A new exhaust system gives the 350-cubic-inch V8 engine a perfect sound. All new glass was installed the chrome is new, as are the tires and wheels. The red-and-black interior was redone according to factory specifications. In fact, it’s so red that it makes fire trucks look dull. The restoration included new red paint, brighter than the original factory red. The popular but fairly rare 1957 Chevrolet Nomad, a snazzy wagon, owned by Bob Rohatch of Livermore. But he’s excited now, as he just got the car last month. The bad news was that it took 8½ years to get it done, about six years longer than Rohatch expected. The good news, though, was that Rohatch’s son’s brother-in-law has a shop near Santa Rosa and could do - and did - virtually all the restoration. A big one was that his new 1957 Nomad had been hit in the front and back but the seller failed to mention that detail before the sale. I bought it for $30,000 in 2008 and had it shipped out from Illinois.” The former owner had it for 18 years, but it hadn’t run in 12 years. “There were a lot of pictures, and it looked good, but you don’t really know until you see it. He had been looking for a Nomad for some time before he discovered this one. He’s very partial to 1957 Chevys, this being his sixth. Owning a classic 1955-to-1957 Chevrolet Nomad had been a longtime dream of Livermore resident Bob Rohatch. In model years 1955-1957, it was also Chevrolet’s most expensive model, excluding the Corvette, selling for about $2,600 ($22,865 in 2015 dollars) to $2,650 ($23,300 in 2015) more than a Bel Air convertible, normally Chevrolet’s most expensive car. It’s kind of a cool name - one could envision being a wanderer, a drifter, a rover or a vagabond while cruising in Chevrolet’s most alluring station wagon. GM had to discontinue that model in Latin America. GM later learned that “no va” in Spanish means “it doesn’t go,” so Latin Americans wouldn’t buy it. Chevrolet learned that the hard way when it named a new model the Nova. It’s pretty important to pick a name that fits the car and adds to its desirability, but they don’t always get it right. (Photo by David Krumboltz)Īutomobile companies spend a lot of time and money in deciding names for new models. This one originally ran in September 2015. In its place, we’re running some of Dave’s favorite past columns. In the 1970's and early-1980's it was even offered as a G-Series full-size van model.Editor’s note: David Krumboltz’s regular column is on hiatus until further notice due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Nomad returned again in 19 as a two-door Chevelle station wagon, and spent the rest of the 1960's as a low-level Chevelle station wagon. Chevrolet continued to use the Nomad name until the end of the 1961 model year, when all Chevrolet station wagons adopted their parent model name. In 1959, the Nomad was transferred to the expanded Impala model range, which had replaced the Bel Air as the top-line Chevrolet. While considered to be a milestone vehicle design, General Motors discontinued the original Nomad at the end of the 1957 model year to focus attention on its upcoming new halo vehicles like the Chevrolet Impala.įor the 1958 model year, Chevrolet applied the Nomad name to its traditional top-line four-door station wagon. GM approved production of the vehicle if the design could be transferred to its full-size models, because top GM brass felt that they could sell more models if it were attached to the popular Bel Air model. The Nomad's unique design had its roots in a General Motors Motorama show car of the same name that was based on the Corvette. Chevrolet shared this body with its sister Pontiac, which marketed their version as the Pontiac Safari. The two-door Nomad differed from other station wagons of the era by having unique styling more reminiscent of a hardtop than of a standard station wagon. The Nomad was considered Chevrolet's halo model during its three-year production as a two-door station wagon. The Nomad is best remembered as a two-door station wagon and is commonly associated with the "surf culture" of the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Chevrolet Nomad was a station wagon produced by the Chevrolet Motor Division of the General Motors Corporation from 1955 to 1961.
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