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1971 Plymouth 'Cuda · TX9 Triple Black · 426 Hemi

Scene — The Fender Tag

The engine bay — where the 426 Hemi now lives. The original 440 Six Barrel is gone, but the story it left behind is stamped in metal.

Somewhere on this car, stamped into a small metal plate riveted to the firewall, is the complete birth record. Every option. Every code. Every decision made on the factory floor before this machine ever touched asphalt.

Galen Govier decoded it. The report confirmed what the Curator had suspected — this was a genuine V-code TX9 double black car. Not a clone. Not a tribute. The real thing, wearing its original identity beneath decades of road and time.

The original motor was gone by the time it arrived. But a 426 Hemi — the engine Plymouth should have put in every 'Cuda — found its way home under that Shaker Hood. Double black became triple black. The transformation was complete.

"It left Hamtramck as a double black 440. It would become something else entirely — a triple black Hemi 'Cuda with a story no factory order sheet could have predicted."

"Every great car has an origin. This one began at the oldest Chrysler dealership in America — and it was built for one thing only."

Rink Brothers Chrysler — Honored as the Oldest Original Chrysler Dealer in the U.S.A. — Pennsylvania

Scene — The Silence After 1977

Nineteen thousand miles. That number tells the whole story. A car built for the quarter mile lives its life in increments of 1,320 feet. This one ran those increments for years — and then, sometime after 1977, it went quiet.

No documented photos have ever resurfaced from this era. No title transfers on record. No classified ads. No car show entries. The Black Beast simply vanished from the historical record — the way cars do when their owners stop talking about them.

But the town remembers. The people who were there remember a black 'Cuda rolling through those Pennsylvania streets — black, loud, and built for one thing. That memory is the only evidence that survived the silence.

"Somewhere in the Ozarks, on 160 acres of Missouri farmland, the greatest Mopar collection in America was quietly growing. The Black Beast was about to find its sanctuary."

R&R Salvage — Verona, Missouri. 160 acres. The largest Mopar yard in the country. Ron & Kathy Slobe, proprietors.

Scene — The Covered Barn

The Black Beast in the covered barn — row of E-bodies, roll cage still in place. Look closely.

Ron's restored Sox & Martin 'Cuda — "Lil Boss" — one of the legendary drag racing Cudas in his private collection.

The covered barn was not open to the public. It was Ron's private museum — the cars he had pulled from the field and kept for himself. A row of E-bodies. Six Pack cars lined up end to end. And somewhere in that row, a black TX9 'Cuda with a roll cage and 19,000 original miles, sitting in the dark, waiting.

It sat there for twenty years. From 1977 to 1997. The drag racing era was over. The Pennsylvania streets were a memory. But the car was preserved — better than it would have been anywhere else. Ron Slobe didn't let Mopars die. He saved them.

From the Archive — Performance Magazine, May/June 1993

"Salvation Army — R&R Salvage May Be Your Salvation."

The Mopar world knew about R&R Salvage. Magazine features. Word of mouth. Collectors making pilgrimages to Verona from across the country. Ron's operation was legendary — not just for the parts, but for the complete cars he had quietly accumulated over two decades.

The Black Beast was in there. Invisible to the outside world. Documented nowhere. But safe — in the hands of a man who understood exactly what it was.

Scene — The Hunter

Dan Powell was not a casual collector. He was a World of Wheels Mopar restoration expert out of Oklahoma — the kind of man who hunted specific cars, who knew what to look for and where to look. When he found the Black Beast in Ron Slobe's covered barn, he knew what he had.

In 1997, after twenty years of silence in Verona, Missouri, the 'Cuda changed hands again. Dan Powell purchased it for restoration. The Lost Years were over. What came next would transform the Black Beast into something its original owner never imagined — and set it on a path toward the Nevada desert.

Dan Powell

"Vietnam veteran. Purple Heart recipient. Award-winning 'Cuda builder. The man who flew through war, defied his doctors — and brought the Black Beast back to life."

Scene — The Third Black 'Cuda

"The black 'Cuda I have now is the third black 'Cuda I have built. The first was an original '71 with a 340 and a 4-speed. The next was an original double-black '71 440 Six-Pak car, which up until that point had spent its whole life as a drag car. As a result, the 'Cuda only had 19,000 original miles on it."

That drag car with 19,000 original miles — that was the Black Beast. The same car that left Rink Brothers Chrysler in Pennsylvania in 1971. The same car that sat in Ron Slobe's covered barn in Verona, Missouri for twenty years. Dan Powell knew exactly what he had found.

He took it back to his shop in Collinsville and went to work. The same hands that had flown aircraft through Vietnam, that had defied every medical prediction, now stripped the Black Beast down to bare metal and rebuilt it into something extraordinary. He ran it on aviation fuel — the same high-octane blend he'd trusted in the air — and built it specifically to hunt down 5.0 Mustangs on the street. It worked.

The Powell Restoration — Collinsville, Oklahoma

Body panels and fenders — stripped, media-blasted, and prepped. Every panel pulled and done right.

Engine bay and shaker hood — masked and ready for TX9 black. The color that started it all.

Floor pan — Por-15 sealed, frame rails welded. Built from the ground up, the way Powell always did it.

Shaker hood work — fitting the iconic scoop assembly. The detail that makes a 'Cuda a 'Cuda.

Rotisserie prep for paint — body stripped to bare metal, every panel accessible. Powell did it right, from every angle.

Dan Powell painting the 'Cuda — old school, no mask. Spray gun in hand, working the rear quarter panel himself. This is how a Vietnam veteran builds a car.

426 Super Stock Hemi

"Built from a 1966 Hemi block. Every spec documented. Every tolerance measured. Dan Powell didn't guess — he built it right."

The 426 Super Stock Hemi on the stand — dual quads, black wrinkle rocker covers, chrome dress. Every spec documented. Dan Powell built it right.

Powell's shop — the 426 Hemi on the stand, parts boxes across the floor. The covered 'Cuda waits in the background. The build is underway.

Official Engine Build Sheet — Dan Powell, Collinsville Oklahoma

426 Super Stock Hemi — Complete Build Specifications

Block & Rotating Assembly

Camshaft & Valvetrain

Induction, Ignition & Final Assembly

Balancing Weights

The finished 426 Super Stock Hemi — dual 4-barrel carbs, black wrinkle rocker covers, chrome accessories gleaming. Built by Dan Powell. Ready for the Black Beast.

"Dan Powell has since passed. But the cars he built — the 15 'Cudas that came out of that Oklahoma barn — they're still out there. And the one he rescued from Verona, Missouri found its way back to northwestern Missouri, and eventually to the Curator's collection. Dan Powell's hands are in this car's story whether his name appears in the credits or not."

In Memory — Dan Powell, Collinsville, Oklahoma

"It was built to go fast. It went fast. And then it disappeared into the greatest Mopar collection in America — preserved by a man who understood its worth, waiting for the man who would bring it back."

Act II Follows Below

"Some cars you find. Some cars find you. And some cars — the ones that matter most — slip through your hands just once, just barely, and spend the next twenty years reminding you they were real."

Collinsville, Oklahoma — Early 2000

First Contact

2001 — Las Vegas, Nevada

The Letter

In 2001, Dan kept his word. An envelope arrived at my office at American Media Corp., 8375 West Flamingo Road, Las Vegas — handwritten in blue ink, three 33-cent stamps, and a note on the outside that read: "pictures do not bend."

Inside was a handwritten letter on yellow legal paper. Dan described the Black Beast in detail — the 1966 Super Stock 426 Hemi, the Super Track Pak, the 20,000 original miles, the 34-foot enclosed gooseneck race trailer. Asking $60,000 or best offer. He offered to make a video. He said the pictures do not do it justice. He said come see it in person.

June 29, 2001 — Cars On Line

SOLD

By the time Dan's letter reached me in Las Vegas, it was already too late. The ad had gone up on Cars On Line — 11,152 visitors had seen it. And by June 29, 2001, it was stamped with one word: SOLD.

A local Mopar collector from northwestern Missouri had caught wind of the 1971 Plymouth 440-6 Promo Cuda Dan had restored — a World of Wheels winner — and made the trip to Collinsville to purchase it. While he was there picking up the promo car, he spotted the Black Beast in the hangar. From what I was told, it did not take long.

The Cars On Line listing — June 29, 2001. Visitor No. 11,152. The ad that confirmed what I already knew: someone else had gotten there first.

The Bait — Dan Powell's Promo Cuda

World of Wheels Winner

The Missouri collector had not come for the Black Beast. He had come for this — Dan's yellow and black 1971 440-6 Promo Cuda, a show car that had taken top honors at World of Wheels. It was the car that brought him to Collinsville. The Black Beast was the car he left with.

Dan Powell's World of Wheels winner — the yellow and black 1971 440-6 Promo Cuda. The car that brought the collector to Collinsville. The Black Beast was the car he drove home.

The Sale

The Black Beast Changes Hands

The collector was persistent. He had come a long way from northwestern Missouri, and he was not leaving without both cars. The Black Beast — and the 34-foot enclosed gooseneck race trailer — were purchased on the same trip. Dan always apologized to me afterward. He said the car was technically for sale, and the collector was simply more persistent than the mail.

Here is the detail that still stops me: the purchase was for his wife. The new owner of the Black Beast — a car built by a Vietnam veteran, powered by a 426 Super Stock Hemi, fueled by aviation gas — was a woman who wanted to go drag racing.

And drag racing they did.

"The Black Beast went directly to Competition Fabrications in Maple Park, Illinois — a full drag race restoration. Brand new custom NHRA cage. Rear re-tub fabrication. Art Morrison bars. Upgraded suspension. No expense spared to bring the Powell Cuda up to NHRA specs."

Competition Fabrications — Maple Park, Illinois

Full NHRA Drag Race Restoration — The Black Beast

"Dan apologized. The collector was persistent. The letter arrived too late. And somewhere in northwestern Missouri, a woman was about to go drag racing in a double-black 426 Hemi Cuda built by a Vietnam veteran who ran it on aviation fuel."

Act III Follows Below

"I was thirteen years old in the summer of 1979. I sat in a theater and watched a black 1971 Cuda own the screen. That car never left me. Forty years later, I was still looking for it."

Summer 1979 — The Beginning

The Grail

I was thirteen years old when I first saw Phantasm in a theater in the summer of 1979. The black 1971 Cuda on screen was dressed up to impersonate a 440-6 — TX9 double-black, six-barrel, the car that stole the world's hearts. That was the movie car in my mind. That was the car I wanted. That was my grail.

And then the real car — the actual TX9 double-black 440-6 that had inspired the whole mythology — went missing. Just like the movie car. Both of them gone.

I spent sleepless nights with that knowledge. Big-block 1971 TX9 Cudas are rare. Losing out on the sale of one is not something that comes back around in a lifetime. I knew that. I felt it.

2001–2002 — The Consolation Run

Healing the Wounds

I tried to move on. I purchased a black 1968 R/T Charger 440 — a beautiful car, a serious car. It did not heal the wound. Not really. The 1974 Pro Street Cuda I had been finishing at Restorations by Julius in Chatsworth went up for sale. I was not done searching. I was never going to be done searching.

The internet was not what it is today. Finding and locating big-block Mopars was done through old-school print channels and persistence — classified ads, word of mouth, and the one publication that mattered most: Hemmings Motor News.

The 1968 Dodge Charger R/T 440 — black, serious, and beautiful. A great car. Not the right car. The search continued.

"Only 24 months after losing the Black Beast, I flipped to page 586 in the June issue of Hemmings Motor News. And there it was."

Hemmings Motor News — June Issue, Page 586

THE BLACK BEAST

I knew what the car was the moment I saw the ad. I knew the history. I knew who had built it, who had restored it, and what was under the hood. The Black Beast — Dan Powell's double-black 1971 440-6 Cuda with the 1966 Super Stock 426 Hemi — had surfaced again. Twenty-four months after it slipped through my hands, it was back in print on page 586.

My holy grail had come back to me on a second-chance qualifier round.

I purchased it site unseen.

Hemmings Motor News — June issue, page 586. The ad that changed everything. The Black Beast, back in print. Purchased site unseen.

Dan Powell — The Apology

One More Letter

Dan Powell wrote again. He always apologized for selling the car to someone else. He knew what it meant. He knew I had been the first call, and that the letter had arrived too late. This follow-up was his way of closing the loop — a thank-you, an acknowledgment, the kind of correspondence that only happens between men who understand what these cars represent.

Dan Powell's follow-up letter — the apology, the acknowledgment. He always felt bad about the sale. This was his way of saying so.

The Delivery

The Black Beast Comes Home

Purchased site unseen. No test drive. No in-person inspection. Just the knowledge of what the car was, who had built it, and what it meant. The Black Beast — the car Dan Powell had restored from a 1966 Hemi block up, the car that had won at World of Wheels, the car that had gone to Competition Fabrications for a full NHRA build, the car that a woman from northwestern Missouri had drag raced — was on its way to me.

When it arrived, I was standing there waiting. Twenty-four years after I first saw a black 1971 Cuda on a movie screen at thirteen years old, my grail had come home.

The Black Beast arrives. Purchased site unseen from page 586 of Hemmings Motor News. The grail, delivered.

The Curator's Cuda — What This Car Is

The Black Beast — Provenance Record

"I was thirteen years old in a theater in 1979. I was a grown man standing in a driveway when the trailer dropped the gate. The car that had been my grail since that summer — the car that had slipped through my hands once — had come back. The Black Beast was home."

Act V Follows Below

"The Black Beast was home. And the world was about to find out."

2003–2012 — The Circuit

Show Car Appearances

Once the Black Beast was home and sorted, it went out. The 2003–2012 period was the most active stretch of the car's public life — show circuits, special invitations, and appearances that put the TX9 double-black 426 Hemi Cuda in front of audiences who understood exactly what they were looking at.

Mopars at the Strip. Spring Fling. Woodley Park. The car drew crowds everywhere it went — hood up, Hemi on display, the provenance story told to anyone who asked. Dan Powell's build. The World of Wheels win. Competition Fabrications. Aviation fuel. The Hemmings page 586 acquisition. People listened.

This was not just a show car. This was a documented piece of Mopar history with a paper trail going back to a Chrysler dealership in Collinsville, Oklahoma, and a Vietnam veteran who built it right.

Mopars at the Strip — the Black Beast under the show tent, hood up, Hemi on display. The car that came back from page 586.

Show Car Record — 2003 to 2012

The Black Beast on the Circuit

2004 — On Set

Murder-Set-Pieces — A Horror Film Appearance

In 2004, the Black Beast went back in front of a camera. Director Nick Palumbo was shooting Murder-Set-Pieces — a horror film that would go on to become one of the most controversial entries in the genre, earning a Director's Cut release through Fright Flix Productions. The production needed a car with presence. They found one.

The Black Beast appeared on set in Las Vegas alongside the production crew, cast, and Gunnar Hansen — the actor best known as Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The car that had been Dan Powell's restoration project, that had won at World of Wheels, that had been built for NHRA competition and run on aviation fuel, was now on a film set again — twenty-five years after a different black 1971 Cuda had made its screen debut in Phantasm.

The circle was closing.

Gunnar Hansen with the Black Beast — 426 Hemi Shaker open, Las Vegas 2004. Leatherface meets the car that started it all.

Murder-Set-Pieces — Director's Cut. Fright Flix Productions, 2004. The Black Beast on a film set for the first time since Phantasm.

"A TX9 double-black 426 Hemi Cuda with a documented Phantasm connection does not go unnoticed. The invitations came. The car answered every one of them."

Special Invitations

The Car That Got Called

Word traveled fast in the Mopar community. A TX9 double-black 1971 Cuda with a 426 Super Stock Hemi, a documented restoration by a Vietnam veteran, a World of Wheels win, an NHRA Competition Fabrications build, and a direct connection to the most iconic muscle car in horror film history — that car gets invited places.

The Black Beast coming out of storage. The cover comes off. The circuit calls.

Spring Fling. Woodley Park. Mopar shows up and down California. The Black Beast was a regular presence on the circuit from 2003 through 2012 — always with the full story available for anyone who wanted to hear it, always with the Govier report, always with the provenance.

Spring Fling, Woodley Park — the Black Beast on the circuit with the best Mopars in the country.

This was the car's most public era. The grail that had been found on page 586 of Hemmings Motor News was now known. The Black Beast had a reputation, and it had earned every bit of it.

8th Street, Boise — the Idaho circuit. The Black Beast earned every invitation it received.

"From a film set in Las Vegas to the show tents at Mopars at the Strip — the Black Beast spent four years reminding the world what a real TX9 Hemi Cuda looks like. The story was always the same. The car always delivered."

Continued — Act V Below

Where It Stands Today

The Black Beast — Still Running

"Every car has a last chapter. Most of them end quietly — a garage, a cover, a key that stops turning. The Black Beast never agreed to that arrangement."

The Record, Closed and Open

After the show years wound down and the circuit quieted, the TX9 double-black 426 Hemi Cuda settled back into the care of the archive. The Govier report is intact. The fender tag is documented. The provenance record — from the Rink Brothers Chrysler dealership floor in 1971, through R&R Salvage in Verona, Missouri, through Dan Powell's hangar restoration, through the Cars Online listing that almost let it disappear again, through the Hemmings ad on page 586 that brought it home — is as complete as any film car's record gets.

The show appearances are logged. The Murder-Set-Pieces set in Las Vegas is documented. The Mopars at the Strip trophy is part of the record. The Special Invitations — the ones that came because people recognized what they were looking at — are preserved here.

What the archive cannot fully close is the larger question — the one this entire site was built around. The original 1979 Phantasm production car, the Baker Cuda, remains unaccounted for. The Black Beast carries that story forward not as a replacement, but as proof that these cars existed, that they mattered, and that the record is worth keeping.

"Out here, when the desert settles and the night leans in, you can sense it — the quiet truth that this car's story still moves, drifting forward even when the road has long slipped into darkness."

The archive remains open. The search continues.

A Tribute

A Moment for the Ones Who Were There

Before I close this chapter, there's something I need to acknowledge about that era. Back then, I wasn't out there racing alone. I had two Mopar brothers who were right there with me — lining up on the street, wrenching late into the night, talking cars, talking life, and living like the world was wide open in front of us.

We shared runs, laughs, close calls, and the kind of moments you only get when you're young, fearless, and behind the wheel of something loud and fast. Those were some of the best times of my life — the kind you don't realize are golden until they're gone.

Both of those friends are no longer here. Their stories ended far too early, in ways that still sit heavy with me. I won't mention their names, but they were part of that era… part of those nights… part of the reason those memories still mean something.

Epilogue

The Keeper of the Story

I've lived with this car for so many years that sometimes I have to remind myself it all really happened. I dreamed of a black '71 Cuda when I was thirteen years old, sitting in a theater in the summer of '79, watching that car own the screen. I didn't know it then, but that moment would follow me through my entire life.

And now, after everything — all the places I've lived, all the chapters I've survived, all the roads I've taken — that same dream sits in my garage today.

Keeping it wasn't always easy. There were years when the temptation to cash out was loud, years when the car was shipped, stored, moved, driven, stored again, shipped again, and kept alive through sheer stubbornness and belief. But I never let it go. I couldn't. I always remembered the stories people told me growing up:

"I had a Plymouth Cuda back in the day… shouldn't have sold it… biggest regret of my life."

Those words stuck with me. They became a warning, a reminder, a promise. I wasn't going to be one of those stories. I wasn't going to spend the rest of my life wishing I had held on.

So I did.

And now, for the first time, I can sit back, breathe, and reflect on what it has meant. This car didn't just give me memories — it created them. It shaped moments, friendships, chapters, and entire eras of my life. It carried me through the years, and I carried it right back.

The car and the story are a part of me. They always have been. And after everything… I'm still here. And the Black Beast is still here. The dream I had at thirteen never left — because I never let it.

This is the first time I've been able to share what it truly meant. And maybe that's the real ending to this chapter: the realization that the story wasn't just about the car — it was about the man who never stopped believing in it.