Recently I acquired a bunch of old pics and negatives from the 50s of my 51 Mercury owned by Phil Sauers. These photos were in the collection. Don't know anything about them. Probably Phils friends?
There are 2 cars in my neighborhood owned by a husband and wife, they bought them at the same time and their plates are identical until the last digit, one ends in 3 and the other in 4.
"Kind of strange the Tudor and Buick license plates there is only one digit difference." in California everyone got new plates in 1956. both cars would have had 48 plates before that.
Hello, Nice photo finds… despite the end of the film loop discoloration, those photos are classic. The neighborhood looks like our old Long Beach area near our high school. The vast variety of homes were Craftsman and Spanish style. Then as the families grew or expanded, some went to the second floor expansion. The single story white home in front of the Ford coupe is similar to the one getting a second floor. As we found out later, my friend lived in a small Spanish stucco home on the Eastside of the Los Angeles River near PCH. His home was cool. Single story and a nice driveway leading to a single car garage. Next door was a similar stucco Spanish style home as in the photo above. During our time as teens, those homes were all single story homes. The cool thing back then was the A&W Root Beer Drive-In Restaurant just at the end of his block on PCH. Many times, we could walk to the place and fill up as hungry, hungry teens. No, not hippos… But, as we went by later in our 20s-30s, some of those single story homes got their 2nd story additions. Now, come to find out, his old home is gone and the next door single story home is now in a row of multi-story homes. Some are converted to multiple family rental units. The whole area was r-1 bordering on r-2 and that allowed the second story additions. Jnaki Those old homes are plentiful in our old neighborhoods. But, as most things come to be, you have to really want to live there. For us, the time has come and gone. It is old history that we remember the good old times as teenagers, but these days, not the place we would call home. YRMV
Cool pics, thanks. Note the let-in 1x6 corner boards for permanent bracing on the addition, before plywood entered the scene.
Thanks for your insight! Phil Sauers was from Huntington Beach and went to Huntington Beach High School. Not sure if these pics were taking in Huntington Beach or elsewhere. I'm sure a lot of neighborhoods looked similar with the craftsman homes. I lived in a craftsman home built in 1904 in Redlands.
The '46 Tudor makes a very good looking mild custom. And I like the '40 coupe with what appears to be Gaylord wire wheel covers on it. I have two of those and am looking for two more. The caps aren't the most attractive but they have a really good looking 2 eared knock-off center that I'd like to make a set of. That car also appears to have 49-50 Chevy tail lights in a bit of a cross-eyed mounting scheme.
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