San Francisco Street Sighting - 1959 Mercury Park Lane Cruiser

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: a partridge in a pear tree.

The holiday season is once again upon us and I've utterly and completely failed to keep this site updated, so here's a little treat for my readers.
On this first day of Christmas, my archives give to thee, a Park Lane down on the street.

It's been a long time since I featured one of Fifties Guy's cars here, long enough that I think he actually sold this one before I got around to writing something about it. But I have these photos, and it was one of my favorite subjects from his collection.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1959 Pontiac Bonneville Vista

All right, let's end this year on a high note. This was one of my favorite subjects of 2016 and one that I waited nearly three years to shoot.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1959 Chevrolet Impala Sport Sedan

My God, has it really been almost two years since we last visited with Fifties Guy? My schedule doesn't allow me to visit San Francisco as often as I used to, and that means fewer opportunities to stop by the street-parked collection of the man I like to call Fifties Guy. Keen readers will remember his steel menagerie of chrome boats. Every so often he buys one, sells another, but always has enough old cars to stay busy with their upkeep. Here's a 1959 Chevy Impala flattop.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1959 Dodge Coronet Lancer

It's been a while since we last visited with Fifties Guy, so this week it's all Forward Look Mopars. First up is a 1959 Dodge Coronet.

Oakland Street Sighting - 1959 Singer Gazelle Series III

This week we've been looking at Rootes Group cars, and already seen representation for the Sunbeam and Hillman brands. Now let's check out a rarely-seen Singer Gazelle.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1959 Panhard Dyna Z16 Grand Standing

Browsing Flickr has its perks. That's where I first found out that there was a classic Panhard living in the Bay Area. That's all fine and good, but it had to be found if I wanted to photograph it, and the Bay Area is a big place. As it turned out, the owner and I both attended the California Mille this year in San Francisco. So yes, this is one of those cars that I shot very close to a car show, but it is on a public street that was open to traffic and parking at the time. Note the 1970 Citroën Ami 8 Break parked in front. I photographed that car outside the 2011 California Mille.

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.

Santa Cruz Street Sighting - 1959 Peugeot 403

Ask an American about the Peugeot 403 and they will come up with exactly one example: the beat-up grey convertible Peter Falk drove in the TV show "Columbo". And for that matter, the average person who recognizes the Columbo car probably has no clue what it is and would associate any blocky, grey-colored 1960s European convertible with his car.
The interesting thing about the convertible is its rarity; very few were ever made because they cost almost as much as two of the more pedestrian four-door sedans, as seen here. The 403 sedan (and Familiale wagon) was Peugeot's family car offering for the late 1950s, and with the introduction of the 404 was sold as the slightly smaller, cheaper family car in Peugeot's lineup. Kind of like a Chevy Malibu to the 404's Impala in a way. The 403 could also be had as a pickup in some markets, not unlike the El Camino!

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1959 Chevrolet El Camino

For some reason I have a completely irrational love for the 1959 Chevy full-size car lineup. Coupes, sedans, wagons, all with fancy "bat wing" tail fins and cat-eye taillights. But perhaps the most ridiculous finned car Chevy built that year was a brand new variation on the theme: the El Camino coupe utility pickup.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1959 Plymouth Savoy

It's relatively uncommon to see custom cars on the streets of San Francisco, but this was an exception. In summer 2007 my friend and I took a day trip into the city which took us through the Mission District. We pulled over to check out this 1959 Plymouth Savoy, apparently made into a rat rod with rattlecan flat black paint, red steel wheels and outlined red flames.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1959 Ford Fairlane 500 Club Victoria

I'm hit or miss on the majority of vehicles - sometimes I only like one model year of a particular car because it has just the right combination of styling, features, dash design, whatever. For example, the 2004 Pontiac Vibe. I liked the '04 model because it had white gauge numerals instead of red. I already liked the new-for-'03 body style, but hated the gauges. In 2005 it was facelifted and I never liked it again.
You may be saying that has nothing to do with the 1959 Ford Fairlane 500 pictured below, but it's more relevant than you might think. I've been called a Ford fanboy, and in some cases it's true. However I don't fawn over every Blue Oval creation, and have been particularly ambivalent about the 1959 Fords.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1959 Chevrolet Brookwood

Second in my series of quote-unquote "Big Three" Summer Road Trip Wagons is an example from General Motors. this Crown Sapphire Metallic 1959 Chevy Brookwood two-door wagon is one of a trio of cool '59 Chevys owned by a collector on Potrero Hill.
I first found out about the '59s via Flickr, scouting for old cars in the City. It seems a number of folks have photographed a green Impala coupe parked on Potrero, and I knew it was within walking distance of one of my drawing classes at the Academy of Art University, so one evening after class I headed out in search of it. What I found instead was this Brookwood.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1959 Plymouth Fury

If you've seen the previous feature in the series, feel free to skip the following paragraph.
It's that time again, time for another weekly series. This one comes to you courtesy of Fifties Guy in San Francisco. Frequent readers will know who that is, but for those of you just joining us, Fifties Guy is my nickname for a collector of 1950s and early '60s cars in SF who parks them on the streets around his home and drives them daily. Most are big, heavy, massively-finned and usually overstyled late-'50s Chrysler products. So here you have it, folks: Forward Look Week. The "Forward Look" was stylist Virgil Exner's baby, and was the design language for most Mopar cars from 1955 to 1961. Take a look at an early-50s Dodge or Plymouth. Pretty boring, right? Maybe some chrome gingerbread and a snazzy grille but not much else to liven up an otherwise stodgy car. Then Exner came along and made things interesting.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1959 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer

It's that time again, time for another weekly series. This one comes to you courtesy of Fifties Guy in San Francisco. Frequent readers will know who that is, but for those of you just joining us, Fifties Guy is my nickname for a collector of 1950s and early '60s cars in SF who parks them on the streets around his home and drives them daily. Most are big, heavy, massively-finned and usually overstyled late-'50s Chrysler products. So here you have it, folks: Forward Look Week. The "Forward Look" was stylist Virgil Exner's baby, and was the design language for most Mopar cars from 1955 to 1961. Take a look at an early-50s Dodge or Plymouth. Pretty boring, right? Maybe some chrome gingerbread and a snazzy grille but not much else to liven up an otherwise stodgy car. Then Exner came along and made things interesting.

Pleasanton Street Sighting - 1959 Beardmore Paramount Mark VII London Taxi

Readers of this blog will notice that I feature American cars much more often than anything else, because most old cars in California are domestic. Imports have always been popular here, more so than in most states, but they didn't take over until around the '80s or so. Most of those imports were German or Japanese, and a sizeable number came from the UK. Most cars from the UK are British though, with only a relative few coming from other parts of the Kingdom. Since I haven't yet seen a Northern Ireland-built DeLorean parked on the street, we'll have to settle for something even more unusual and rare, but British-built, a 1959 Beardmore Paramount Mark VII London Taxi.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1959 DeSoto Firesweep Sportsman

The 1959 DeSoto is one of those cars for which I harbor an irrational affection, a car fraught with some of the worst late-1950s excesses and yet it still exudes class and style. It is my favorite Chrysler product made in 1959 and the very last model year of DeSoto that I like. I have always been hit-or-miss on Chrysler Corporation. When they get it right, it's tolerable or even rather nice. When they get it wrong, boy is it wrong. I'm talking about you, 1962 lineup. A classic case of "getting it wrong" was DeSoto after 1959. Some fans really like the curiously angry-looking 1960 DeSoto, but even those people will rarely defend the horribly deformed 1961 model with its canted headlights and mismatched double grilles. That was the end of the road for DeSoto, as sales withered and died like a feverish Hernando de Soto.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1959 Mercury Monterey Cruiser

San Francisco is full of Prius-driving yuppies, but every so often you find a true car enthusiast. While going to look at a used Mazda Protege5 in the city, I asked to take a route I've commonly walked in the past. This route has led me to find many of the cars featured on this blog, and a trip over Lone Mountain near Golden Gate Park revealed an extraordinary collection of old cars. Seems a collector lives in this area who specializes in unrestored daily-driver 1950s cars, and his street-parked 1959 Mercury Monterey Cruiser is a prime example.