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Search For The Original Phantasm '71
Cuda
By
Don Almeido
 
The
summer of 1979 was the first time at the age of 13 that I knew I was a
Mopar guy. The black '71 cuda in the horror film Phantasm was the
car that sparked my imagination and fascination with mopars to this
day. The car was a black '71 cuda 340 4-speed car used in the
first film. It was made to look like a 440-6 barrel car with
440-6 rally hood callouts… but it wasn’t a real 440-6 cuda. This
car had some special additions that really made it different from cudas
of today. The film crew added a sunroof and rear quarter fender
flares (which were the hot items back in 79). The first film only
used one car, the second film used three '71 cars (crashed and
destroyed one of them) and the third and fourth sequels both used a '70
hemi cuda convertible clone.
I started my search back in the early eighties for the original car
from the first film. The sunroof and rear fender flares are a
sure giveaway to assure that this would be the actual car used in
Phantasm. Since most of the film was shot in the San Fernando
Valley where I resided….I tracked down some long time Mopar guru’s that
had heard stories about the missing '71 cuda from the first film.
This information I uncovered from an individual when I was searching
for the first film's '71 cuda back in the 80’s. After filming was
finished, the cuda went to a member of the production crew where it sat
in his driveway until sold to an unknown buyer for $1,000. The car
disappeared and then reappeared again mysteriously... here below is the
first and last encounter with the original '71 cuda from the first
Phantasm film (from an unidentified individual):
”Back
in the early 80s I lived out in LA, they have a want ad newspaper out
there called the Recycler. At the time I was driving a '70 Challenger
383 4-speed car and was looking for something a little different. One
day an ad in the Recycler caught my attention, it was the original '71
Cuda used in the first Phantasm movie. I called up the number and drove
over to check out the car. The car was parked in the driveway of a very
expensive house
located in an exclusive neighborhood in the northern part of "The
Valley".
The house belonged to an executive that was involved in the movie, and
the car appeared to have been parked there for some time. I was met by
a person who was some kind of assistant for the movie company. Since I
drove up there in the '70 Challenger so the guy knew I was a mopar guy
and a serious buyer, not some tire kicker so he offered to let me take
it for a drive. First impressions in seeing the car up close were great
disappointment. The car had been sitting in the hot California sun for
a long time and when originally painted had a black lacquer paint job
with many coats of clear on top. Unfortunately the sun had caused heat
checking of the paint so that it was totally covered in hair line
cracks, it would have to be completely stripped and repainted, by the
way the original color of the car was plumb crazy. I believe it had a
white interior and this was also in pretty sad shape. The assistant
popped the hood open, it had a small block engine, probably a 340,
condition under the hood was kind of ratty but I've seen worse.
Assistant has great difficulty getting the motor started but finally
gets it to run. I get in and take it for a cruise around the block, it
is not that great a driver but it has been too long ago to really
remember in detail what I didn't like about it. Once I am back the
assistant invites me into the house and we talk about the car for a
while. Apparently the producer or director of the movie was adamant
that a Cuda would be used for
this movie and they spent about 6 months looking for the right car,
only one car was built for the original movie. I told him I would have
to think about it but knew at that point that the car would cost me too
much to correct its more glaring problems and this was intended to be
my daily driver.
I never called back on the car and a few months later received a call
from the movie company saying the car was still for sale and they were
taking bids on it, they also mentioned that if I were to buy it that
they might want to lease it back if they made another Phantasm movie.
By that time I had found another 71 Cuda that was in far better
condition for less money so I was not interested in even making an
offer on it. From what I understand that car has never been located
once it was eventually sold. Oh Yeah how much was the asking price? If
memory serves me somewhere around $3500, I bought my 71 which I still
own today, for $1500. Do I regret passing up the movie Cuda, of course,
but I do regret passing up on the '70 Hemi Cuda for $2000 that was
being sold, at about the same time, because the driver was getting too
many speeding tickets. True story, fond memories, and glad I held on to
the 71 over those years especially since it was a rust free body. The
70 Challenger got left behind in LA. I had brought it out with me from
Connecticut and it had your typical north East body rot which was not
worth it to fix in those days.” |
Just three years after this encounter, a reliable source remembers the
car sitting out on a dirt lot in Simi Valley California in the fall of
1984 with a sign in the front windshield reading:
"'71 cuda for sale
Black / Black
340-4 speed
Tinted windows
This is the
original movie car used in the film Phantasm.
$7,500 OBO
***-****"
After a few short weeks sitting in the dirt lot… the '71 cuda had
disappeared from this location and has never been recovered to this day.
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