Highway 61 1:18 1964 Dodge Super Stock Hemi- "Little Old Lady from Pasadena"- Supercars- Ltd Ed

This brand new shiny red superstock Dodge actually comes parked in a rickety old garage. Supercar collectibles has released Highway 61's 1964 Dodge 330 as a tribute to the Berry/Christian/Altfield song made famous by Jan and Dean. The packaging has all the lyrics to the song and the backpiece on the quarter round display case represents an unpainted wooden garage. The car sports front and rear 1964 California license plates that read "LOL426" set in a frame that reads "Pasadena Dodge".

This version of the Dodge 330 contains the mighty 426 Hemi in a barely street legal package. Windshield wipers, conventional locking hood, and seatbelts with photoetched hardware (unfortunately all male parts) are provided. Granny must have been in great shape to handle this monster that has only manual steering and brakes. This model also comes with a manual 4speed transmission with a Hurst style floor shift. The clutch pedal is modeled and the dash plate for the pushbutton automatic has been replaced with a blank. Mounted on this diecast are front TorqueThrust style wheels (without the domed dust cap), with generic bias ply tires and rear steel wheels matching the red body. Supercars provided another pair of TorqueThrust wheels to replace the rears if desired. The stance of this car has an aggressive forward rake to it. The paint is flawless save for a couple of glue spots on my example. The chrome is excellent, including all external and internal hardware, and badging, and the blackwashed grill looks so good I had to check to see if it really was opaque black. The window trim, side spears and Dodge scripts are foiled and are not too distracting.The glazing is distortion free. The vent windows are posable. The doors operate on spring loaded hinges

H-61's hallmark features are all here. The rear wheels operate the driveshaft and radiator fan. The spring loaded scissors hinges for the hood make displaying the engine bay an extra thrill. The crown jewel of the engine bay is of course the fully plumbed and wired Hemi engine. Its twin staggered 4bbl carbs are capped by a single elliptical chromed air filter which can be removed and replaced with two plenum chambers provided that can be found in the trunk. The trunk is barebones containing only the 12V battery without the individual cell vents of the NHRA variants.

The interior is all red, identical to the Ramchargers version with matching flocked carpeting sans rear seat. The undercarriage is well done and nicely painted and textured. The exhaust system starts with tuned headers that split to large bore dumps and a conventional stock muffled configuration. The suspension is operable but extremely stiff.

Overall this is a well done and fun piece for us graybeards that still wax nostalgic over those great California surf sounds of the Sixties that also managed to embrace and reflect the car culture of the times. Wiping a tear aside, this diecast is a great buy for the buck. My example had a few QC concerns. Besides the glue spots, the hood, which is plastic, is slightly sprung, has a few bare areas on the angles from overpolishing and a poorly finished area where the part was sprued to the tree. Those of you who plan to buy this model and store it would be advised to remove the packing straps as they reacted with the clear-coat finish on my example and may very well have been responsible for the areas of rubbed off paint on the hood scoop angles. The areas where the finish interacted polished out with Novus2, but I cannot guarantee that the effects of long term storage would not be irreversible. 4 1/2 stars for this Mopar missle. If this example had better QC, I'd have gladly given it 5.

Now, next on the Rock and Roll Top Ten list should be the '63 Superstock Dodge 413 with "sonoramic ram induction" from "Shut Down". I mean the Beach Boys should get equal treatment, no?

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