It might have taken years to get, but the final build of this 1968 Hemi Cuda took only months
Long before Ed Faath ever moved to the Sunshine State in the early '80s, he would never miss a chance to watch his twin brother Bob and best friend Joe Drescher race their '33 Willys. The straight-axle gasser was everything a '60s nostalgia racer was supposed to be. its most prominent feature was a fuel-injected 392 Hemi proudly flaunting its tall stacks up through the hood. The Willys became a mainstay in the social circles of street and drag racers in the Cleveland, Ohio, area, making Ed's younger twin a pseudo celebrity. But it wasn't the popularity that Ed wanted; he craved to be behind the wheel of his own Hemi-powered vehicle.
Ed's lust for speed would be reapplied during the Vietnam conflict where he served as a helicopter pilot. After returning home, Ed enrolled in school, then progressed into a career, and later took on the mantle of husband and father, which all pushed his desires for a fun, fast Hemi car onto the back burner.
Ed would eventually move his family to St. Cloud, Florida, a small town south of Orlando. shortly after Ed and his family settled in, he began to notice something peculiar--St. Cloud's streets were filled with classic Mopars. every time he would venture downtown to pick up some necessities or to scope out the city scene, he would see another pristine musclecar cruise by. Ecstatic, he knew it was his kind of town.
Ed made short work of befriending as many of these Mopar owners as he could. his networking efforts led him to John "Coach" Wallauer. John was pretty renowned around town as being something of a renaissance man of Mopars. John was an adamant enthusiast, amateur collector, and apt fabricator, as well as the football coach at the local high school.
Ed first called upon John's fabrication abilities while tooling on his first Mopar purchase--a '69 Dart Swinger. The Swinger was mini-tubbed and fitted with a stout 440 plant and an overdrive transmission. it was during one of these long nights at John's shop that the topic of Ed's cravings for Hemi power came up. Recalling the memories of his brother's gasser, John and Ed's conversation, unsurprisingly, gravitated toward the peak of Mopar's factory performance--the Hemi Super Stock Darts and Barracudas. Ed's curiosity was piqued, could he really own one of these cars? the price tag on an original factory race car was way out of range for Ed, as for most of us. The only solution--build their own '68 Hemi lightweight A-Body.
The challenge was in play. Ed and John were going to clone one of the most infamous Mopars in history. Chasing down all of his leads, John discovered a '68 Barracuda in Las Vegas, Nevada. The owner was motivated to sell, and the car was half-way in the stages of being converted into a Super Stock car when the owner decided to pull out of the project. It might have taken over 25 years to finally get one, but in July 2004, Ed flew out to the Nevada desert and purchased his first Hemi car. Two weeks later, the Barracuda was off-loaded into John's shop in Florida.