ALEX TAYLOR EXPLAINS WHAT IT MEANS TO HAVE HOT WHEELS MAKE A MODEL OF THE HOT ROD GARAGE 1955 PLYMOUTH SAVOY

It isn’t a meme so much, as it is reality: every auto enthusiasts’ destination started with a toy car. While that might not be the absolute moment that the switch gets flipped for so many, 1:64-scale cars have played a role in helping the automotive fascination blossom for decades. Hot Wheels has been at the forefront of those scale models. Whether it is a wild, artistic creations like the Twin Mill or the Deora, or just a model of the car that your parents had in the driveway, that little toy usually carries more weight than it is given credit for. Alex Taylor, the host of MotorTrend’s Hot Rod Garage, has recently gotten to experience something that many kids would love to be a part of: having their car modeled into the newest Hot Wheels offering. The car they chose? The Hot Rod Garage 1955 Plymouth Savoy.

Alex grew up with Hot Wheels, often having the scale copy of the car that was in her father Dennis’ shop. While there wasn’t one particular car that really captured her imagination, she did remember “a slew of Hot Wheels Nomads” that reflected the cars that were often in the shop. Customers would bring her cars, and she would often find them at the shows and races that they attended. According to Alex, “They were the little my-sized thing that I could play with in the shop.” We’re not saying that is what drove her to start building a hot ’68 Camaro as her high-school ride when she was 14, or what pushed her to be the youngest Drag Week racer at the age of 16, but a little inspiration does go a long way.

The Plymouth itself is a unique item. The car was selected for their second build for Roadkill Nights, the drag-racing event that Dodge sponsors. The prior year, she won the event with a highly-modified Dodge Challenger, but for the 2022 event, they rules changed: instead of building a race car based on a vehicle that Dodge provided, Dodge instead provided their Hellcrate 6.2-liter V-8 crate engine and a TR-6060 six-speed manual transmission. The competitors build their own machines that would race on Woodward Avenue. Her producer for Hot Rod Garage is the person to blame for finding the Savoy, which Alex admits wasn’t the first car that she wouldn’t have picked. But with the lessons learned from the ’55 Chevy build, the Savoy came together in a 28-day timeframe to race at Roadkill Nights, where she claimed her second victory against Westen Champlin.

When asked about how she felt about the process of working with Hot Wheels, it’s clear that the details matter to her: “The first prototype that they showed to me, not even the finished example, showed things like the interior rivets and the exact way the exhaust was routed under the car. They even included the gym plate weights that we used on the car! We just wanted to make sure that it didn’t look like a ’55 Chevy.” Alex noted that even the “rust” on the model has the proper feel, and that isn’t a detail that is usually given thought on a 1:64 car. As detail oriented as one must be when building racing machines designed to last run after run, mile after mile, that’s high praise, indeed.

Currently, Alex and the Hot Rod Garage team is in the process of planning out the next stage of the Savoy’s build. The car recently went to Dennis’s shop for a few chassis upgrades, but she’d like to find more power within the Hellcrate, possibly with a turbocharger or two. You can expect to see the Savoy at the next Hot Rod Garage Day event, but if you want to own your own copy of the Savoy, you can either order one from the MotorTrend Store or you can find one at Wal-Mart stores, with shipments beginning on September 4, 2024.

The post Alex Taylor Explains What It Means To Have Hot Wheels Make A Model Of The Hot Rod Garage 1955 Plymouth Savoy appeared first on The Online Automotive Marketplace.

2024-09-03T16:32:42Z dg43tfdfdgfd