No Joke Nomad

What started as a joke for the 1954 New York Autorama by GM automotive designers has become a legend: the Chevrolet Nomad. They took the Corvette sports car and made a mock-up of it as a family station wagon. It garnered so much interest that GM head Harley Earl decided to make a Bel Air-sized version to sell. But it was expensive and did not sell well, produced only from 1955 to 1957. Unfortunately, what looks good is not always practical and such was the case for the two-door wagon. When surfers in the Sixties were looking for something other than woodies to haul their boards, the sleek Nomad suddenly became popular, but far too late for Chevrolet. As an ex-surfer, Norm D. was drawn to it when he replaced his leaky ‘51 Ford woodie for a “more modern” car in 2005. He flew to Las Vegas, bought his ‘56 Nomad, and drove it home. Billed as “pristine,” Norm soon found it was not. On the rainy trip home he found the wipers were not connected, nor were the heater and defroster working. To get more power, he swapped the original 265 CID engine and Powerglide trans for a Chevy 350 CID engine and Turbo 350 trans. He replaced the differential and changed to power rack-and-pinion steering with a new steering column, as well as did a complete rewire with an inaptly-named Painless brand wiring kit. During one of his many calls to the Painless company’s help hotline about problems installing the wiring harnesses, wife Leslie suggested he ask them, “When will the pain stop?” Eventually it did and they have put over 55,000 miles on the car since they bought it, including a relatively breakdown-free trip with fellow Roamin Angels to Scottsdale, AZ. And that’s no joke.

In original Tropical Turquoise and India Ivory, this Nomad looks totally stock. Two distinctive marks of the Nomad are the forward-swept pillar behind the front door and the fluting on the back half of the roof. Only 7,886 were produced in 1956.

A tailgate that slanted forward , the trim on the tailgate and wrap-around rear windows were unique to this car. Although the slanted-in tailgate gave the Nomad a streamlined look, it also contributed to its original unpopularity. When you open the top half of the tailgate, it is too far of a reach to place items like bags of groceries inside. When putting in their surfboards, surfers didn’t have that problem.

While the interior appears stock at first glance, thing like the modern gauges and Ididit chrome steering column under the original steering wheel indicate some changes. Although the A/C looks like an under-dash of that era, it is really an efficient, modern Antique Air unit.