighting fooled people into thinking the car was blue. Once the grime and shadows no longer obscured the body, the real color emerged: a striking green-on-green example that had retained an extraordinary amount of its vintage character.
Bill bought the four-speed car in 1973 with roughly 20,000 miles showing. It already carried the sort of modifications that defined many muscle cars after their first few miles on the road: air shocks, slapper bars, pinstriping, and oversized L50 rear tires mounted on aerosol-painted wheels.
Bill worked as a truck driver, hauling Peterbilt rigs and Gleaner combines, and he made the most of his younger years. That included high-speed chases with police on dirt roads while somehow managing to keep his driver's license.
Life eventually changed the equation. Marriage, children, and his wife's health problems pushed the AAR further down the priority list.
The car was placed inside a wooden storage shed, where it remained largely untouched for about 20 years.
Then the fire came.
A neighboring building caught fire, putting the shed and the AAR in immediate danger. The car survived because a neighborhood kid took a garden hose and sprayed down the shed, preventing the flames from destroying the Plymouth.
Years later, local property developers decided the old shed had to come down. That finally gave Bill a reason to pull the dusty AAR back into the open and see whether the dormant muscle car could be brought back to life.
The first attempt at starting the engine immediately revealed a problem: the oil filter gasket blew out. Bill removed the oil pan and found something far worse inside. A solid layer of tar had accumulated in the bottom, measuring roughly two and a half inches thick.
He cleaned the pickup tube, replaced the oil pump with a $40 unit to address the stuck relief valve, and rebuilt all three carburetors.
The effort paid off.
The odometer now shows 84,000 miles, and the survivor still carries much of its original green factory paint. After decades of storage, it once again runs properly and no longer fills the air with smoke.
Not from the exhaust, anyway.
Anyone familiar with a healthy 340-6 knows that a properly running engine can still turn into a very effective smoke machine when the throttle hits the floor. Bill continues to drive the AAR and enjoy the car that has been with him for more than 50 years, while the once-forgotten survivor gets to do what it was built to do: make its tires scream.