DREAMING BIG; Art Center show is all about the designers.(Revs)

Byline: MARK VAUGHN

Even though this year's Art Center Car Classic was titled, "Dream Machines, Imagination Gone Wild,'' there's usually no real theme to the annual show on the Art Center's Hillside Campus in Pasadena, California. It's just about 100 or so cars that are all very cool.

This year, for your $55 entry fee, you could see everything from the Petersen Automotive Museum's 1925 massive black "Round Door Rolls'' and the Nethercutt's beautiful 1937 Talbot Lago T150-C-SS Sport Coupe, to the full-size, Larry Wood-designed "Twin Mill'' Hot Wheels car (with Larry himself presiding) and show sponsor Jin Takamura's 1995 Ford Escort Cosworth (for sale!).

There are cars enough here for every set of tastes, and we picked out a handful of our own.

First up was a pistachio-ice-cream-green 1969 Bizzarrini Manta Coupe, originally shown at Torino that same year.

"It's fast,'' said owner Ron Spindler. "I'm waiting for the day it stops being a show car and I can drive the hell out of it.''

Across the lawn was a car impossible to ignore, even in this field. The 1915 Van Blerck Spartan was huge, dwarfing the Boyd Coddington Aluma-Coupe and Gene ...