Danville Street Sighting - 1950 Mercury Eight Coupe

It's been fun exploring what began as a silly holiday gimmick, "All I Want For Christmas is 'U'." If you're just joining us, every feature this month is a vehicle from a brand with the letter U in its name. Our world tour comes full circle where it started, back in America, with a gorgeous black 1950 Mercury coupe.

San Jose Street Sighting - 1950 Studebaker Champion

Today is July 4, America's Independence Day. You may have noticed that the entire last month was devoted to British cars and by now you might be ready for your own declaration of independence. So this week let's check out some classics from independent American automakers. First up is a 1950 Studebaker Champion sedan.

Danville Street Sighting - 1950 Dodge Wayfarer Sportabout

I never really considered the 1950 Dodge lineup to be anything to write home about. Dodges in the first half of the 1950s were blue-collar family sedans and business coupes, the car your insurance salesman drove, or the car you bought secondhand off a corner lot for a couple hundred dollars and couldn't wait to get rid of as soon as you could scrape together enough money for a V8 Ford or a more stylish Chevy. A Dodge was a biggish, roly-poly car with a side valve six-cylinder powerplant built for economy and reliability, not speed or handling. Drop Jimmy and Janie off at school, load up the week's groceries at the corner Kroger, and leave the stoplight drag racing to those darn teenage hooligans in their hopped-up old flathead V8 jalopies.

Berkeley Street Sighting - 1950 Plymouth DeLuxe Suburban

This was more or less the vehicle that got me started coming to Berkeley to shoot cars. I browsed Flickr for Bay Area classic cars and learned that there was a 1950 Plymouth wagon in Berkeley. Sure enough, it turned up, and I've been making the odd trip to the eclectic streets of Berkeley ever since.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1950 Hudson Commodore 6

Some of my readers may be asking, where are all the Hudsons? Four years and not one Hudson car featured. Well, we'll have to do something about that. Today is Paul Newman's birthday (a man famous for a few things apart from playing the voice of Doc Hudson in Disney/Pixar's Cars). In honor of him, I'm featuring all Hudsons, all week.

The first one we look at is this 1950 Commodore 6 sedan, found in San Francisco's Sunset District. This is a relatively pure and early execution of Hudson's famous 1948 Step-Down design language. Step-Down was an all-new philosophy for Hudson, with a perimeter frame and a much lower seating position. It also eliminated pontoon fenders for a modern appearance. As a result of this striking redesign, Hudson didn't have a lot of money left over for engines or yearly styling updates. The 1950 models received the first version of Hudson's upside-down V grille accent, a feature now widely associated with the brand, but few other changes. They were available with side-valve six-cylinder engines, or carryover straight-eights from the postwar cars.

Danville Street Sighting - 1950 Dodge B-2B Pickup

The Dodge B-Series was the first new postwar truck design from Chrysler Corporation, introduced for 1948. Most of the large manufacturers revamped their truck lineups before their passenger car ranges, and Dodge was no exception. Following Dodge economy-vehicle tradition, the new trucks had a flathead six-cylinder engine. The new cab was designed for improved visibility and more space, dubbed the Pilot House cab. The new truck bed featured improved cargo capacity.

Alameda Street Sighting - 1950 Plymouth DeLuxe sedan

The year 1950 is not really known for being a banner year of automotive design. Detroit was still emerging from pre-war design ideas and conventions. The all-new 1947 Studebakers put everyone on notice, and then Ford introduced all-new models for 1949 with fenders fully incorporated into the body and exciting new styling themes that looked nothing like the cars that came before them. GM and Chrysler's products were also new for 1949, but Dodge and Plymouth cars couldn't really be called the most exciting things on the street. Plymouth was the car you bought if you needed a sensible, cheap family car and didn't like paying for gas. They weren't made to be exciting, just dependable at low cost.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1950 Chevrolet 3100 pickup

I've always been a big fan of the 1947-53 Chevrolet Advance Design series pickups, and this is one of my favorite examples. It's a 1950 Chevy 3100 pickup in a lovely canary yellow with stained wooden bed extenders emblazoned with the logo of a San Francisco home renovation company. From about 20 feet away, this truck looks darn near brand new. Up close, there are a few blemishes here and there, most noticeably the well-worn steering wheel which is likely original. The body is straight; the chrome is in good shape though it could use some polishing to get rid of a small amount of surface rust in a few places. The paint job looks recent, the wood bed is clean and undamaged, and the Firestone wide whitewall tires with painted steelies and chrome hubcaps and trim rings really set it off.