Pontiac’s Two-Door Sport Wagon: 1955-57 Safari

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Pontiac’s sporty two-door wagon, the Safari, shares much with its corporate cousin the Nomad, but there are some significant differences, too.

 

The origin of the 1955 Pontiac Safari is obvious enough. The Pontiac division’s  sport-luxury station wagon was rather closely based on its General Motors corporate sibling, the Chevrolet Nomad, sharing its overall theme and swept-back two-door greenhouse. First shown in a dream-car version at the 1954 Motorama, the Nomad was pushed into production for 1955. (See our Nomad feature here.) GM styling chief Harley Earl was so pleased with the result that he formally pitched a Pontiac version to the division’s top management, and it was introduced as a mid-year model on January 31, 1955.

 

1955 Pontiac Safari

 

Although the Nomad and Safari share a number of components, there are a number of differences, too. While the Nomad was constructed on a 115-in wheelbase Chevy chassis, the Safari was built on Pontiac’s significantly longer (122-in) Chieftain package. However, it carried the premium trim of the even bigger (124-in) Star Chief model. So officially, Pontiac’s sport wagon was called the Custom Star Chief Safari, though most of the car world knows it well enough as simply the Safari. If anything, the Nomad’s swept-back greenhouse looks even better on the longer Pontiac platform.

 

1956 Pontiac Safari 

 

For its January ’55 introduction, the Safari was also around $500 more expensive than the Nomad at $2,962, and it featured more standard equipment, including a 287 cubic-inch V8 and leather upholstery. (On the Chevy, a Stovebolt 6 and fabric interior were standard.) Roughly to scale with Pontiac’s lower production volume, the Safari sold in fewer numbers: around 9,000 for the ’55-’57 model run versus more than 22,000 for the Nomad.

Naturally, the Safari got the same annual mechanical and styling updates for ’56 and ’57 as the rest of the Pontiac line, but in ’57 (below) things got murky. Pontiac applied the Safari name to all the station wagons in the catalog that year, not just the two-door sport-luxury job. The Safari name was then used on a variety of Pontiac wagon models all the way through 1991, and from 1985 to 2005, the badge was also applied to a GMC minivan.

 

1957 Pontiac Safari

5 thoughts on “Pontiac’s Two-Door Sport Wagon: 1955-57 Safari”

  1. There was one of these owned by some older people when I was growing up, it was just an old car to my friends but I knew it was something special with that roof. I have no idea what happened to it, I never saw it often, but then I stopped seeing it at all.

  2. I’m assuming the 7 inch difference in wheelbase size was from the cowl forward, using longer front fenders & hood.

    • Also the frame was significantly different, much more robust, and they still used king pins instead of ball joints, and the heater was under the front seat.

    • Your assumption is essentially correct. The Safari and Nomad use the same components for the green house to include the roof panel. I recently restored a ’56 Nomad and in the process of doing so saw many examples of common glass and bright work trim parts. Both divisions used bodies produced by the same Fisher Body plant.

  3. The 57 is nearly a unicorn. Caught a glimpse of one at the Daytona Turkey Run. Only time I’ve seen one in my 69 years.

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