You're right: it's a model. It is 1969, it is Satellite (RoadRunner, actually), it's hardtop and so was ours; ours was black in and on top, and white out; it's 1:43. It came in a Dodge Charger box. I thought maybe the seller had erred, and someone out there would receive a Charger in a Satellite box. "Not so," said the seller. It seems the model manufacturer failed to make a deal with the Chrysler folks before building the little cars, so they were confiscated at different stages of assembly: the Satellite boxes hadn't been printed and the Dodge cars hadn't been made. I didn't ask how the seller came by the unauthorized product to sell.

I saw exactly two '68 Satellites while I was looking. I was on the cusp between my early "I better get it now, it might be my last chance," and my later "Oh, it's one of many, I'll find a cheaper one soon enough," periods. The latter was mostly efficacious, but this was one of the errors. The first one was white and had stripes around the rear, and was 1:43. I quit when the bidding went past $30.00. Little did I know. The "Get it now" strategy was often flawed and expensive, but would have worked here.

I had the second, a 1:64 red '68 Road Runner, here for a while. Nice little car.

Mom bought the Satellite new from a neighbor of hers who happened to be a Plymouth salesman. It was in many ways a nice car, and good for her uses. One of its extravagances became one of its benefits: it was very wasteful of space, as were many cars of the era. Probably 20 percent of the space inside its sheet metal was not useful in ordinary circumstances. Once you had entered the "mid-size" body through one of its thick doors it was surprising how little room there was for people. The black interior made it seem even smaller, as you couldn't easily see where things began and ended. The trunk was big, big, big, like the older cars where you had to actually get in the trunk to reach the back of the back seat. All that fender you can see from the outside is empty space above the wheel wells.

With the standard wheels and tires the wheel wells seemed unfulfilled. Bigger tires helped, but the face of the wheel was still inset quite deeply. Satellites and RoadRunners looked good when attention was paid to wheel size and offset. Look at that model!

The way all that external covering of internal space became useful was during the last couple of years Mom drove the car. She kind of lost the edge off her depth perception and ground the perimeter of the car off on posts and (I presume) cars in parking lots. Some parts were pretty well flattened and might have been bent against tires or jammed doors shut, had there not been all that crush space. The primered presence at the left of the multi-car photo shows some of the battle scars.

The Satellite had a 273 c.i. two-barrel engine, auto transmission and power steering. Mom was living in San Clemente when she got it, so she felt no need for air conditioning. When Geneva the younger took it over she was living in East County, and could have used the cooler.

Except for the exhaust gases, or at least smell, finding their way into the inside of the car, this was an OK vehicle, reliability-wise. Occasional brakes, tires and batteries, one power steering pump replacement, bent metal repaired and repainted, and it was as good as you could ask for.

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