One of the most iconic vehicles of the 1950s was the Chevrolet Bel Air Nomad. Built between 1955 and 1957, the Nomad was a 2-door “Sport Wagon” that didn’t catch on sales-wise at the time. Often forgotten is that Pontiac had their version on the same platform, the Star Chief Safari. Its public reception resulted in even fewer sales, and it was quickly retired along with the Nomad. The seller offers not one but two examples from 1956, one being a runner and the other a parts car. This duo can be found in San Antonio, Texas, and is available here on eBay where $11,111.11 is the current bid, reserve unmet.

We’ve always wondered why the Nomad and Safari never took off. Possibly it was because they were too fancy to be practical and 4-door wagons were the bigger sellers. The Safari was a mid-year entry early in the 1955 calendar year. It was not only the most expensive Star Chief, but also the priciest Pontiac. It carried Star Chief trim, but used the smaller Chieftain chassis, parallel with Chevy’s Nomad. In 1956, the Safari V8 engine was upgraded from 287 to 317 cubic inches with a 4-barrel carburetor. Total Safari Sport Wagon production barely broke 9,000 units in three years of which 4,000 were in 1956.

The seller’s primary Safari is two-tone black and white and has been a local car show cruiser for the past couple of years. So, it might qualify as a daily driver, but it’s far from perfect and may be a good restoration candidate. It has a dual 4-barrel carburetor setup, making an already rare vehicle even more scarce if this was a factory arrangement. It also has a column-shifted manual transmission (“3-on-the-tree?).

As part of the deal, this red/white parts wagon isn’t considered by the seller to be restorable. He/she was going to transfer the power steering and air conditioning to the good Safari, but that never went down (maybe the buyer can go down that path). The good car comes with a title while the donor will only muster a bill of sale. What’s a fair price for a pair of classic wagons that only saw 4,000 copies when new (and how many are still left, a few hundred?)?