A Rare 1955 Chevy Handyman Wagon with a Modern Drivetrain and Suspension

How hard are you willing to fight for a principle? I’m sure most of us can understand why Chad Terhar fought so hard for his. “I grew up riding in my parents’ ’55 Nomad,” he explains. “It’s my dream car.” But I don’t think many of us can understand how hard Chad fought.

Chad may be idealistic but he’s no fool; he understood that a 20-something probably should aim for something a little more realistic than a Nomad. Still, despite setting his sights on a Handyman wagon, all of his leads bore rotten tomatoes. “I decided it wasn’t going to happen because of my budget and the amount of rusted-out cars due to our climate,” he admits. In fact, he’d sort of given up on his principles when he came across a Handyman for sale on his way to a car show. His dad left the show to offer a second opinion. Chad brokered a deal with the seller. “The next day I was towing it home thinking to myself the whole way, ‘I have a 55 Chevy!’”

The glow faded quickly though. According to Chad, “There was a lot more rust than I anticipated.” How much more? “The floor, firewall, cargo area, rockers, quarter-panels, and passenger side of the roof were toast,” he laments. Did he give up? Well this is a story about principles. “I pulled the body off and broke the car down as far as it would go,” he recalls. “I welded up a stand and started cutting.” Unfortunately, he threw away about as much as he kept.
But at the end of the day … big deal. Everyone knows a story like this one. In fact, some of us know the pain firsthand. But there’s a fold that makes this story just a little bit different. “(I) got paralyzed in a motocross accident,” Chad reveals.

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Now we know what you’re thinking: He sucked it up and kept fighting. And you’d be right. But only half right. Chad embarked upon this insane project after his injury. How’s that for principle?

Perseverance only goes so far though; by pro standards, Chad’s wagon was a goner. Even his wife, Tasha, pitched in when she saw what her man was up against. Only she worked smarter, not harder. She appealed to complete strangers halfway across the country.

Specifically, she appealed to the crew at PowerBlock. It produced Search and Restore, “a hot rod, feel-good, give-back show,” according to its founding host and veteran car builder Tim Strange. For those who haven’t seen the show, over a four-week period Tim leads crews of fellow pro builders to transform lost causes into machines as worthy as the people who own them.

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Chad’s story particularly resonated with Tim. “I grew up with (Tri-Fives) too,” he says. But more than that, Chad and Tim share a lifelong passion for BMX and motocross (some say he’s too big and old, but nearly 30 years after the gate first dropped Tim still shreds—in fact, he leads a factory-sponsored BMX team). “I could really identify with him,” Tim concludes. So he pitched the idea. The producers chose Tasha’s appeal from a pool of 300,000 entries. Chad made it.

To meet the compressed work schedule, each production week corresponded with a build phase. “The first week was always teardown and mock-up,” Tim explains. They started with the body.

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To understand the extent of the car’s damage, consider that RockAuto supplied front fenders, floorpans, rockers, and quarters, and Danchuk supplied door shells. The body went back together with the slightest of changes, among them a shaved hood and a pop-up motorcycle-style fuel filler by the taillight. The crew rebuilt the body with all Danchuk hardware. Advanced Plating nickeled and brushed all trim, including factory stainless and Ringbrothers exterior door handles.

The resurrected body went on a Street Rod Garage SRG-Force chassis. It dispenses with the compromised GM front suspension for one with lower roll centers, a more favorable camber gain, and antidive properties. The nose achieves its stance in part with Wilwood Pro dropped steering knuckles. The rear axle consists of a Dutchman 9-inch housing polished aluminum gear case, 3.73:1 gears on a Yukon Gear limited-slip carrier, and Moser 31-spline axles. A Street Rod Garage triangulated four-link assembly locates it on the chassis. Both ends feature coilover dampers, 13-inch rotors and six- and four-piston calipers front and rear. Speedway Motors supplied the stainless brake lines. The whole kit rolls on 18x7 and 20x9 Budnik Gassers wrapped in Toyo Proxes 215/40 and 245/35 rubber.

The second-week crew finished the bodywork. “We wouldn’t stop on day one until the car was roughed in and in primer,” Tim maintains. They spent the rest of the week spraying the jambs, interior, firewall, and underside. Concurrently, they reassembled most of the car. The LS3 is a monster in stock form but the LS 376/480 cam that Pace Performance supplied as part of the engine and ECU package coaxes 465 lb-ft torque at 4,600 rpm and 480 horsepower at 5,570 rpm. An AutoRad four-core modular radiator, core support, and condenser cools it. Dan Taylor detailed the rocker covers with the car’s Struggle graphics.

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The second-week crew finished the bodywork. “We wouldn’t stop on day one until the car was roughed in and in primer,” Tim maintains. They spent the rest of the week spraying the jambs, interior, firewall, and underside. Concurrently, they reassembled most of the car. The LS3 is a monster in stock form but the LS 376/480 cam that Pace Performance supplied as part of the engine and ECU package coaxes 465 lb-ft torque at 4,600 rpm and 480 horsepower at 5,570 rpm. An AutoRad four-core modular radiator, core support, and condenser cools it. Dan Taylor detailed the rocker covers with the car’s Struggle graphics.

On week three the entire car got a bath of Axalta base/clear urethane. The process reverted to reassembly for the fourth week. Ron Francis didn’t just supply the Access XP-66 harness; he also sent Scott and Kyle Bowers to install it. The dash sports Dakota Digital VHX-series gauges and a 15-inch Budnik Gasser steering wheel on an ididit column.

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The seats that Sears Manufacturing makes don’t just look the part; their swivel bases simplify Chad’s access. Kyle Hix and Ross Johns trimmed them and the fabricated interior panels in brown leather and suede. Blair Gehman installed Sidewinder hand controls that the team powdercoated to match the interior.

Though it sounds too incredible to be true, Tim’s crews built eight cars in two seasons under that crushing schedule. The reality of rebuilding a car from almost scratch inevitably weighed heavily on the producers; it was only a matter of time until something unexpected threw off the schedule. Ultimately they asked Tim if he’d change the format to show easier, more superficial builds.

“I told them that I’m the wrong guy,” he says, explaining, “I didn’t want my buddies who shut down their shops to pay for travel and food and donate their time to build something they weren’t proud of.” Like Chad, he fought for his principles even if it meant walking away from an opportunity in the entertainment business.

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The details may differ, but in the end Chad and Tim have something in common: both took a stand for their principles. And while it’s foolish to think that they wouldn’t change a few of the details if they could, they both admit they’re happy with the outcome. Consider Chad’s wagon proof.

Life doesn’t just go on for Chad Terhar and Tim Strange; they triumph over it. It’s a struggle for sure, but so is life. You might as well stand for something and they stand tall.

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