Two “sweet, smooth, and sassy” Chevrolets from the company’s iconic 1957 model year star in a magazine ad that pushes an image along with Detroit iron—the safe, carefree, got-it-made life of the American suburbs. The new subdivisions seemed like heaven after years of economic depression, war, and housing shortages, and made a status symbol of the station wagon, the SUV of its day.
The sales staff of Norfolk’s Colonial Chevrolet admires a new ’57 Bel Air convertible in the dealership’s showroom a few months before Nicholas Thornhill walked onto the lot in search of a station wagon.
(Joshua P. Darden Jr.)
Sid Pollard’s niece, Christy, rides her trike past the Chevy, not long after third owner Pollard overhauled the car and enlisted Frank DeSimone—destined to be its fourth owner—to repaint it in the late seventies. The only visible blemish is an unpainted repair behind the front wheel opening.
(Sid Pollard)
Mary Ricketts, the wagon’s funny, funky sixth owner, who loved the car but lacked the wherewithal to preserve it.
(Mary Jo Rothgery)
Dave and Chris Simon stand with their Chevys at a Norfolk classic car gathering, c. 1998. Though still good-looking from a distance, the wagon was now rusted, dented, missing chrome, and in rapid mechanical decline.
(Chris Simon)
Dave Marcincuk poses in the wagon’s empty engine compartment during the eleventh owner’s attempt to rescue the car, December 2004.
(Bill Tiernan/Virginian-Pilot)
The wagon vegetates at Moyock Muscle in January 2010, a year before thirteenth owner Tommy Arney embarked on its salvation.
(Earl Swift)
The car open to display its flaws, July 2010.
(Earl Swift)
The wagon’s ravaged interior.
(Earl Swift)
Young Tommy Arney with his mother, Fern, in 1959.
(Tommy Arney)
Tommy and Krista Arney during their courtship, 1970s.
(Tommy Arney)
Victoria Hammond, who came to work for Arney as an exotic dancer at age twenty. Within a few years she managed all of his businesses and was central to his crew.
(Victoria Hammond)
John “Skinhead” McQuillen poses with Arney at the Body Shop, the successful go-go bar Arney operated in Norfolk for a dozen years. Skinhead walked into the joint as a customer, and stuck around to become Arney’s right-hand man.
(Tommy Arney)
Arney poses at the Body Shop in December 1993. The torso on the right belongs to Victoria Hammond, then a year into her tenure.
(Martin Smith-Rodden/Virginian-Pilot)
Some of the inventory at Moyock Muscle.
(Earl Swift)
The shop area at Moyock Muscle. Arney lifts the wagon from the front lot and carries it by forklift to the body shop overseen by Painter Paul Kitchens, July 2010.
(Earl Swift)
Painter Paul blocking the car, September 2011.
(Earl Swift)
Painter Paul, right, and Bobby Tippett after dropping the new floor pan into the Chevy’s core in the spring of 2011.
(Earl Swift)
Arney examines a V8 that will power the wagon, but which is here still attached to one of several “donor cars” that he scavenged for both mechanical and body parts. Originally installed in a 1966 Nova, the engine would be the wagon’s fifth.
(Earl Swift)
Skinhead and Arney dismantle the donor car, spring 2012.
(Earl Swift)
The wagon ready for paint, June 2013.
(Earl Swift)
Paul preps the wagon for paint in the wee hours of June 28, 2013.
(Earl Swift)
Arney and Paul roll the painted car from the paint shed.
(Earl Swift)
A confident Arney arrives at federal court for his July 2013 sentencing. Arney’s appearance ended a long-running legal drama, and one of several vexing distractions that slowed his progress on the Chevy.
(Bill Tiernan/Virginian-Pilot)
Arney with the Chevy at the reunion of former owners, July 2013.
(Earl Swift)