Classic cars rock-and-roll in Sisters

Classic rides and classic rock-n-roll made an attractive couple at the third annual Sisters Glory Daze Car Show on Saturday as over 100 entrants parked their steel and fiberglass babies down Main Avenue.

Roadsters, ragtops and resto-mod replicas lined the streets, all bathed and polished to perfection, badged with legendary names like Stingray, Shelby, Camaro and Countach. Raindrops beaded on Turtle Waxed roofs as judges peeked under hoods and inspected interiors, calculating points on vintage vehicles from over fifty years of automotive history in 15 different classes and categories.

Shawn Biggers brought her custom, butternut-yellow, 1955 Ford F-100 pickup and absorbed the infectious vibe of her first car show.

"I'm entered in the Ladies Class," she said. "My dad is a big street-rodder and this is kind of a tribute to him. He's 83 and has been in it his whole life. I've been flying airplanes since I was 16 and finally have a little bit of free time and was looking for a truck. This Ford came out of Bend and we pulled the motor and put in this Chevy 348-cubic-inch, tri-power motor for the cool factor."

Everyone's car carried with it some incredible stories and colorful history, like the ultra-creepy "Koffin Kreeper" chop-topped street rod built by Avery Bell of Redmond. The brush-metal exterior of this wild '31 DeSoto attracted throngs of hot rod fans, some warily approaching the nightmarish hearse to honk the horn.

"The idea for this project came when I was in metal shop in high school." said Avery. "I built the car around the hood ornament, a P-38 Lightning emblem crafted all out of old World War II bullet casings by my grandfather. We found the DeSoto body just outside Redmond, sitting under a tree. The frame is all hand-made, and I assembled the car out of 20 different vehicles, sorta like Frankenstein's monster. I used Chrysler headlamps, Oakland fenders, Cadillac running boards and a '55 DeSoto hemi engine. It's stretched two-and-a-half feet and chopped down seven-and-a-half inches. I really like hearses, they're pretty cool. I left the coffin at home, though."

Avery's wicked cemetery delivery wagon won first prize in the Best Rat Rod category.

Jeri Buckmann thanked everyone for their enthusiastic participation and vowed to keep improving the show for next year.

"We had a small increase over last year, and that's excellent," she said. "There are some awesome cars out there. All of them."

Curt Kallberg treated the crowd to a showing of his barely-street-legal, 1973 Bobby Allison stock car, painted in trademark Coca-Cola red and gold. Under the hood was a monster 427-cubic-inch L-88 powerplant putting out well over 600 horsepower. During the noon-time "Start Your Engines" group engine rev, Kallberg's famous "Number 12" racer shook the pine needles into the next county with a mighty big-block roar.

"I bought it from a guy up in Washington," he said, hopping out of the driver's side window. "It originally came from the Allison brothers in Alabama. I had it in the storage shed and Jeri asked what I had to bring over to the car show, so I decided to pull it out and bring it. It's made to run on the old high-banked super speedways like Daytona. I may bring it down to the Portland Raceway next weekend and take it for a few laps."

Kallberg's slice of NASCAR Grand National history wowed the crowds and took home the Best In Show prize.

Winners in other categories included: Best Muscle Car '61-'74 - Ron Sparkman of Sisters for his 1969 Pontiac GTO Judge; Best Sportscar - Jack McGillvary with a '56 Corvette Roadster; Ladies Class - Nancy Wilson of Dallas, Oregon, for her 1935 Chevy Master Touring; and Best Street Machine - John Morris and his 1955 Chevy Bel Air.