ack in September 2009 issue of MCG, we featured some concept art by Murray Pfaff and a few photos of a 'Cuda being melded together by well-known Mopar wild man Troy Brumbalow. Over the course of the last several decades, Troy's made a name for himself by thinking outside of the box when it comes to his Mopar rides. Years ago, he built a Viper motored 'Cuda, then when that wasn't exciting enough anymore, he bolted together a 542" blown Road Runner. That kept Troy busy and entertained for a while, but as always, Troy's constantly planning the "next" car even long before he's finished putting together his "current" car. And, as is pretty much par for the course with Troy, four years ago

he started thinking he wanted to build an extremely radical 'Cuda that would be a daily drivable version of those little die-cast "Muscle Machines" car - you know, the one with the gigantic tires and even bigger engines. The idea of making a "toy" car into a real car kept coming back to the forefront of Troy's wildly imaginative mind, and before long, he'd located a '71 plain vanilla 318 Barracuda body that needed a fair amount of help. This would serve nicely as the starting point for a project that few even more out-of-control than Troy would've imagined. But then, again, how many of us have started on project cars then had things get out of hand? Honestly, it seems like that kinda' goes along with being a Mopar guy.
     All that aside, it was four years ago

that Troy hauled the some-what derelict old Barracuda over to this friend B.J. Fisher at Genesis One Automotive. B.J.'s been a close comrade of Troy's for ages and he's helped him put together just about every car he's ever built, so they know each other well enough to figure out what the other's thinking. Having a friend like that, who can also do phenomenal bodywork and chassis building, is a serious blessing indeed. So, the guys talked, they bounced some ideas off each other, and in the later part of 2006, B.J. grabbed his torch and started cutting the Plymouth to pieces. Right off the bat, the plan called for reworking some of the car's skin to give it more personality - it would be smoother, the panels would curve inward in a slightly more

dramatic fashion, and so forth. With the body on a jig in his shop, this allowed for the guys to do a lot of trial and error work, cutting, welding, stretching, contouring, smoothing, and generally messing with the body just about every week. They weren't exactly sure what they were after, but both of them knew they would know it when they saw it.
     As all of this welding, hacking, and re-welding was going on, B.J. studied on what to do about planting the reworked to the ground. After a lot of careful research, they decided on a completed Art Morrison chassis kit that's intended for guys running Super Comp door slammer, or some such thing as that. The

elaborate tube chassis arrived at the shop in the spring of 2007, and for the next several months, B.J. once again went about the task of placing a uniquely sculpted body onto a tube chassis he was modifying day-by-day. Needless to say, there was a lot of test fitting the body onto the tubes as the months went by, and with each effort, either the body or the chassis was changed around to make everything fit and line up correctly. And, as all this was going on, Troy began mocking up the motor that was to come. The boys placed an aluminum Hemi block in the chassis then experimented with blowers and intakes until Troy was satisfied he had the most cartoonish engine possible that would actually be capable of running an be dependable enough to drive on a fairly regular basis. Which brought us into the later part of 2007 and the critical stage of the operation, where everything was roughed together, but no plans were finalized and the whole project still lacked a centralized theme or direction. So, Troy turned to this friend and car-designing wizard, Murray Pfaff. Armed with a handful of photos of the car, the first thing Murray said was something like, "Wow, that thing looks like Frankenstein." With all the bare metal and burned weld marks and seams all over the place, he was quite right. This thing looked like a patchwork quilt made out of steel that had been

shaped into the form of 'Cuda. From that moment on, the "Frankencuda" moniker was affixed to the project.
     Murray started getting ideas rapid fire about what to do with the rolling shell, but he wasn't getting his ideas across to Troy. He started talking about painting on a gigantic caricature of the Frankenstein monster on the roof and having the artwork spread all across the upper surfaces of the car. Honestly, Troy tells us he thought Murray was nuts. All he could envision was the old custom van stuff from the later seventies, where all sorts of crazy graphics were air brushed onto vans and cleared over. Did Murray really think this thing needed some big air-brushed scene out of a horror movie splayed all across the roof? Yuck! That was hardly what Troy was after. Still, he knew Murray Pfaff well enough to realize there had to be something he didn't understand, so Murray said he'd do some artwork and he could have a look. Once the graphics were laid on the table, everything became clear, and Troy realized, yet again, what an absolute genius this guy is. The idea was to paint all the graphics across the top of the car using a boatload of masking and layering the paint to create a skateboard-like mural of a Frankenstein monster with spark plugs and other car related themes pulling together with the 'Cuda. Once Troy saw the artwork and understood the

concept, his entire attitude changed - now something like this would definitely stand out from the crowd at any car show or cruise night function, so, Murray, B.J., and Troy all sat down together, went over the artwork, and once they were all together on the same page (literally), work pressed forward.
     As B.J. worked his magic on the body and chassis, a dummy Hemi was placed in the engine bay for test fitting and Troy got on the phone with the guys at Hensley Racing in Knoxville to discuss building one of the most monstrous Hemis currently being driven on the street. Troy wanted something over-the-top, and over-the-roof, for that matter. He wanted massive horsepower that would be awe inspiring to behold and still be capable of being driven regularly on pump gas, support an air-conditioning system, and spin an alternator to run modern electrical convenience - nothing like asking for the moon, eh? What they came up with was a Hemi that's five-feet-tall from its oil pan to the polished scoop atop the carbs. The unfinished dummy motor stayed in the chassis until work was pretty well done, but what you're looking at now is certainly no dummy. Hensley Racing built this one in-house using an Indy Mega Block, Indy aluminum heads, and an Indy intake. The motor displaces 636" and the pressurized air

a destroyed fender, grille, hood, front bumper, and lots of other odds-and-ends on the north end of the ca that were damaged. Before its first public outing, four years of work had been nearly wiped out in seconds.
     Troy hauled the 'Cuda home, yanked the front cap off, and once again, he and B.J. went over everything up front to make sure all was put back exactly as it should've been. Jeff did some more paint-work, and once again, serious trashing ensued because Troy was now determined to debut his toy at the 2010 Power Tour. This time, the trailer was gonna' stay home - he wanted to drive his monster.
     Sure enough, the car was finished up the day before he left for the Power Tour, and Troy made about 1,000 miles on the Tour before he had to head back for home because real life needed his attention. Imagine though, this radical machine that looks like a show poodle actually rolled up over 1,000 miles in a couple of days, all the while with the air conditioning on and the CD and DVD players whirring away. And, Troy tell us the monster managed to get 7.5 mpg! Okay, so it's not gonna' win any fuel economy awards, but if he'd gotten a dollar from everybody who took a photo of the car along the way, it would've probably covered his fuel expenses.
     So, the Frankencuda is now alive - it's alive! Watch for this one running around the streets of Georgia, and you can bet you'll see it at a number of major Mopar events in the coming years. Frankencuda will be featured at the 2010 MuscleCars at the Playboy Mansion event, and it's been invited to be on display at the Mother's Wax booth at the SEMA show in Vegas. All of which goes to prove, if you can dream it up, somebody out there can build it. Who would've thought a 'Cuda that looks this radical could actually be a dependable driver?
     We're not telling Troy what to do next, but if we were in his shoes, we'd be highly inclined to do a Dracula-themed '71 Challenger (perhaps in red-and-black) with a similar engine to keep this one company. What's better than one monster E-body in the garage? Two monster E-bodies in the garage. In the meantime, hat's off to Troy and everybody involved in making this amazing car a reality; you've really got to see it and hear it to appreciate fully what's been done here. Whatever his course, we can't wait to see what Troy's probably already thinking about for his next car.

is provided by a huge 14-71 supercharger from the Blower Shop. A pair of Race Demon 970 carbs sits up in the high altitude pushing gasoline south. Using a paltry six pounds of boost, this engine showed 729 horsepower at the rear wheels on a chassis dyno, and that was with a serious fuel pressure problem - the beast was starving for gas, thanks to not having enough electric fuel pumps. That problem has been remedied, and Troy plans to crank the supercharger's boost up to ten pounds, which should net them just over 1,000 horses on the next dyno pull! And, yes, tucked away up front is a Vintage Auto Air a/c compressor and it works fantastic. Backing up the Hemi is a Turbo 400 transmission with Gear Vendors electronic overdrive system, which moves everything back to a Strange Engineering 9" rear with 4.30 gears. A 3-1/2" exhaust system with Flowmaster mufflers pushes the pressurized gasses past the passenger compartment.
     The interior of Frankencuda is the handiwork of noted stitching expert Greg Pirckle Greg took a pair of fairly bare bones racing seats and covered them with soft leather and cloth, installing the racing harnesses for those banzai blasts. The cage work done by B.J. surrounds the pilot and co-pilot tastefully and there's no awkward pipe to crawl over getting in and out of this one. Thanks to loads of Dynomat insulation, the cockpit's much quieter than you'd imagine, allowing Troy to enjoy his CD player and stereo, and no less than three DVD screens - there's even a small DVD screen housed in the rearview mirror on the windshield! All this and DVD/GPS equipment as well! The gauges are all from Mopar Performance, and Troy's brother-in-law, Justin Bridges, made the unique

console separating the form-fitting buckets.
     The 'Cuda rolls on a set of huge 20x15" Budnik Ice wheels out back and 18x9" units up front, with Mickey Thompson 31" rubber out back. And with all that done, it was time for Jeff Brooks over at the paint shop to take over. It took a couple of months to get the Viper Green paint applied with the multiple layers of grays, silvers, and blacks up top that now make the Frankencuda mural Murray Pfaff envisioned a reality. Then, of course, the whole thing was treated to multiple coats of clear to lock everything down. Then came the last minute thrashing at Troy's garage, which incorporated pretty much everybody Troy knows and all the family members who'll still talk to him. He's been invited to debut the 'Cuda at the prestigious Detroit Autorama in February 2010, and he intended to take advantage of the honor.
     The boys finished in the nick of time, loaded the radical Plymouth into his enclosed trailer, and Troy and his dad, Stan, left for Detroit - but they never made it there. The weather was abysmal, and the interstate was iced over for miles around Detroit. Not far from their destination, the trailer broke loose on the icy road, and before he knew it, Troy's trailer had yanked his Dodge crew cab pickup completely around and they were sliding sideways down the interstate! Then, to make matters worse, an eighteen-wheeler following behind them suffered the same fate, and as both were sliding along, the tractor-trailer truck slammed into the car trailer, then plowed into his pickup. The trailer was totaled, the pickup was totaled, and Stan suffered injuries that kept him in the hospital for four weeks (he's fine now). The 'Cuda in the trailer miraculously fared better than anything else, but it had