The original 1954 Motorama "Waldorf Nomad" was actually not even based on a Corvette chassis - it used a standard 1954 Chevrolet passenger car chassis. The wheelbase is significantly longer and the cowl height significantly higher - if you look closely, it becomes quite apparent. While it features front and rear styling (and the dashboard) based on the Corvette, not much else is shared. Regardless, the audience reaction at the 1954 Motorama was good enough to make GM consider it for production - but they moved it to the all-new 1955 full-size Chevrolet platform, expecting that it would sell in higher numbers than a Corvette-based car ever would.

For years, stories have circulated that the 1954 show car survived, and is squirreled away somewhere in either a GM warehouse or in the private hands of a lucky collector. Neither claim has ever been substantiated, and GM's official position is that the car was destroyed. Many folks also think there was more than one built, but the Motorama car was truly one of a kind. Some excellent and faithful replicas have been built over the years, and also some God-awful hatchet jobs. There were two companion Corvette-based cars exhibited at that 1954 Motorama - the fastback Corvair, and a closer-to-stock vehicle with a factory hardtop and outside door handles. An excellent replica of the Corvair is currently under construction, and the hardtop car actually did survive.

 

It's pics like these that always seem to get some guy at a car show who tries to convince me GM made a corvette station wagon!

 

Me too. Love the Waldorf Astoria Vette/Nomad. Makes me miss my Sierra Gold & Adobe Beige 57 Nomad. Sold it way too cheap.

 

Somewhere I have a photo of the blue brother of the red car. It was parked next to my car at a local car show. It is, well, interesting.

 

Superior Glass Works makes a '54 Nomad glass body and offers it up to a turn key version. Unfortunately by the time you're done the turn key car is 200K.