‘Origins of Speed’ Roadsters

I’m not one to post about modern toy cars, but looking at the bookshelf last night, I was admiring this modest lineup of 1:18 scale ’29 A Roadsters, all angled in a row. The Origins of Speed hot rod series was introduced by Highway 61 Collectibles (Ertl) about 8 years ago, and focused on the dry lake and street racers of the 1935 – 1949 era. Each box came with a nice little booklet containing Don Montgomery images along with a brief history lesson on the movement. Another nice touch was the metal etched speeding ticket or timing slip, depending on if you got a street or lakes version of the car. Some roadsters had a banger motor (Riley or Winfield), some had a flatty (blown or dual carb), ’40 steelies or ’35 wires, QC or stock banjo, on and on… Each deuce-railed highboy was unique (and accurate) in its combination of features and paint scheme, and I found myself collecting them up pretty quickly. My only complaint here is that they were only offered with the ’29 body. A fine choice indeed, but I wish Highway 61 would have repeated the whole series again with a ’27 T, a ’32, and maybe ended with a ’33 or ’34 roadster, perhaps even moving forward in the hot rod timeline towards the early 60s. Ah, never mind. I’m running out of shelf space, anyway.