"This ol' mountain won't hurt me!" Famous last words of Harry Truman (on the right) speaking about Mt. St. Helens. It's estimated that Harry's grave is about 350 deep, under Mt. St. Helens' ash!
@302GMC @lewislynn a custom design Hello, It takes all kinds to enjoy driving around as teenagers anywhere. Here is a cool shot of our friend’s nice 56 4 door Chevy sedan (at our Westside of Long Beach house with the black Impala in the foreground ) with some mods to make it different than all of the rest. Well, it just happens that I had a 4 door 56 Chevy hardtop sedan in my art files. I was going to use it on a Friday Art in conjunction with my 4 door hardtop station wagon. Some models with four door suicide doors for easier access to the rear seating came from this time period. The color was a standard color for 1956, as our friends in Long Beach back in 1958 had a mild custom 4 door hardtop sedan with a similar two tone color, as their family car and local cruiser. The art color was added as I could not duplicate the mixture of the 56’s original color paint. They were not the hot rod/drag race enthusiast as we were, but did some little things to change the family cruiser to mild custom. Our friends had a new 1956 4 door hardtop when we lived in the Westside of Long Beach. I wanted to draw a custom one and a different version of a station wagon using the 4 door as a model. It was a long term project with ideas jumping in and out as time progressed. They painted their rims black and got some small chromed center hubcaps for a different look. This was a project that got shoved back to the “drawing boards” many times recently. So it fits right in this post. But, as one can see, using the same hardtop from the sedan might look ok. The one thing that stuck out in my own mind was the big “v” sight blocker when looking over the right shoulder while driving. A blind spot for most cars anyway, but the big “v” just adds to the blockage. So, I made the top less of a big “v” and tried to make it proportional in style and design. The same goes for it being a rear suicide door model or not. To increase the openness and make the "v" blockage less, the top changed and now the idea of the exact 4 door top opened up a little more. But, lost the original hardtop style. Jnaki Finally, my choice for a cool version of a 4 door 56 Nomad Station Wagon would be this model. It looks proportional and sitting next to a normal two door 56 Nomad, does not detract from the original design. Besides having four doors and the rear having something the 2 door version does not have. YRMV Note: Normally, we do not like suicide opening doors, but modern tech makes them safe from accidents. Being grandparents and having a young toddler get in the rear seats from a normal door is/was always difficult. Open, go around, lean in, the door getting in the way of moving farther in to get the safety straps, etc. So, the poor lower back always got a workout when a scampering toddler got in the rear seat. With the larger access front opening door, it would be easier to step closer to get to the far safety straps and not have to lean in so far to get every safety strap secured. For a while, when we were looking for a 4 door hot rod model, a 40 Ford 4 door sedan with a set of suicide doors already in place. Several nice ones already set up, came and went as we were pondering buying them or not. SBC/auto/four doors, mag wheels, A/C and a nice Candy Apple/Tahitian Red color we never had in our early days. (The color idea came from my wife's choice as our neighbor has a modern small Candy Apple stock factory color on an open roadster and also on a mini SUV wagon.)
The Jalopy Journal
