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Custom dream cruisin' photo by Bob Pennell Five-month-old Gus Horton and his dad, Jesse Horton of Eagle Point, admire Dennis Warrender's custom-built replica of a 1925 Ford Model T during Medford Cruise '99. Some of this, some of that transforms one man's idea into swanky machine There is very little Henry Ford, and a whole lot of Dennis Warrender, in this 1925 Model T. Also a little bit of Chevrolet, Volvo and an array of miscellaneous parts that Warrender has scabbed from junk yards and garage sales during a seven-year crusade to build his purple street rod literally from the living-room carpet on up. About the only thing truly '25 about the car is its license plate -- complete with original paint. But the custom car has just enough hints of a Model T to qualify as one in the minds of the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles, if not Henry Ford himself. "I think he'd turn over in his grave if he saw it," says owner Warrender, who runs his own Central Point dental lab by days. Then again, Ford might ask to take it for a spin. Warrender's street rod was one of 415 classic and vintage cars whose character drew several thousand people Saturday into downtown Medford for the annual show-and-shine portion of Medford Cruise '99. The cruise is run annually by the Medford Cruise Association, which draws owners of custom and specialty cars for show, prizes and a little cruising. The event was capped Saturday night with 500 cars -- the maximum allowed by the association -- revving their way through downtown for a traditional cruise. But the earlier show-and-shine drew crowds of car-lovers who walked the blocked-off downtown streets oooing and aahhing at the waxed creations spawned from the libidos of Southern Oregon's street-rod enthusiasts. "If there aren't 5,000 people walking through here, then I'd be surprised," said Ken Mann, a cruise association board member. Many of those stopped to oogle Warrender's finished product, without knowing what he went through to get the car parked on Main Street near Central Avenue. The project began in 1992, when Warrender decided to build a street rod and lay the first few chassis pieces on his living-room floor. The remaining pieces all came from different sources. The rear end is off a Lincoln, one axle is off a 1939 Ford truck. The brakes are from an old Volvo, installed to stop the car powered by a 427-cubic-inch Chevy engine. "We scab parts from wherever we can find them," he says. The body is a Fiberglas replica of a 1923-25 Ford Model T, custom cut and fitted with a wooden dashboard that Warrender sliced from a chunk of maple. Together, they created the 1,500-pound car with 800 horsepower that can reach speeds that would get anyone's life insurance canceled. The engine can make the car go far faster than it's capable of handling, says Warrender, who has taken it to 100 mph -- just don't tell the cops. And another secret is his cost -- about $22,000 to date, he says. "If my wife knew what I had in it," Warrender says, "she'd kill me." Homicide aside, Rick Jones thinks it's worth it. "It looks like the car from the `Munsters,"' Jones says. "It would be awesome, to go cruising in that." And like all good classic cars, this one is a work of art always in progress. "It's an on-going project," Warrender says. "Whenever I work with it, I change it a little bit. You're never quite finished." But Warrender is finished with this car. It's for sale, at $15,500, to make garage room for his next creation -- a 1948 Pontiac two-door sedan with a torpedo back. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA