Part 2 – The Right Wagon: ’57 Pontiac Safari
When you offer a Vintage Bambi Airstream, you need to come up with a cool ride to pull it. We looked at a few candidates that were perhaps a bit more powerful but we kept going back to this Safari. The 1955 Safari was built using shared body components from Chevy’s Nomad station wagon. The Safari was fitted with Pontiac’s unique front-end bumper/grille assembly and sheet metal and rear tail light design, both created by Pontiac stylist Paul Gillan. The Safari featured sport-coupe front doors, extra chrome adorning the tailgate and interior, and sliding rear-seat windows. Like the Nomad, the B pillar of the station wagon was raked forward, a flourish not shared with other GM two-door station wagons from that era. The Nomad constantly outsold the Safari year after year. But that makes the Safari a little more interesting don’t you think? The seller restored the Safari and made it a meticulously prepared runner as well as a stunning looker. It’s the runner part that intrigued us – after all it has to pull a trailer. The seller is a mechanic by trade and he knew what level of reliability he wanted and how to achieve it. So the drivetrain is precision balanced, the brakes upgraded, close-ratio power steering added as well as electronic ignition. The A/C is said to work well too. We don’t think it was factory but cold is cold and that’s a good thing. The choice of exterior and interior colors are totally Safari/Nomad. It’s an eBay auction and you can get there by clicking here.