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Actor Dax Shepard has a taste for cars far outside the norm for Hollywood’s elite. Shepard stopped by Conan this week for a chat with eponymous host Conan O’Brien to promote his TV show Bless This Mess and his wife Kristen Bell’s work in Frozen 2, but the conversation soon got sidetracked when Conan asked him about his hot-rodded 1994 Buick Roadmaster station wagon.
As Conan points out in the clip, most people of sudden means will splurge on a supercar—a McLaren GT, say, or a Ferrari F8 Tributo—while Shepard decided to dump a bunch of money into the last great domestic wagon. Shepard sounds exceedingly proud when he describes it as the “high-water mark for station wagons in American history” and details the 700-horsepower, 6.2-liter supercharged Chevy LSA crate engine he swapped in lieu of the standard 260-horsepower 5.7-liter LT1 V8. It’s also got a custom coilover suspension, anti-roll bars, Wilwood brakes, and BBS wheels.
It is, as he puts it, a “woodgrain station wagon NASCAR,” capable of zero to 60 mph in four seconds flat. Shepard sees the mods as entirely practical. “If you’ve got two young kids…you want to get out of that car as quick as possible,” he tells Conan.
The two then go on to reminisce about growing up in the good old days of piling six kids into an American station wagon with the then-common rear-facing jump seat in the trunk. Sitting in the crumple zone was always a bit dicey, but there are a couple key benefits. Shepard says he often stows his kids in the way back because he “can’t hear them as loudly,” while Conan reflects on how entertaining the drivers behind him as a kid probably jump started his showbiz career.
Shepard is a known gearhead and wagon enthusiast—he’s also got a Mercedes-AMG E63 estate, a hot rod 1967 Lincoln Continental he’s owned for decades, several bikes, and some off-road toys in his garage—but his love for the Roadmaster runs deep. His mom worked for GM in press fleet management in the 1990s, part of a long career in the auto industry, and he would help shuttle around press cars for journalists. The 1994 Buick Roadmaster was always his favorite.
“When my wife got pregnant four years ago, immediately I was like, ‘I have to get a B-Body station wagon between ’94 and ’96 because if I’m gonna be a dad, I don’t want to be in a minivan,” he told Jay Leno in 2017 when he brought the Roadmaster to an episode of Jay Leno’s Garage. “I want to be in something I can drift.”
The Shepard/Bell clan actually uses the wagon, too. It’s been on family road trips from Los Angeles to Oregon and hauls the family dogs on the regular. Shepard told Motor Trend he tries to cycle through his vehicles so that everything gets driven at least once a week.
He’s also not the only celeb with an unexpected daily driver. Back in May, we covered Lady Gaga’s 1993 Ford F-150 SVT Lightning, proving that being famous doesn’t mean you have to drive the most expensive vehicles money can buy.
