Old Sacramento Street Sighting - 1952 Chevrolet Styleline DeLuxe

I usually like to do something special for my Christmas feature. I visited Old Sacramento with a friend last December when the historic area was all decorated for the holidays. We encountered this lovely gray 1952 Chevy sedan parked in front of a shop. I liked the building's festive decorations so it seemed appropriate for today. Enjoy.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1954 Ford Customline Tudor Sedan

Low-budget custom cars are inherently interesting, especially a fully customized cruiser. A proper "kustom" is expensive and labor-intensive, usually left to professional builders with shops full of specialized tools and equipment. It takes lots of planning and design work before the fabrication even begins. It can be done at home in the garage, and even on the cheap if the builder has the know-how and the will to do the work himself.

San Jose Street Sighting - 1941 Dodge D-19 Luxury Liner

Prewar cars can still be found here and there on the roads of California, but one will often notice that they all seem to be Fords (or in some cases Chevys). Very rarely do you see Chrysler products of this era, particularly Dodges. Here we have a Dodge D-19 Luxury Liner sedan.

Danville Street Sighting - 1959 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II

All my life I considered it sacrilegious to cut up a fine luxury car like a Rolls-Royce or Bentley, particularly a classic one. It was one of the things you just didn't do. So of course, someone did.

Daly City Street Sighting - 1951 Mercury Sport Sedan

Most of the cars featured here have been largely stock. Maybe a few have custom wheels or paint, but actual custom body work has been rare. This changes all that. It's a 1951 Mercury Sport Sedan which has been chopped and dropped into a "lead sled" lowrider. It basically looks nothing like a standard Mercury, with its roofline significantly altered, side trim changed and stock wheel covers replaced with units from a late-'50s Cadillac. The aesthetics of this suede sled aside, there's a lot of hand-formed sheetmetal here. My question is, if you're going to go to the trouble of building a lead sled, why not do a better job of it? It may well be a work in progress, but you don't just paint over rust holes. Why not fill the gap between the top and bottom halves of the window frame trim? When the top was chopped, they lined up the halves pretty well, but they don't look connected.