I first found and shot this splendid “flying wing” roof Impala 4-door hardtop in 2009 (top), on a visit to in-laws in San Mateo, CA., but it never got a proper write-up. This past week I found it again, just around the corner from where it was last time. The only obvious differences are the signs of aging on its now dull red paint and the patina on its once-white roof. But it’s every bit as amazing as it was in 1960 when I first encountered this body style after our move to the US.
There may be aspects of GM’s 1959-1960 cars that were a bit over the top, but the flying wing roof on this body style will go down in history as both unique and superlative. It best captures the essence of this period, and turned these GM 4-door hardtops into a truly unique body style, as the competitions’ were all either trying to look like a 4-door version of the 2-door hardtops or were essentially a 4-door sedan without the pillars. It’s time to pay our respects to its creator and the ultimate manifestation.
The flying roof is credited to the Japanese-American designer Masaji “Bud” Sugano, who first proposed it back in the early ’50s, possibly inspired by the 1953 Studebaker Starliner coupe’s roof. Unfortunately no drawings of his are extant.
The idea was developed by Carl Renner on the 1954 Corvette Nomad and the production 1955 Nomad. It hasn’t yet sprouted the free-flying trailing edge of a wing yet, but the very delicate rear supports and the wrap-around glass are there in full display.
Another variation on the theme was done by Paul Gillan on the 1955 Pontiac Strato Star Motorama concept. The taper at the rear trailing edge is now closer to the final one, even if it’s not yet flying free.
In the wild process that resulted in the radical 1959 GM designs, the flying roof seems to have appeared first on this Pontiac design, which is not attributed. This was during the phase when the early ideas for the ’59’s were tossed out after seeing the actual ’57 Chrysler cars, but before their definitive shape, dictated by Buick’s concept, was adopted.
Although most of the concepts by Buick and the other division studios had the more traditional sloping 6-window roofs that were used on the sedan versions of the ’59s, the flying roof did show up on this Buick clay. Given that this already is very close to the definitive body adopted and used by all the divisions, it’s possible that the Pontiac was the first to use it, but that’s in the realm of speculation.
As to Sugano, there’s very little information (or pictures) about him readily available, although I suspect that may well be him doing some air brushing at 3:47 in this video, which is well worth ten minutes of your time. I did find an insightful comment left by a Sheldon Payne at a Dean’s Garage post on GM Design VP Chuck Jordan:
Yes, the good old days.
Well, that’s about as much of a tribute in words as we can give Mr. Sugano, so let’s take some more looks at the handiwork inspired by him on the actual 1960 Chevrolet, with a mixture of my shots from 2009 and 2024.
Here it is, in its full glory. Given the ’60 Chevrolet’s more horizontal wings, it feels to me that the flying wing is more organic on this than any other of the GM ’59-’60 cars. It’s an extravagant layer cake of horizontal lines, elements and details, all pointing to the rear. There’s three flying wings here, and they work in concert.
The roof seems to almost float above the lower half of the car.
It’s such an utter contrast to modern cars with their bunker-slit windows and rear seat caves. It’s even a bigger contrast from the inside. Can you imagine sitting back here?
Of course the interior was almost identical to the ’59 with the exception of the pattern and other details of the upholstery. This front seat has obviously been recovered.
The 1960 refresh had to minimize extensive (read: expensive) changes to the exterior skin, so it was mostly limited to the outermost layer and some recontouring.
The most obvious visual elements were the rear horizontal fins, which were now made from two straight sections, the new rear fascia with the two and three taillights, a feature that would become a recurring Chevrolet styling feature after being previewed in 1958. Good bye cat’s eye taillights.
The rather blunt and simplified front end eliminated the distinctive eyebrows. I do rather miss the ’59’s more complex and sculptural front end and of course its rear end is the height of late-fifties excess. But this does tone things down a bit in accord with the beginnings of a new decade that was ready to move on from all of that. 1961-1964 would be a period of relative stylistic sobriety until new extravagances reappeared on the GM line in 1965. The ebb and flow of excess and restraint.
The ’59 Chevy along with the ’59 Caddy have become icons of that grand finale. That leaves the 1960 Chevy as a bit of an afterthought, but a rather well-done one. One might image that if the exuberance wasn’t quite so unrestrained when the ’59s were being born, something like this might have been the result. But who can imagine a world where there was no ’59 Chevy or Cadillac?
I like to park my xB next to certain old cars to aid in the contrast and perspective, but in this case a VW bus will have to do, and very well at that.
PS: Sugano’s flying roof lived on through 1964 in the lovely Corvair 4-door sedan, thanks to Ed Nickles and Carl Renner (once again). I rather suspect the roof it was Renner’s doing, as stylists like to reprise their successes, and it certainly complemented the Corvair’s high horizontal beltline. My first car was a white ’63 Monza 4-door exactly like this one, so yes, call me a fan of Misters Sugano and Renner.
Related CC reading:
Curbside Classic: 1960 Chevrolet Impala – Gullwing, Take Two by Tom Klockau
Vintage SIA Design History: “GM’s Far Out ’59s – When Imagination Ran Rampant” Part 1
Vintage SIA Design History: “GM’s Far Out ’59s – When Imagination Ran Rampant”, Part 2
Curbside Classic: 1959 Chevrolet Biscayne – The Original Art Car by PN
CC For Sale: 1960 Chevrolet Bel Air – Truly “Like New” With Only 12,400 Miles by Stephen Pellegrino
Curbside Classic: 1960 Chevrolet Nomad – Out on Parole by Jason Shafer
My family had a 1961 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 4 door that had this roofline, but I did not know what it was called. The back window did not wrap around as much as it did on this Chevy. It was big enough that one hot day the rear window did shattered while the car was parked in the driveway. My dad, the engineer, then gave me a lesson in thermal stress and tempered glass.
I don’t have any photos but I found one of a Super 88 on Bring a Trailer.
I never fully appreciated how “glassy” these are until seeing your interior photos, Paul–they really bring it home.
The Mercury of the time was pretty “glassy”–especially up front–but had nothing like the flying roof (thanks for outlining its lineage so nicely).
I’ll guess the San Mateo car isn’t garaged, but will hope it’s still being looked after well.
Larry Shinoda, probably responsible for the batwings, had a very similar life story.
Random thoughts:
As a small child these Chevies seemed even more dramatic than the biggest-finned Chryslers and Cadillacs. The horizontal orientation of the fins had something to do with that, I think.
Good thing yesterday’s tornado didn’t hit San Mateo! That roof (not to mention the rear glass) would not have survived if that Chevy had been one of the cars that got hit.
I noticed the Miller dealership license plate frame from Lone Pine. No more car dealerships in that small California town, but Miller’s Towing (presumably related) still exists and is famous as the go-to place to call for an extraction from the more remote off-pavement parts of Death Valley. It’s supposedly $3000 to get a flatbed tow from Saline Valley.
Finally, it’s taken me a while to appreciate the ‘59-60 Chevies after my childhood trauma, but compared to the pudgy and overwrought ‘58, they have aged very well.
100% agree, the flying edge roof was inspired on these cars, the perfect complement to the ’59 and ’60 4 dr HT bodies, the ’59 Buick being my personal favorite. I also love the eyebrows on the ’59 Chev and lament it’s passing, or at least passing on to the trucks, which are also my favorite truck front=end designs. You can sort of see it a bit in some newer GM trucks with lights above the headlights and a small upper grille.
I recall a story related to me 40 years ago from my mentor. As a young street racer back in the early 1960’s he was told local police in Queens NY were ordered not to engage in high speed chases with their 59 or 60 Chevy sedans. It was discovered that their rear fins produced lift, negatively effecting handling and causing a few accidents.
I often use the same words as used here to describe these – there’s a sense of exuberance with the ’59/60s, while the 61-64s are a rational, sobering reaction, almost a backlash, to the excesses of the 60s and especially the 59s. That said, I can use some exuberance in my life and love these cars immensely, despite their impracticality and mediocre space utilization.
The huge fishbowl windshield with reverse A pillars created a dogleg in the cowl area that threatened knees if you weren’t careful getting in; Ford made a big deal about eliminating this unpopular quirk from their redesigned 1960 full-sizers while Chevy still had them. While the Corvair was the last GM car to use the cantilever roof, it was the first one (rare ’59 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham excepted) to use that much smaller kink at the bottom of the A pillar that was a last vestige of the reverse A pillars so popular in the late ’50s.
Did GM back down on the decree that all five divisions must share the Buick front door on the ’60s? The Cadillac door seems not to have changed but the others all look a bit different now, though maybe the heavyhanded trim is fooling my eyes.
All the new cars suck. Especially compared to this.
Kia has tried to outweird the competition, and a few of them will be genuine classics. But overall, the cars are no fun and the trucks try to look masculine like the storied 57 GMC and the much unloved equivalent Dodges. Ford has exhibited the most restraint but of course the powertrain is garbage.
We’re definitely due for a shift back towards “glassy” and public backlash against eliminating the back window entirely (Polestar 4, Tesla robotaxi and Jajuar 00 concepts) could be what gets us there.
The first closed cars in the 1920s resembled display cases, windows got smaller and smaller until the generation of cars that spanned the war years and glass came back up to the point seen here before swinging first to swooping fastbacks with a technical need to keep the 2-door hardtop quarter windows ahead of the rear window and then to padded-roofed broughams with tiny opera windows before going back to glass to the point where GM revived the flattop on the early Saturn sedans and 4-door GM10 Cutlass…
A good point, but unfortunately, I think not. Those era changes were all style-driven. Modern crashability in the structure seems to dictate, unwaveringly, both a high, rising beltline, and immense C-pillars (in various guises), the last of which I speculate to be because the enormous forces of a crash are not finished once the front has crumpled – there’s still titanic forces for the cabin to absorb and feed through without collapsing.
I fantasize that some genius comes up with a cost-effective, spindly race-car type cage, that can do all that work and leave the panels mere fillers, and, best, leave room for windows and views (and some new damn shapes!) But I’ll not hold my breath: it might also be that the bunkering in cars might reflect the psychology of our society generally in the times we seem headed for (though the need for hope makes me deny that!)
I would happily take the 283 from that!
This car sports the 348 based on the crossed-flag badging.
I have to assume that the 1960 full-size Chevrolet was on the drawing boards before the Corvair was, so that the roofline from the big cars was cribbed by the Corvair designers – not the other way around.
Still I think (to my modern eyes) that the Corvair does it better. I find that the wraparound windshield on the big cars, along with the dogleg A-pillars, is a bit anachronistic for a 1960 model. I wasn’t even alive for the introduction of the Corvair, but if I was, I would have found it breathtakingly beautiful.
I didn’t say it was the other way around, did I? Yes, of course the ’59 full size cars got it first. And I wouldn’t say that the Corvair designers “cribbed it”; it was almost certainly a decision to maintain some design consistency in the family,
I’m glad you finally got to writing this up, it’s a cool car that deserves its day in the sun (though it looks like it has gotten plenty of those by the looks of the paint).
I’ve admired the flying wing roof, but if I’m being honest it was never my favorite. This is odd because I’m a fan of Fifties styling extremes generally. That roof is as Fifties extreme as it gets, still it just always felt a little awkward to me. Contrived. Like they were trying too hard to upend conventional roof thought.
Paul does make great points, though, about the 59 and particularly 60 Chevy’s main styling complementing the roof very well. I certainly agree the flying roof looks its best on the 1960 Chevy. Conversely, I think the 1961 version looks the worst.
These once looked so normal to me – now I see them for what they are, a fabulous testament to the space age!
It just now occurs to me that the only thing I have ever seen that comes even close was a couple of the oddball roof treatments on Mercuries of that time. They came up with a kinda-sorta flying wing on some 1958 hardtops, and then used a variation on sedans in 1959-60. But they didn’t go all the way with the design like GM did, and the FoMoCo version is nowhere near as clean or cohesive.
Here is the 59. I think the dip at the C pillar on both Mercury designs just ruins them, while the GM version looks perfect.
Wow thanks JPC, I had no idea those rooflines existed on the Mercuries. What an unattractive addition to what was already a heavy-handed design. The red one in particular looks like one of those insurance company ‘any car’ mock ups…
I was going to ask if anyone else used the ‘flying roof’, and there’s the answer. Was there a Mopar version, as well? I also wonder if there was some sort of specific issue for this short-lived styling fad, like maybe cost to produce the wraparound rear window.
FWIW, it reminds me of the much more popular ‘floating roof’ that seems to be de rigor on lots of current CUVs.
No Mopar flying roofs iirc, in fact some late ’50s hardtop models had rear glass that curved way forward over the package tray, leading to sunburned necks in some cases!
Fascinating article, I enjoyed this very much. As Paul mentioned, it’s the interior shot that really drives home how unique this roofline was. From inside, the interior almost looks like one of those midcentury picnic pavilions at a park, or something.
Something I had never paid close attention to on these cars was the literal imagery of an airplane on the side in chrome trim.
A mid-century pavillion, or even a church, I too have always thought this.
Or perhaps a carport on a mid-century house (which would make these the world’s only self-sheltering cars, but I digress).
Flying roof or or not, the ’60 Chevy is one weird looking car.
As an application of a theme, I think the Corvair wears it much better. I am biased since both generations of Corvair are among my favorite designs from the era.
I would, however, take the ’60 in an instant over the scary faced melted blobs we call cars now.
This is a design that has really grown on me over the years. I think that now I’d rather have a flat top like this, instead of a two door hardtop. My favorite is the ’60 Oldsmobile.
My Dad bought a new Impala two door hardtop back in ’59. The rear seat tops actually burnt due to the amount of sun that came in through the rear window. He later added a set of Venetian blinds to the rear package tray. I’m kinda surprised that he didn’t choose a sedan over the coupe, but like a lot of parents at the time, they thought that my brother and I would probably fall or jump out, of the car while it was moving.
You’re right, the roof works particularly well with the Olds! Maybe even better than the 60 Chevy.
This one is rather like the one my babysitter, care taker drove. Mrs “Weaver”.
Recall her’s being a touch greener. Inside was quite a fancy, chromy, spacious, affair.
Was about “1965-66”, when I’d a been in it. ((and old enough to recall anything))
Do recall she was a hardcore smoker, like my dad. It was, as I say, the “60’s” though.
It does look good on these, probably because everything below it has horizontal, or flattening, lines.
How did that rocket side trim not end up on an Oldsmobile?
Funny thing ;
I didn’t like the ’59s flying roof but I _did_ think it looked stellar on the Corvair .
It’s sad to see this previously lovely car down at the heels .
Notice the sagging suspension, this was a hallmark of the ’59 & ’60 Chevies, tose that had regular use became even lower by the early 1970’s .
I think it’d be a nice thing to ride in that back seat, the view is incredible .
-Nate
“..it’d be a nice thing to ride in that back seat, the view is incredible.”
Especially if you’re Linda Blair from The Exorcist and can put your head on backwards.
You see, I really like these aesthetically, but practically, they’re on the parcel shelf. And without a/c, they give a new practical method to enact the insult for someone to ‘go boil your head’!
It is possible to appreciate, and crave, an airy greenhouse. With plenty of glass. Luckily many station wagons, allowed consumers this choice, for the next two decades. And more.
Yes, I agree that GM’s 4-door “flat-top” designs are sleek and innovative, and the rooflines blend beautifully with the rest of the body styling.
However, I have also felt that the sedan roofline, with its gentle downward curve, is also sleek, “faux-aerodynamic”, and beautiful in its own way. It was also a 2-year-only design, and unique.
GM styling during this period had a certain “rightness” that its competitors often didn’t match, as spectacular as some of those competitors’ cars were in styling exuberance.
I’ve often wondered what led buyers to select the hardtop vs. the sedan. Impala hardtops were $72 more than sedans, and sedans outsold the hardtops by maybe 2/3rds. So was the buyer’s selection based on price, aesthetics, or functionality?
(Photo): The 1959 Biscayne sedan, looking pretty rakish and sleek:
However, I have also felt that the sedan roofline, with its gentle downward curve, is also sleek, “faux-aerodynamic”, and beautiful in its own way. It was also a 2-year-only design, and unique.
I see that sedan style roof as just an evolution of the ’55-’57 sedans, and the GM C-Body 6-window sedans going back to 1951. In fact, I find that roof style a bit retrograde for that reason, which is not to say I don’t appreciate it.
I obviously can’t speak for people at the time, but I feel like from an aesthetic standpoint, the roof/pillar treatment of full-size sedans of this era — the Biscayne being a case in point — seemed cunningly designed to scream, “Look at these tacky cheapskates who wouldn’t pay a few dollars extra for the hardtop!” The sedans were certainly more practical, but I think they had a really dorky, nerd-shaken-down-for-their-lunch-money vibe that is not very appealing.
Possibly, for a spell, in “59-60”; cold have been considered “rakish/sleek”.In this body style though, quirky, eccentric, comes to mind.
The hardtop, coupe version tough, works a bit better.
My mom’s second cuz, had one as her daily car until about “1970”.
Grey, white top, “BelAir”. This body style; kept in a garage, held up quite nicely.
If memory serves, “Chevy”, dealer in “Uniontown PA”.
H’mmm.
The Flying Wing Roof is one of my favorite dynamic styling elements in car design. Here’s a closeup of a 59 Ranchero Flying Wing Roof with chrome accents and I think it looks great!
The Flying Wing Roof has become quite common in todays car and SUV designs. Nobody does it better than Porsche with its stunning Taycan Turbo S Sport Turismo four door rocketship.
I find the front end of these to be understated when compared to the back end. I’d suggest they got the front and back re-aligned, statement wise, in 1961 with the simpler design out back.
The 1960 often gets left out of the conversation due to the sensational design of the 1959, like it or hate it.
Excellent writeup!
Always love to see photos of Stephen Pellegrino’s fine example.
While the 1959 – 1960 4 door pillarless hardtop body that GM used on its Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac ‘Sport Sedans’ is nothing short of ‘unique’ in the true sense of the word. It is, in my opinion assisted greatly by being a ‘four door pillarless design’.
I have long held the view, that the 4 door pillarless hardtop has to be one the greatest single design features to come out ‘mostly’ the United States during the post Second World War decades of the 1950s and 1960s. Interestingly, in Chevrolets case, they only offered a ‘Sport Sedan’ from 1956 until 1976. Just 20 years!
The obsession / view that was firmly established over many years, thanks to misinformation suggesting the far more common 2 door hardtops were sportier, the ridiculous suggestion / belief that 4 door cars were not collectable and were old peoples cars has not helped save 4 door hardtops.
As a consequence the rare survivors in 2024, are not the countless rows of 2 door hardtops that can be seen at almost every car show, but the rare 4 door hardtop that occasionally surfaces at a car show. I have even heard younger people at some of these car shows, express surprise when they find out that Chevrolet Impalas were manufactured as 4 door hardtops.
Some other examples of stunning 4 door hardtops are as follows:
1962 Chevrolet Impala Sport Sedan
1961 Pontiac Bonneville Sport Sedan
1964 Buick Electra 225 ‘six window’ 4 door hardtops
1963 Dodge Polara 4 door hardtop
1964 Ford Galaxie 500XL 4 door hardtops
In recent years, collectors are increasingly realising the above cars are now much harder to find than 2 door examples, and I it’s only a matter of time before we will see some high end restorations of 4 door hardtops.
Car shows will benefit of course. How much better would a car show be if it displayed multiple body styles (wagons, 4 door sedans, 4 door hardtops etc) rather than simply row after row of now garden variety 2 door coupes and convertibles.
Long live the four door pillarless hardtop.
Couldn’t agree more, here’s my example.
I’ve never seen another at an Olds show amidst dozens of ’68/69 hardtop coupes.
What a shame the owner of that nice red Chevy chooses to park it outside and let it weather away. Even an inexpensive carport would do wonders to preserve the car. Having said that I thought that I’d point out of all the body styles of the 59-60 GM makes, the flying wing 4 door hardtop was the poorest seller, i.e., the lowest production. The public of that day didn’t appreciate the design. Owning several of these myself I’d say the driving experience is wonderful, due to the outstanding visibility, zero blind spots. I wonder how many traffic accidents and even the resulting fatalities are due to the terribly designed cars of today that you can’t see out of?
I don’t know that I’d conclude the public didn’t like it. I would think the lower sales numbers were likely due to a 4-door hardtop being more expensive than 4-door or 2-door sedans. The average buyer was pretty cost conscious back then!
Agreed. I’m quite sure all those Biscayne and Bel Air sedan buyers would have loved a free upgrade to an Impala Sport Sedan!
GM sedans usually had more headroom and rear legroom than the hardtops, often a significant amount more. My dad chose the Electra sedan in ’68 for that reason (and the 430 V8), but it was unfortunately demoted to his commuter car by the time my brother and I were over six feet.
The 1960 Chevy was a favorite of mine when I was a boy. I used to draw the car all the time; here’s an example below from the 3rd grade, which was entitled “On City Streets.” Note the convertible, 4-door sedan and 2-door hardtop (but not the flying roof hardtop). Also the city bus is no larger than the cars!
Nice work! And so cool that you still have it.
Thanks! It’s amazing how well crayons on construction paper last, as long as kept clean and dry. I have handwritten notes (in ink) from my dad when he was called to serve in WW2.
According to a GM designer on the tail end of that era Bud Sagano was in the Design Staff as a body package layout engineer.
The flying wing hardtops had a roofline that was 2 inches lower than the sedans. One very good functional reason to buy the sedan. What didn’t make aesthetic sense was to buy the mid-level Bel Air in hardtop form. The stylish glass and chrome roof was at odds with the rest of the car’s plain jane ornamentation. During this period, I don’t believe I ever encountered a non-Impala
hardtop- be it flying wing or bubble top.
The flying roof hardtop was available only as an Impala in 1959-60. If you wanted 4 doors in a Bel Air or Biscayne, you had to take the sedan (or wagon equivalents).
The 2-door hardtop could be had in the Bel Air trim level, and for both 1959-60, the amount of chrome on the lower body was still fairly generous and wouldn’t make you look like a penny pincher.
Here’s an example (stock except for the wheels/tires):
There’s sort of gestural joy in such horizontal extravagance, a sweep of the designer’s hand, something like an Eero Saarinen roof.
I suspect it works best on the Corvair because of the general cleanliness in the lower half, whereas the others all have something of a party of wild ideas and gargoyles poking up and about beneath the glasshouse.
It must be said, it’s a particularly pointless idea, especially in a warm climate, and odder for the fact that it makes the rear a feature, a strange observation car where none but the cat can sit. I’d also wager it wasn’t cheap, firstly because you really couldn’t have any body flex going on in that vast opening, and secondly because that great slab of curved glass must’ve cost a bit AND been a bit of a faff to fit on the line.
Still, I’m most glad it happened, and is happening on this glorious old Chev yet.
Glass all round you can see thru I like it and those flying roof GMs,
Windows you can see out of I’d forgotten how nice that is untill a friends daughter ride in the back seat of my wagon, always prone to car sickness I asked if she was ok, Its great I can see out was all I got she was 11 and never been in a car she could see out of her mum has a Corolla hatch.
A red 1960 Impala always gets my attention! A favorite uncle had purchased a new ’60 red Impala ragtop. I believe it was his only non-Pontiac car that he ever owned. Being a rag top it didn’t have the lovely flying roof feature. It must have been as fully optioned as it could be, other than engine selection. A/C on a rag top and it had a very dark blue top window tint on the windshield. Something that I can’t locate on any web photos. Stunning interior and dash trim. I recall rear speakers, which I think may have been set into the rear seatbacks. Not sure any more about that.
He bought it for secondary use by his three kids who were all older than I and about 3 years apart. The middle “child” was the only male cousin and had his own Impala SS 409 convertible. Although Uncle Ralph always went for the top engine option on his Pontiacs, the ’60 Impala got a 2 bbl. 283 and a powerglide. Perfectly fine. The eldest daughter, cousin Joyce, boarded with my family for a couple of years out of college and into her first teaching job. She had seized use of the Impala. I enjoyed many rides in that car until she married a career survival training AF guy and found herself in Libya. Then dependents were airlifted out of there due to attacks after the Six-Day War. The Impala had gone home to Uncle Ralph’s farm and Potatoe shipping hub.
The ’60 was still a nice garage queen in 1981 when Uncle Ralph prematurely died. As well as his last 1970 Bonneville 455. He wanted no part of emissions chocked motoring, so gave up on his two year trade plan. Two years later his wife, my aunt, passed and the farm was sold at auction. Also, the Bonneville. The three cousins took the last remaining tractor trailer, a new Winnebago and the Impala.
Meh, these Chevys are still quite common here in Iowa. My buddy had a ‘60 4 door Biscayne in decent running, driving condition a few years ago until he got bored of it. And even dirt cheap, it was a very hard sell when it came time to unload it.
Now that low light panel bus behind it. THAT is something to talk about. Rare!
But to truly be recognized as a Nomad, there will only be two doors. In high school, I had a pal who owned a 1960 two-door Nomad. It was gorgeous and fast. Even had header dump tubes behind the front wheels.
I owned a 1969 Nomad. But it was just a Chevelle station wagon with Nomad badging.