1970 Plymouth Cuda 440 Rapid Transit Show Car Sells for Over $2M!
One of four original Plymouth Rapid Transit System Caravan show cars this 967-mile example brought big money at Mecum Indy.
Wow. Where do you even start with this one? The car itself is incredible but the history of it is even more fascinating. Combine the two at a highly charged auto auction and you get a result like this. The car you see here sold recently at the Mecum auction in Indianapolis for about $2.2 million with all auction fees included. Big money for sure. But when will you ever see something like this car again? You may be asking yourself what exactly is this car? Well, it is a 1970 Plymouth Cuda 440 Rapid Transit Show Car. Your next question may be great, but what does that mean? In 1970 the Rapid Transit Team was a set of four custom cars. They were built as a rolling road show in order to flex a little Mopar muscle. This is one of those four cars.
So, it is extremely rare. But there are a few other things that played into the eye-popping sales price. First of all, this car has been hidden from public view for about 50 years. It was considered a lost piece of history. But it wasn’t lost at all. It was just locked away. And it was locked away with a mere 967 original miles on the odometer. So, we have rarity, and super low miles. Anything else to drive up the price? Well, it was designed by Harry Bradley. Bradley was a designer for GM, but he also happened to be the original designer at Hot Wheels. Makes sense when you look at this car doesn’t it? The car was built by renowned builder Chuck Miller. Miller was on hand at the auction. All the ingredients were there for a big money sale.
1970 Plymouth Cuda 440 Rapid Transit Show Car
Now that we have covered a bit about what helped drive the price to the moon, we should talk about the car itself a bit. The car was sold in unrestored condition. The original custom metal work and lacquer paint remain. The car wears Serial No. 100005. Under the hood is the original 440 6-BBL V8 engine hooked up to a TorqueFlite automatic transmission. Some fun touches include side pipes, big fat tires on Cragar wheels and steel dirt flaps on each side. Miller added custom tail lamps, a faux parachute, and chrome caster-style show wheelie bars to the rear. This car even still has the original Rapid Transit System Caravan show sign.
Expensive ‘Cuda
This show car is not the most expensive Cuda ever sold. That honor goes to the 1971 Hemi Cuda convertible. But this show car lands in the top five. And it was not the only big money Mopar product to sell at the Mecum event. The 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T SE “Black Ghost” hammered for $975,000. With fees the price was over one million dollars. We have some amazing Dodge muscle cars in 2023, but if you are looking for the best of the best, set your time machine for 1970.
Photos: Mecum
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