Plenty of valuable muscle cars spend their retirement years being carefully pushed onto trailers and displayed with mirrors underneath them. Al Smyth’s black 1970 Plymouth Hemi Cuda has lived a very different life.
Smyth knew exactly what he wanted when he was 18 years old: a black 1970 Hemi Cuda with a four-speed manual. On September 12, 1975, he made good on that ambition and bought the real thing.
More than 50 years later, he still owns it. Better yet, this isn’t a Hemi Cuda that spent its entire existence being preserved for future collectors, because Smyth spent years drag racing the Plymouth and wasn’t afraid to make its 426 work for a living.
The car recently appeared at the 2026 Chrysler Nationals in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where Smyth showed it to Lou Costabile, who featured it on his YouTube channel. Despite everything the Cuda has experienced over the decades, Smyth still drives it.
It Was Already A Drag Car When He Bought It
According to Smyth, the Cuda had only 264 miles on it when he bought it in 1975, yet it had already been raced at New England Dragway. Its previous owners had managed an 11.61-second quarter-mile, which was serious performance for the period.
Smyth eventually went quicker, recalling a best run of 11.26 seconds at roughly 123 mph. He also remembers the excitement of pulling the front wheels off the ground, including one particularly memorable three-foot wheelstand at New England Dragway.
That run helped bring the Cuda’s competitive career to an end. Smyth says his wife decided the Plymouth had become too valuable to continue risking at the drag strip, so it was retired from racing.
Its odometer remains below 16,000 original miles. As Smyth jokes, many of those miles were accumulated “a quarter mile at a time,” plus the trip back down the return road.
This Hemi Still Means Business
The Cuda hasn’t been frozen exactly as Plymouth built it. Its drag-racing history remains visible through equipment including a period roll bar, relocated battery, and large rear tires, while the original H-pattern shifter was replaced by a vertical-gate unit.
Under the hood sits the star of the show: the 426 Hemi. Smyth points to identifying numbers on the car as evidence of its genuine Hemi origins, while describing the engine itself as remaining largely in stock trim.
One notable addition is an Edelbrock Rat Roaster intake manifold. Smyth says the setup allowed the Hemi to keep pulling at high engine speeds, and he recalls shifting the Cuda at an eye-watering 8,000 rpm during its racing days.
Five Decades With His Dream Car
Perhaps the most appealing thing about Smyth’s Cuda is that its history hasn’t been erased in pursuit of showroom perfection. The modifications, racing photographs, and stories are all part of a car that has spent decades with the same owner.
That relationship continues today. During Costabile’s video, Smyth fires up the Hemi and takes the Cuda onto the road, explaining that its racing transmission requires double-clutching and some familiarity to operate smoothly.
A genuine black four-speed 1970 Hemi Cuda is the sort of muscle car many collectors would be reluctant to exercise aggressively today. Smyth already spent decades proving what his car was built to do, and more than half a century after buying his dream car, he’s still the one behind the wheel.