The Chevy Nomad shares remarkably little with the rest of the 1955-57 Chevy passenger-car line. Here’s what makes it special.

The story of the Chevrolet Nomad rightly begins with a show car that made its debut at  the General Motors Motorama at the Waldorf Astoria on January 26, 1954. The Motorama Nomad borrowed its front and rear styling from the Corvette two-seat sports car introduced the year before. But despite its tidy proportions, in truth the two-door station wagon was Chevy passenger-car sized with a 115-inch wheelbase.

While strictly a show car, a fiberglass-bodied glider with no engine or running gear, the Nomad was a sensation with the crowds at the Waldorf. Based on the enthusiastic response, a decision was quickly made to send the Nomad into production. To increase the sales potential and ease production issues, the sport wagon would be based on the standard Chevy full-size platform, despite one important obstacle. The official dealer introduction of the all-new 1955 Chevrolets was just nine months away in November of ’54.

Due to the tight schedule, the Bel Air Nomad made it to the showrooms as a mid-year model with its official introduction on February 1, 1955, four months after the rest of the Chevrolet models. Above, three GM executives admire one of the first Nomads off the production line at the Atlanta, Georgia assembly plant.

Nomad bodies were constructed, trimmed, and painted  at GM’s Fisher Body Euclid Avenue plant just northeast of Cleveland, then shipped to various Chevrolet plants for final assembly. From the cowl back, the Nomad shared remarkably little sheet metal, glass, or trim with the rest of the ’55 Chevy line, and the Euclid plant specialized in low-production jobs. Euclid also supplied the bodies for the Nomad’s A-body Pontiac cousin, the Safari.

Along with the exclusive, Nomad-only sheet metal, the luxury station wagon was fitted out with more chrome and stainless steel than had ever been seen on a Chevrolet production car. Bright metal adorned the unique front fender brow moldings, inner glass surrounds, headliner bows, folding rear seat and cargo floor, and tailgate rub rails.

The two-tone interior fabrics were unique to the Nomad as well, in pleated vinyl with a waffle-pattern insert material, and the sliding rear side glass was exclusive, too. The ’54 Nomad show car had wowed the Motorama crowds as a sporty and luxurious station waqon, and the production ’55 Nomad was built to fit the part.

So: While the Nomad was built on a standard Chevolet passenger car chassis and equipped with Chevy’s regular lineup of six-cylinder and V8 powertrains, with all this added finery it was a more costly car to build—and to buy. The list price for a V8 Nomad was $2,571, which made it the priciest model in the Chevy lineup, considerably more expensive than even a Bel Air Convertible or a 9-passenger wagon.

Despite its late introduction, the Nomad put up reasonably good numbers in its first year with 8,386 produced. That proved to be the peak year. In 1956 (above) the volume slipped to 7,886 cars, and in 1957 (below) the total dropped again to 6,103. That was the end of the original three-year production run, but the Nomad name lived on at Chevrolet for decades as a trim designation on premium four-door wagons, passenger vans, and even a subcompact Vega wagon for a single year in 1976.