This Surprising Station Wagon Getting Upgrades for Sick Summer Appearance
There are an increasing number of unique vehicles that attend drag-and-drive events, and Jaren Niewinski’s 1987 Chrysler Town and County wagon definitely fits the category.
The K-platform smaller station wagon still retains the wood paneling and roof rack that can easily distract some from the wagon’s potential on the street and track.
The wagon packs a 2.5-liter Chrysler inline 4-cylinder engine, but Jaren has added some good stuff to the mix, including a forged bottom end, a Mopar Performance ported cylinder head, a custom intake manifold and Precision turbocharger.
The engine sips E85 fuel, and has clocked times in the 12-second range!
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Participating in a variety of events around his home state of Illinois, Jaren ventured to his first drag-and-drive at the 2021 edition of Hot Rod Drag Week.
The wagon completed the task of the grueling 5-day marathon, finishing with a 12.88 average and best lap of 12.48 at 112 mph.
Now, with Sick Summer Presented by Motion Raceworks close to Jaren’s homebase, he signed up for the first-time event, and then got to work on some upgrades for the Town and County wagon.
“I removed the factory auto level air shocks and replaced them with airlift bags in the springs with the controller in the car,” said Jaren. He also upgrades the shocks to a set of Viking Performance Berserker units, “in the quest to get that 60 foot down,” he said. The wagon also got treated to a new set of wheels.
“This year (I’m) going to be doing battle in Sick Freaks class,” he continued. “Not only hoping to complete the lap, but to do it with an 11-second average.” In less than two months, we’ll find out how Jaren does on his predictions!
Written by Derek Putnam. Photos courtesy of Jaren Niewinski, 1320 Video and Hard Target Images.