Ambassador for Silverton: Flywheels co-founder Wes Oster receives Lifetime Achievement Award

By Brenna Wiegand

Wes Oster believes cars and trucks are made to be driven and he has the miles on his mint condition ’56 Ford pick-up to prove it.

For sharing his love of cars and community for more than 50 years, Oster receives Silverton’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the Silverton First Citizen Banquet Feb. 11.

Oster retired from the city’s water department in 2001 after 22 years. For 32 years, he volunteered with Silverton Fire District. These contributions – along with helping with the food drives and Elks leadership – are not Oster’s crowning glory; none a rival for his affections.

It’s cars. In particular, the type we “ooh” and “ah” over at car shows. It’s the celebration of the automobile – and this party’s been going strong for more than 50 years.

“I guess it pretty much is my life’s work, and I’m pretty overwhelmed about this whole thing,” he said of the award. “I’ve still got the banquet thing to make it through; that’s going to be hard enough.”

When not out revving his engine, Oster can often be seen walking his mini-pinscher around town.

“Rudy Dog and I log about five miles a day,” he said.

“Wes was one of the founding members of the Silverton Flywheels Club back in 1961,” said Rand Breitbach, club secretary.  “He has been active through the club’s 50 years – and president for about the last 25.”

They started the club on a shoestring and today it is brimming at 90 members – one of the largest in the Willamette Valley, if not Oregon.

Wes and his younger brother Edd take the pick-up to car shows across the country just about every weekend. Last year the brothers logged more than 9,000 miles.

“Wherever we go, Wes talks about how much he loves Silverton,” Edd said. He related the time a Flywheels member was traveling in Denver. Seeing he was from Silverton, the hotel clerk asked “Do you know Wes Oster?” A couple years before, Wes had stopped there on his way to a Tennessee car show.

Pop the Flywheels hood and you realize the horsepower with which a club of such magnitude can fuel a community.

You’ll find Oster coming early and staying late during the Homer Davenport Days Cruise-In. Three years ago, Oster led the club in providing a car show May through September as part of Silverton’s First Friday.

And it’s always with pleasure he helps give out an annual $4,000 in scholarships to Silverton High School auto shop students.

For 25 years the Flywheels have hosted the Macleay Country Cruise-In. Drawing more than 200 vehicles, it has become the club’s main fundraiser.

The frequent contact that goes with membership in such a group; the working together toward a common good – or a good time – creates a bond that appears to have gone missing the last generation or so.

“It seems like you have to have some reason to get together anymore,” Oster said. “For us, the reason is the automobile and our membership is kind of like a big family. If I have a problem and need some help, all I’ve got to do is make a couple phone calls and I’ve got half a dozen people here.”

A couple things set the Flywheels apart as a car club.

For one thing, you don’t need a car to join.

“Anyone with an interest in the automobile is welcome to join our club,” Oster said. And, club members are free to express themselves through their cars as they see fit.

“A lot of people are into antique cars and they want to keep them as close to original as they can,” Oster said. “And then you’ve got the other guys that do the real radical custom; they’ll take off with something and change it completely.”

Oster wouldn’t trade the body style of his 1956 Ford F-100 truck but wanted to make it more fun to drive.

He found a late model engine, an automatic transmission – but the key to it all, he said, was the front suspension he borrowed from a Plymouth Volare.

“The way it was set up before, 50-60 miles an hour and you’ve got your hands full keeping it on the road,” he said. “Now I can run all day long at 70-75 miles an hour and you can just sit back at the wheel and hang on, but it still looks like a ’56 Ford pick-up.

“People think I’m crazy, but mine’s built to drive,” he said, as are a number of other club vehicles even older than his.

“A few people in our club are into the ‘new hot rod’“– the Mustang, the new Camaro and the Dodge Charger, and that’s fine, too. The 75-year-old, in fact, has a black ’95 Ford Lightning.

“But the factory built that one,” he said. “My hot rod is a ’56 Ford pick-up I’ve had for 40 years. Just every once in awhile I reminisce a little bit and think, ‘You know, if it hadn’t been for that truck I’d have sure missed out on meeting a lot of neat people.”

The Oster brothers head to a show in Las Vegas this month and are nailing down their plans for the year. Two of their favorite shows take them to Joseph, Ore., and to Pigeon Forge, Tenn.

“So we’ll be on the road again as soon as the sun starts shining.”