Home Improvement featured a 1955 Chevy Nomad as the daily driver of Tim Taylor’s on-screen wife Jill. The show received lots of hate mail from car lovers when they smashed it under a crane in one episode.
They didn’t actually crush a real Nomad though. It was a hollow mock up frame from a four door wagon.
What is a Nomad?
If you are a car guy or gal and you grew up watching home improvement then you likely saw Tim “Tool Man” Taylor’s 1956 Chevy Nomad on multiple episodes. Many people even listed it as one of the top TV cars of all time according to Rod Authority. The show did get some hate mail from Nomad and Bel Air fans when the Nomad was crushed on screen but the car was actually a hollow mock up of the 1955 four door sedan with back doors bolted on and welded to look like a Nomad. There are good close up shots in multiple episodes where you can see the nomad only b-pillar. This was a smart move so the real Nomad wasn’t destroyed. 🙂
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History of the Nomad
If you were a fan of the hit TV show Home Improvement, you probably drooled over Tim “The Tool Man” Allen’s red ’55 Chevy Nomad. The car was his and Jill’s daily driver on the show. It was also the face of modern nomadism. Although the technologies that would allow people to live a nomad lifestyle were already on the horizon, a cultural shift toward this way of life took much longer than expected.
Two seasons before the Nomad was smashed, Jill spent her inheritance money on an Austin-Healey 3000 in a season-six episode. Unfortunately, this classic car was destroyed a few episodes later when Tim drops a three-ton beam on it while operating a crane at a construction site. Some have questioned whether a real ’55 Nomad was crushed in the scene or if producers used a hollow mock-up for the purpose of filming. Either way, the car was never rebuilt. Fortunately, Brian Hill at Hill’s Rod and Custom in Pleasant Hill, CA, was able to create an even better looking Nomad wagon out of a non-running four door sedan.