We bought our ‘56 Chevy Nomad in May of 2002.

We had one when we were first married (1 of 21 cars) but had to sell it, all of them, when we moved to Carlsbad from San Bernardino in 1983.

I found this one on the internet. A guy in South Carolina was selling it for a friend from Florida, the car had Georgia plates and title, and surprisingly it went right through the DMV!! The owner had a restaurant on the coast, he put a trailer on the back and it sat outside the restaurant in the salt air!

We paid $11,000 plus $800 to ship it from Georgia.

I drove the car to work for about 18 months, and then the engine gave up the ghost. The Nomad went into our garage and I bought a ‘65 Chevy truck for work.

When I retired in 2005 we moved to a 55+ mobile home park in Desert Hot Springs, CA., rented out our home in Oceanside, the Nomad went into storage, and we did some traveling in a van conversion we purchased.

We moved back to Oceanside in January 2010, and our Nomad started its renewal process in June. I towed it to B&R Buggie in Oceanside, Gary, Seth, and Tremyne started work.

They pulled the engine, transmission, and interior out. Tremyne cut out and replaced the floors, rocker panels, bottom of the driver door, the bottoms of both rear fenders, and a 12” section of the roof at the drip rail. He also repaired 8 holes in the roof (old rack?).

The car then went to Larry Litton for sanding and painting, OOPS!!

Larry started prepping the car and noticed that there was rust under the primer, he surmised that the car had been stripped, primered, and left in damp conditions, allowing the rust to start then the moldings were installed and the car painted. Anyway, being a perfectionist, Larry sanded the entire car to bare metal finding a TON of bondoed holes. Larry don’t like bondo, so he worked and welded all the holes. He also replaced the cargo floor, inner rear wheel wells, and the area under the tailgate.

Larry did a great job of painting the almost original colors Dusk Plum and India Ivory.

Andy Felix installed all-new glass and Richard Allen rebuilt the stock rear end.

While Larry was doing his magic I installed the 350/700R power plant, PS, PB, front disc brakes on 2” dropped spindles, cleaned up the undercarriage, and installed the rest of hundreds of pieces/parts.

Now it is time to DRIVE IT.

Photos from Ron & Sally