Custom station wagons aren’t exactly common, and when one comes with a documented show history stretching back more than two decades, it’s bound to attract attention. This 1954 Nash Rambler American Wagon, listed on eBay, is a heavily customized build known as “Wagon 2 Envy.” According to the seller, the car has been driven 2,549 miles since it was completed in 2001 and has accumulated a long list of awards and appearances along the way. Thanks for the tip, Rocco B.!
The wagon’s show credentials go back to its early years. The seller states that it earned a Goodguys Top 10 award in Pleasanton in 2002 and was displayed in the DuPont booth at the 2002 SEMA Show. More recently, the current owners say the vehicle has received Best of Show, People’s Choice, and Best Interior awards during 2024, 2025, and 2026 while under their ownership.
Under the hood is a GM ZZ4 crate V8 rated by the seller at 355 horsepower. Power is routed through a GM TH350 automatic transmission and a narrowed 12-bolt rear axle. The suspension setup includes RideTech Shockwave air ride components, a TCI Mustang II front suspension, and a custom-modified rear frame featuring a c-notch and tubbed design.
The custom work extends throughout the wagon. According to the listing, fabrication performed during the build included shaved door handles, modified drip rails, frenched bumpers, smoothed body seams, a welded single-piece tailgate, and frenched taillights. The vehicle was built by Bad Boyz Kustoms in Bakersfield, California, while the custom paint and graphics were completed by Kevin Robbins.
Inside, the seller says the wagon features a custom leather and cheetah-print interior created by Ron Mangus. Entertainment comes from a Kicker audio system that includes a Solo Baric subwoofer, amplifier, and component speakers.
The current owners note that they’ve continued improving the car since purchasing it in September 2024. Work reportedly includes installing power steering, replacing front suspension bushings, installing two new RideTech front Shockwave units, fitting four new tires, and adding a new billet serpentine belt system. The seller states that receipts for this work are included.
Importantly, the listing also acknowledges that the vehicle was built approximately 25 years ago. According to the seller, the paint has accumulated nicks and other signs of use over time. Rather than presenting the wagon as a freshly completed build, the ad describes it as a vehicle that has been driven, shown, and enjoyed. The seller states that the Nash runs, drives, and stops as it should and is regularly driven to car shows as well as occasional weekend outings.
Custom wagons have always occupied a unique corner of the hobby. They’re practical, unexpected, and often stand apart from the sea of muscle cars and street rods. This Nash certainly seems to fit that description, combining a 1954 Rambler body with extensive custom work and a long history on the show circuit. Would you rather take a trophy-winning custom wagon like this to shows, or would you spend more time putting miles on it and enjoying it on the road?
There’s a lot of work in that paint scheme but holy cow does it look dated now. She needs a complete cosmetic overhaul.
That’s not always a bad thing, look at all of the day 2 muscle cars modified in the late-60’s to mid-70’s. Those have developed a strong following, these likely will too at some point in time.
Steve R
Not everyone’s taste, but the workmanship looks to have been high quality. It’s a product of its time, probably started in the late-90’s in order to be on the show circuit in 2001. At the time restorations of cars like this weren’t common, many cars that recurved this sort of treatment would otherwise not have survived. Not sure if the asking price, $55,000, will entice a potential buyer to act, but you often see a lot worse cars sell for more.
Steve R
Today seems a day for monstrosities. This thing, the Corolla and the Ventura. A few hours left in the day. What else will come up (except my dinner from seeing these things)?
$55,000, only if the guitar goes with it.I have never seen a 1954 Nash Rambler wagon. I guess i am one of the lucky ones.
Trust me on this, the guitar ain’t worth much.
Guitar & car would have had to have solid documentation from Crosby,Stills,Nash & Young stating it was the early bands vehicle to get close to their asking price
Guitar & car would have had to have solid documentation from Crosby,Stills,Nash & Young stating it was the early bands vehicle to get close to their asking price
I know this is America and everyone can do as they wish and have what opinions they wish. It is what makes us one of the best countries on the planet. With that being said, I have to say I abhor these streetrods. While they keep the vehicles on the road (the ultimate goal of the old car hobby) they subject limited examples of models/brands to the whims and tastes of individuals throughout time. What is popular with a car *now* will age terribly.
I have a personal example of this. A great uncle of mine custom ordered a 1963 1/2 Galaxie 500 with the Sports-roof for his wife. It was that very rare lavender color produced by Ford in the early part of the 1960s with black bench seats, a 390, and a 3 on the tree. He kept it until they had children in 1967 and bought her a Fairlane wagon after he sold the Galaxie to the uncle I am named after. Said uncle kept it and babied it from 1967-1980 when it threw a rod and he stored it in a shed. An older cousin of mine bought it from him in 2003 and gave it a similar treatment as this Nash with wildly popular at the time paint job of candy apple red with flames, ghetto spinner wheels, and license plate shattering subwoofers. The uncle was horrified, but it stayed on the road. The cousin kept it until 2015, the year I turned 16. He needed to meet a medical bill and had it for sale. My parents deliberated back and forth the cost-benefit analysis for buying it and putting it back right for my first car. While they were doing so, my cousin sold it to a Hispanic man who street raced it for a while before wrapping it around a telephone pole two months after he bought it.
I share this all to mention that the cars themselves (and the hobby as a whole) are at a crossroads. While they are still on the road, at what cost? There is a catch 22 that while there are maybe 4 people under 50 that would appreciate a stock 1954 Rambler wagon, should we pervert those that made it this far into things such as this? I am a 26 year old man who has been to nearly every car show held within 75 miles of my medium sized Gulf Coast city over the last 12 years. I have NEVER seen a stock 1932 Ford or 1949-50 Mercury. The same goes for most prewar sedans or coaches.
It is increasingly unlikely that pre 1960s cars will be driven, showed, and enjoyed in their stock forms in the next few years. To almost everyone under 50, a stock shoebox Ford is too slow and too cumbersome to enjoy on a semiregular driving experience. Should we restomod them all to keep them relevant?
I have gone on an extended soliloquy about the future of the car hobby, I suppose. Examples of ordinary, exciting cars from previous generations are falling by the wayside (the prices for a 1939 Plymouth have remained the same while the dollar has lost half its value since 9/11) but should we sacrifice the remaining stock for 2026 trends that will be reproachable in 2040? I oftentimes think at car shows that a 1939 Plymouth (or Chevy, Olds, Ford, etc.) that was subjected to the trends of 1995 will be shameful and worthless in another 10 years where an untouched example will be more loads more. But then we may have to subject ourselves in 2050 to what poor 1949 Pontiac was subjected to the trends of 2005.
Okay,,,1st, I want to thank David^^^ for a candid, honest opinion, that seems to bolster what I’ve been saying all along. It was well said. From what I gathered, an original car from this era will have a lot more interest than someones wild custom. $55grand, to them, buys a new RAM dually, almost, or a 396 Chevelle. 2nd, what this is, is an expression of art. To an artist, this is what they do. I happen to live in a very “artsy” town, and I see exhibits with what THEY call art, with hefty price tags. For most, it’s just something to look at, but the artist is “banking” on someone that sees their work as beautiful, and they do sell them. This car is no different. Nobody in their right mind will drive it, and will remain behind a velvet rope for others to see, much like any work of art. Again, I couldn’t begin to imagine what it cost to build this, a $100,000 loss is acceptable? Sure is the coolest thing to come out of Kenosha.
It’s a good example of what it is, customized in a style that loudly screams turn of the millennium while being completely off from both what the industry was doing to make a nice car seem special and what young people were doing to their late model daily drivers at the time.
But there’s more of a market for those last two.
The slammed look is so unappealing.
Push the “up” button on the air suspension and you can have any height you desire.
Orion audio use to have one of these in black that they used in their ads in Hot Rod magazine back in the day. Anyone remember ?
Why would you go this far and not finish the AC install? The hard part is done! Fitting the lines would be rudimentary…..
Is the decimal point in the wrong place? Asking for a friend. 😉
What barn was this found in?? Asking for a friend.
Not trying to be a ‘nitpicker’ here, but this car is ‘not’ a 1954 Nash Rambler at all. In fact it’s not a NASH of any kind. It’s a 1959, or 1960 Rambler American 2 door wagon. At first I wanted to add that it could be a 1958 Rambler American, but then I remembered that American Motors didn’t ‘revive’ the 1955 Nash Rambler 2 door wagon body ‘with revised wheel outlets of opening’ until 1959.
Good catch, Robert! While the cars are very similar, images show the ’54 Nash Rambler wagon had the tail lights upside down and I think was called the “Airflyte” wagon.
”While the cars are very similar, images show the ’54 Nash Rambler wagon had the tail lights upside down and I think was called the ‘Airflyte’ wagon”.Yes, but what leads me to believe this car is actually a 1959 Rambler American 2 door wagon are the wheel openings. My father owned a 1953 Nash Rambler Country Club hardtop (I wish I knew how to post a photo to this site) and his car had ‘skirted’ wheel openings front and rear. Those ‘shirted wheel opening continued into 1954 (I have photo of a 1954 Nash Rambler ‘Airflyte’ two door wagon with those ‘skirted; wheel openings and then in 1955, AMC ‘opened’ the front wheel opening to the way they appear on this car, BUT AMC retained the ‘shirted’ rear wheel openings. After 1955 this body (which harkens back to the introduction of the 1950 Nash Rambler was retired, only to be ‘revived’ with the introduction of the 1958 Rambler; American. I know because my father traded in his 1953 Nash Rambler (which had become damaged after an oil delivery truck slid down the street we lived on in Jersey City, NJ during severe snow storm in the winter of 1960/1961 severally damaging the driver’s side of my father’s Nash. He then went out and traded in the 53 Nash for a ‘used’ 1958 Rambler American sedan.
Sorry, but what a mess!
Elizabeth, nice write up on a very unique wagon.
The keyboard warriors are definitely out in full force to express their opinions.
They must need a participation trophy.🏆
Seems like they are just jealous they don’t own the wagon or can’t afford it.