Just about all of us who didn’t grow up with video games as our only education about cars probably played with die cast and model cars at some point in time. In recent years we’ve seen countless news stories about  rare copies of some of these cars bringing in a fortune in cash for some lucky owner who hung onto a collection.

Die cast cars have also been used throughout automotive history, and rodding as a promotional and commemorative tool. Even as adults we often like to throw these on a desk, or shelf in the office or garage – they make great conversation pieces, and are also a great distraction for the kids when they’re handed out at car shows.

In the late 1990s Holley teamed up with some of the best in the business to build a ’32 Street Rod. That effort included Total Cost Involved (TCI Engineering) building a a custom chassis and independent front suspension for the car. The ’32 was powered by a 426 hp small-block Chevy, that featured many of Holley’s then new, Heart and Soul products.

Racing Champions then made the collectible die cast model of the car, complete with limited edition serial numbers. The back of the packaging featured a detailed spec list, and includes the TCI custom chassis as well as other details about the car.

A few of these have recently shown up on eBay. While they’re not bringing in big money, it’s a cool piece of affordable rodding history from nearly two decades ago. The highly detailed model sports the same checkered flag and flame paint, but looks to have a chromed out flathead engine with offy’s on top instead of the Holley parts. It’s definitely a super cool piece, and would be right at home on the office shelf none-the-less.

We don’t know if there are any other cool commemorative die cast hot rods out there like this from recent history, but if there are we’d sure love to hear about them. Which car would you like to see come back as a die cast?