Gary Dodane, 70, owner of Karl’s Barber Shop in Fort Wayne, Ind., on his 1970 Plymouth Hemi Barracuda, as told to A.J. Baime.

In 1983, I bought a Hemi Cuda for $500. At the time, I did not know much about these cars. They had huge “elephant engines,” but they got terrible gas mileage. Gas prices were surging at the time, so people were dumping these cars. When I bought mine for $500, I thought I was overpaying.

I noticed the serial number had a lot of zeros in it, so I contacted a man named Galen Govier of the Chrysler Registry, a well-known expert, to find out more about it. He asked me to tell him nothing about the car, only some numbers on an identification plate.

Two weeks later, he called and said, “Are you sitting down?” I said no. He said, “Maybe you should.” Using the numbers on the identification plate, he was able to tell me all sorts of accurate details—the car’s color, the fact that it was a four-speed and not an automatic, that it had an eight-track tape deck, etc. He knew that the speedometer of this car tops out at 120 mph and that it had no tachometer.

Most importantly, he told me that my vehicle was the first Plymouth Hemi Cuda street car ever made. The car was only built in 1970 and 1971. I have a document signed by Mr. Govier that says, “This is the very first 1970 Hemi Cuda hardtop built.”