Classic cars shine in Sisters custom show

Sisters can still hear the rumbling sound of hot rods and classic cars. photo by Jim Mitchell Bright sunshine and heat mirages shimmered over more than 100 classic cars as hotrod owners showed off their projects at the Mountain Shadow RV Park last weekend.

It was the 15th annual High Desert Rod & Custom Car Classic. And there were some real classics on display, many from an era when today's senior citizens were teenagers with the same cars.

Nearly 150 cars were on display Saturday afternoon, July 24, in front of the Comfort Inn. Some were owner-made from scratch. Others were purchased as-you-see-it. All were a labor of love (and money). There was a variety of shapes and colors, heavy on reds and blacks, but all were shiny.

Brent Moschetti, a Madras manufacturer of medical X-ray apparel, brought his bright red 1941 Willys featuring a 350 small-block Chevy engine that generates 635 HP at 6,800 RPM. Moschetti bought the car complete and despite the appearance of a street machine, the Willys still only shows 304 miles.

He said he drives it in town at the shows he attends, but it gets trailered between shows.

This '54 Ford Victoria will be on the show T-shirts next year. photo by Jim Mitchell

Moschetti concluded, "I've wanted one for a long time and I decided I didn't want to wait until it's too late."

Phil and Marilyn Macey's NASHTE (the name's on the license plate) is not a street car. Getting four miles per gallon, with an eight-gallon fuel tank, it might not make it through a long parade. But a show car it is. Macey, from Beaverton, bought his 1957 Nash Metropolitan in Pomona, California, several years ago.

"It was actually a pretty ugly duckling," he said.

"It had a top on it and the color combination was pretty horrible and the wheels were bad. I just always wanted a big-block Metropolitan.

The previous owner had just got it done and his wife said, 'Sell it. We're going to Hawaii.' So I made her happy and I made myself happy. We cut the top off it, put in a roll bar and big valve covers, had it painted, put different wheels and tires on it and that's where it's at."

Friends offered, "With a 454 Chevy engine that generates 500 HP, it's a real crowd pleaser, especially when you start it up."

And it didn't take much to persuade Macey to start it up.

Macey concluded, "This is our fourth year here for this show. We like your town. We like the show and everybody's so friendly. We like everything about it. It's too darned hot, though."

At the Sunday morning awards ceremony Bob Harris and Larry Lenin accepted a check for $822 for Habitat for Humanity. The donation was from fund-raising efforts at the show.

Earl Moran's 1954 Ford Victoria convertible was selected as the T-shirt logo car for 2005. This is a street rod, built for cruisin'. Johnny Cash's song "One Piece at a Time" was about a car he built from parts stolen from a Cadillac assembly line "one piece at a time" in his lunchbox. It could be about this car.

According to Moran, "The car was bought in 1996. It was raked. It had mag wheels. We started out from there with just putting on the whitewalls, the fender skirts, the hubcaps, and the spotlights. Then I took it in and had a complete frame-off restoration that took five years.

"It has a digital dash, television, VCR player, six-way power seats, a 302 motor with all mirrored stainless under the hood, Chrysler bumpers, a Lincoln automatic overdrive, '47 Cadillac hubcaps, '56 Olds taillights, and Dayton whitewall tires. And a few other little goodies like that."