Hot Rods rumble through town

Sunlight blasted off chrome. The rumble of 600 horsepower V-8s echoed down the main drag. Shine was so deep, you could drown in it.

Welcome to the High Desert Rod and Custom Car Classic show in Sisters. Over 160 cars were on display, from gas gulpin' firebelchin' monster Chevrolets to whisper quiet 1940 Plymouths with skinny tires, original seat fabric and hubcaps.

Jerry Forster of Sisters was there with his '37 Ford "Slant." Jerry bought the all-steel car (there is a growing number of fiberglass reproductions on the market) last year in Philadelphia. The Ford is powered by a 350 Chevy motor with a 350 Turbo (also a chevy) automatic transmission.

The Chevrolet motor, Jerry explains, is smaller and fits in the engine bay more easily.

This is Jerry's third hot rod. It's been a while since his last one - 1952.

Not far from Jerry, Jeff Plew of Portland was backing his 1932 "Forchev" into a space. This is also a Ford holding a Chevy engine, in this case a huge 600 horsepower, supercharged stack of chrome with twin 750 Edelbrock four barrel carbs.

He could have thrown gas down the throat of that motor with a bucket.

"I had it to the floor one time. That was enough for me," Plew said of the car he bought last year at a car show.

Don Pyle, a member of "Rollin Oldies" out of Lebanon, Oregon, again brought his 1930 Model "A" to Sisters for the weekend. Pyle's car is "all Ford," and it "runs as good as it looks," said a bystander.

Don's wife Robin has caught the fever. She now has a 1966 Ford Galaxie, a car with a giant 428 cubic inch (7 liter) Ford motor.

Dan Miner's '32 Ford with a '52 Mercury "flathead" motor is a "reincarnation of my high school ride," Miner said. To prove it, he has the original title.

Actually, Miner kind of "restored the title." You see, not a piece of that original car is left in the beautiful piece of work he brought to Sisters.

Why a relatively low powered "flat head" V-8, then?

"I had a flat head in my first car. It was built by Dave Oliver of Sweet Home. He was a mechanic on an Indianapolis car in 1949. He's been dead probably 20 years. I kinda put it in as a tribute to Don, and as a nostalgia thing."

A nostalgia thing. Maybe that's what hot rods have become. The rebels who drive them sport gray hair. They lift themselves more slowly out of these chopped, channeled and sectioned pieces of histor.

But their love of the iron is preserving a homegrown American automotive art form.

And benefiting the kids of Sisters. The clubs do