1960 Dodge Phoenix by Trax

I place a pre-order for this back in January, and it finally arrived yesterday.

Unlike the endless saga of the Kess 1960 De Soto, which had me chewing my fingernails right up to the elbows, I was fairly laid-back about this one arriving. Not an absolutely vital, oh please, please, please, I must have it, kind of thing, I just thought it was interesting and looked quite pretty. And indeed it does (for the most part - read on).

Paintwork and detailing are generally good and well applied. There is a nice photo-etch grille at the front

and tidy detail at the back

Well, yes, I'm like you, looking at those plates, I didn't know these cars were sold as "Dodoges" in Australia either. We live and learn.

Wheel trims are kind of OK, they have some quite crisp detail round the edge (which badly needs a black wash) but overall they look pretty bland and plasticky, like they've borrowed them from an old Vitesse model or something.

There are no door or wing mirrors. Most pictures of these cars show at least a driver-side mirror (wing mounted rather than door mounted) but they may have been optional back then and Trax obviously decided they were an unnecessary complication or expense.

We always seem to praise modelmakers if their windscreen wipers aren't over-scale. Well the ones on the Phoenix are certainly discreet enough, even if they do look as if they would only sweep the the bottom half of the screen. The P/E air inlet  grille at the base of the screen is pretty nice, though

My initial suspicion was that the fins were rather weak, should be a bit taller and more sharply defined, but a bit of digging in the literature reminded me that the Dodge Phoenix (Dodge Dart Phoenix in the US) was 4 inches shorter and rode on a 4-inch shorter wheelbase than the senior Polaras and Matadors and had slightly lower and blunter fins, so the Trax is accurate in that respect. I guess that back then if you were a cheapskate and bought a Phoenix it was only right that your work colleagues and neighbours should have a daily visual reminder that you weren't the sharpest in the pack.

My big, BIG problem, however, is with the front screen pillars. At a casual glance they seem OK, and from the front three-quarter view  the smooth shaping of the typical Chrysler Corp windscreen/windshield and pillars seems to be reproduced pretty well.

However, in side view something goes badly wrong. There is a wicked dog-leg halfway down the pillar that shouldn't be there at all, and it puts an ugly kink into the front edge of the quarterlight as well. It almost looks as if the curve where the screen header rolls down into the pillar has managed to slide half way down the pillar and got stuck there. Once it has caught your eye it is very unsightly.

And no, it isn't a damaged model, even though there is an odd notch in the quarterlight frame that almost looks like impact damage in my photo, but both sides are the same. Maybe they had a problem organising the shape of the P/E framing at that point, but they managed the curvy rear window framing just fine.

Anyway, there it is. I already have 1960 Dodges by Western and Neo, both of who replicated the larger Polara with the more pronounced fins and different grille, and I guess you'd have to be a real Mopar person (or a sucker for baby blue Yankmobiles) to add this to your collection.

p.s. I crawled from my bed of sickness and took up my camera with trembling hands to bring you this review. I managed to avoid  (or should I say "Dodge"?) Covid for 3 years and have had all my boosters, but the winter flu got me in the end. So if there are any typos or signs of mental confusion in the above, I apologise.