Al Young's Show Stopping 1971 Cuda

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This Plymouth muscle car is an absolute stunner!

When the Motorious Online Car Show concluded, the team unanimously picked a stunning 1971 Plymouth 'Cuda as the overall winner. While we had hundreds of some of the most impressive cars from all varieties, this classic 'Cuda stole the spotlight. We recently got a chance to sit down with the owner to find out the backstory of the 'Cuda, and we uncovered a charming story behind the car.

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When Al Young was 17 years old and in high school, his Automotive class really ignited his passion for working on cars. It was then when he talked to his parents about buying a car to fix up, with the intent of buying and selling a few. Al asked his brother Richie about any cars for sale, and he heard through a friend that there was a car in NYC worth checking out, so they did.

The car they went to see was parked outside of this taxi cab repair shop. It was this purple car with yellow taxi cab wheels,white vinyl top, white interior, bench seat, rear spoiler, front rubber bumper, column shifted automatic with this scoop sticking out of the hood. It was the 'Cuda you see before you today, bought by Al in 1977.

"My brother thought that was cool because it shakes with the engine, so we took it for a ride - it was loud and fast and I could hardly see over the dash and for the price of $500.00 dollars, I was Hooked." Al Young tells Motorious, "I fell in love with it and as you can see I never sold it, she was my daily driver to school and it was the only purple car around town and I painted it a candy apple purple with white pinstripes."

When Al and the 'Cuda had some wild days back then, with plenty of racing and cruising that resulted in tickets, and even had a few accidents. He shares with us a pretty funny story:

"Here in New Jersey the Great Adventure theme park had a animal drive thru park where all the animals roamed free with no chain link fence like they have nowadays. You drive along the paved road and the animals are free to jump on your car. Monkeys rip your wipers off and at one point a lion took a liking to my right front rubber bumper and started to tear it apart rocking my car back and forth,I honked the horn to get him to move but he did not so silly Me I got got of the car to scare him away knowing that I can get killed but did it anyway and the Lion let it go and to this day I still have the front bumper and the piece of the corner left dangling now displayed in my garage."