Jan and Dean perform one of the best-known car songs of the ’60s, “The Little Old Lady From Pasadena.”

There really was a little old lady from Pasadena—on television, anyway. In the 1960s, actress Kathryn Minner played a Southern California stock character, an archetype if you will, the elderly woman in tennis shoes, in a series of TV commercials for the local Dodge dealer association. Her catch phrase was “Put a Dodge in your garage, hon-ney.”

Songwriters Roger Christian, Jan Berry, and Don Altfeld, experienced hands at crafting car songs for the Top 40 teen market, took the little old lady premise and kicked it up a notch. They re-imagined her driving a full-race Super Stock Dodge—a Max Wedge, we presume.The guys come to race her from miles around, but she’ll give ’em a length then she’ll shut ’em down. 

The Beach Boys recorded a cover of the tune, but it’s the version by Jan and Dean everyone remembers today. Here are they are in a live concert performance at the epic T.A.M.I. Show recorded at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on Oct. 28-29, 1964. Watch the crowd go wild.