1960 Chevrolet Parkwood wagon BadWagon

If you’ve ever heard the expression ‘third time’s a charm’ it’s never been truer than in the case of Mike Rowell of Halifax, Massachusetts and his wicked ’60 Chevrolet Parkwood wagon.

It all started in 2001 when Mike was looking for a new project. Having always been a fan of station wagons, he envisioned the classic body style of one from the late ’50s or early ’60s, but updated with a slammed and air ride equipped stance more in keeping with contemporary trends as the perfect cruiser for him and his family.

After doing his research, he eventually found the perfect candidate online, offered by a seller in Arizona. The car was already Chevy small block-powered, had air suspension and was advertised as rust free. Aren’t they all?
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He wasted no time and made the buy, but what rolled off the trailer when it was delivered was far from what he had hoped for. The rear quarter panels were filled with spray foam and plastic filler, and the rear section of the roof was rotten. That was just the start, but a quick check over the rest of the car revealed that it was drivable as it was, he’d just have to plan to sort the bodywork issues out further down the line.

Rather than be put off by the disappointing condition, along with his son, Mike junior, he did some initial repair work to tidy up the more obviously poor bits and sent the car off for a quick paint job so it was at least all one color.

Just as he planned all along, he then used it as a family cruiser for around five years before deciding to sell it to fund another project. But for some reason – and even Mike’s not quite sure why – he bought it back again a few years later, and then basically did the same thing all over again, doing a bit more work to it before selling it again. You might think that enough is enough and that would be the end of the tale, but the opening line of the feature suggests otherwise.

That’s right, somehow the car found its way back to Mike for a third time, but this time round he resolved to give it a proper makeover, and turn it into the car he’d wanted right from the start.




After owning the car so many times, he’d had a good chance to study it in detail and knew where the problem areas were. Having also driven it many miles, he knew what he liked about it, too. So, armed with all that knowledge, he decided to split the body and frame and, while he got busy stripping the body back to bare metal in his home shop, he sent the original frame out to be blast cleaned.

With a clean frame to work with, he modified it to accept a new one-piece driveshaft and fabbed up a 4-link rear suspension to locate the new Strange Engineering 9-inch axle. That’s filled with 3.83 gears spun by 31 spline axles, all from the same company.

Though the car had air suspension already, the market has moved on in leaps and bounds since it was fitted, so he chose to replace what was there with a pair of Slam Specialties RE-7 ’bags at the rear, along with a pair of Pete & Jakes shocks and a one-inch Panhard bar.




A similar course of action was then taken at the front end. To bury it even further into the pavement, Mike modified the lower control arms and updated the uppers to tubular ones from CPP. Matched with another pair of RE-7 ’bags, along with Pete & Jakes shocks and a similar diameter anti-roll bar, it now sits lower than it ever did, but with improved ride quality.

To stop the big ole’ hauler, fluid moves through steel hard lines from a dualcircuit master cylinder from Wilwood out to 13-inch Wilwood discs and four-piston calipers up front and 12-inch units out back. Finally, he felt all the improvements underneath deserved a more visual update so swapped to 18 and 20-inch Boss Motorsports Model 338 wheels, wrapped up tight in Toyo Proxes low-profile rubber. Now that’s a statement in itself on a car made in 1960, but Mike wasn’t finished yet. Not by a long shot.

Wanting to make sure no one missed the wagon wherever it went, he decided a blown big block sticking up through the bonnet was necessary. That’s the kind of necessary all us hot rodders understand, but not necessarily the rest of the people in our lives.

He didn’t want to lose the car’s daily driver abilities, though, so the spec of the engine had to be carefully considered. For that, he contacted Big Al’s Toy Box in Gaylordsville, Connecticut and between them they agreed on a 468 cubic inch capacity for the mighty Chevy, whose internals include an Eagle forged crank, steel H-beam rods and forged aluminum pistons. A custom ground stick from Comp Cams sets the beat, while a pair of massaged AFR aluminum heads help it all generate power. Plenty power. Add a fully polished 8-71 huffer from The Blower Shop, though, along with a pair of Holley 950cfm carbs, and a dyno’d power output of 763bhp and it all starts to stray to the very limits of daily driver. But hey, this is Custom Car you’re reading, not Practical Classics, and we get it.

All that hard earned power then moves rearward through a GM 200R4 auto’ transmission, hopped up by CK Performance of Holbrook, New York. With an engine polished to perfection and standing proud, it wouldn’t do to not have a spanking engine bay for it to sit in, so the body was next on Mike’s hit list.



This time round though, rather than make good what’s there he decided to go the whole hog and replace the inner and outer rear quarters. Mike followed all that fundamental panel work by some more detail metalwork, filling any unwanted holes in the firewall, shaving all the exterior handles and adding exhaust cutouts through the sills.

John Montanaro of North Falmouth then filled his spray gun and brought it all to life by laying down the decadent coating of Standox Synergy Green and silver to the exterior, which is set off by the same color tones inside, but in polished suede, this time applied by Mike Jr.

Inside, the stock dash was filled, shaved, and treated to an array of Auto Meter dials, while a Billet Specialties steering wheel navigates the road with shifts by Lokar.

Finally, Don’s Custom Auto Upholstery of Plymouth stitched up the one-off interior in two-tone grey leather, using late model Trans Am buckets and a custom made rear seat, the whole lot accented by a bunch of custom machined aluminum trim pieces by Hal Marshman.

The pictures say a thousand words, other than to say this wagon now gets the goods in style, its looks backed up with plenty of punch and a soundtrack to make the streets shake.
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