This 1956 Pontiac Custom Safari wagon is a particularly rare car.
When GM revamped its lineup in 1955, one of the most distinctive models was Chevrolet's new, deluxe 2-door sport station wagon in the top-line Bel Air trim, the Nomad. However, Pontiac was also permitted to make a 2-door sport wagon, the Custom Safari, which shared the distinctive roofline, chrome tailgate trim, rear, and side windows with the Nomad, and like its Chevrolet counterpart, was only available in the top trim level, which, for Pontiac, was the Star Chief at the time. However, the Custom Safari was not a particularly good seller, as Pontiac only sold a little over 9000 of them over the 3-year run of the 2-door sports wagon (Chevy sold over twice as many Nomads during that period.) In 1958, GM once again revamped its lineup, and the sport wagons were dropped, with GM's only remaining 2-door wagons being among the most basic utility models offered, and the Safari nameplate became a generic designation for Pontiac's station wagons.
Beyond low sales & production numbers, another reason why the Custom Safari is a particularly rare car was that many of the examples which avoided being sent to the junkyard due to accidents, rust, or mechanical failures ended up being cannibalized as donor cars for people looking for parts, especially the roof sheetmetal and glass, to either restore Nomads or convert more mundane Chevrolet 2-door wagons & sedan deliveries into Nomad clones.