Me & My Car: ’56 Chevy Nomad in San Ramon this last column’s subject
“Nomad” — what a great name for an unusual car that suggests what many of us wish we could do: Be a rover, just wander arounding, moving from place to place.
In the early 1950s, there were no minivans and very few van conversions, but station wagons were very popular family vehicles. Before that decade, station wagons were a relatively small part of auto production. Many were made mostly of wood (hence the term “woodie” cars), and generally they were expensive vehicles to buy and maintain. Then General Motors came up with a new idea.
The Nomad started as a concept car as part of the General Motors Motorama line of “dream cars” in 1954, when Harley Earl was the head stylist. Stanford-educated, Earl first worked for his father’s very successful custom auto body design company that built luxury car bodies on high-end chassis like those from Cadillac.
Earl was instrumental in the design of GM’s first LaSalle in 1927. In 1953, he designed the first well received revolutionary Corvette, and Earl used the front fascia (end) of that Corvette for the front of the concept Nomad. Chevrolet used the Nomad name from 1954 to 1972, but to many students of the business the true Chevy Nomads were the first series built from 1955 through 1957.
It was the top-of-the-line station wagon, known as the Tri-Five series. Because of the positive reception, GM approved the Nomad for 1955 production, but the design was changed to be consistent with the all-new, Harley Earl-designed 1955 Chevrolet car models. This turned out to be a very good decision, as the Tri-Five series is considered some of Earl’s best design work in his long career.
I think it’s safe to say Nomad changed station wagons from boxy truck-like vehicles to stylish status vehicles. It had a unique roof design, and the two doors were like the doors from a two-door hardtop and convertible with a slanted roofline and frameless doors. It has been said that Nomad was the forerunner of all modern station wagons.
Today Nomad is very popular among automotive enthusiasts, but it wasn’t that popular when it was built. Sales were not just disappointing but a failure at less than 0.5% of the more than half-million Chevrolet station wagons sold at the time. Interestingly, the complete opposite was true for its styling.
Why sales were so disappointing is hard to say — partly it may have been the price of $2,571 or about $30,390 today, or partly because it was just available as a two-door wagon.
The issue’s featured vehicle is a completely restored 1956 Chevrolet Nomad that truly looks like it just came off the showroom floor. The color and trim are as close to the original as possible, and the proud owner is Joe Silva, of San Ramon, who has only owned it for about four months.
Silva is a true collector, as he states he has owned about 100 different cars in the last 50 years, but he is very partial to Chevrolet and the Nomad models. He also has a 1957 Nomad. This car has the standard 327-cubic-inch V8 engine but has a four-speed automatic transmission. By the time you read this, it will also have air conditioning.
Silva has custom wheels with whitewall tires and a modern sound system, but after purchasing the car he had a surprise — it didn’t have any speakers. That too will soon be fixed. I also like the fact that the gas cap is well hidden behind the left rear taillight. Silva paid $50,000 for the car and feels he got a bargain, believing the current value at $65,000. Obviously, he has no plans to sell.
Final note: This is my last column. I figured I’ve written about 435 columns covering everything from a Ford Model T to a Rolls-Royce and enjoyed writing each one. I want to thank all the classic car owners for sharing their stories with me, and I want to thank the readers of this paper for reading them. I just had my 89th birthday, and as General MacArthur said, it’s time to fade away.
Email Dave at MOBopoly@yahoo.com, and visit mercurynews.com/author/david-krumboltz to read further columns of his or see more photos of this and other issues’ vehicles.