Wagons in vintage Street scenes

The 'Golden Sahara' at the 1955 Los Angeles Motorama

 

Post 9391-------WOW !

 

hot damn !!!

What brand was that Golden Sahara representing? and that's a nice wagon behind it...

 

The Golden Sahara 1955

Starting out as 1953 Lincoln Capri Hard Top the “Golden Sahara,” was a futuristic low-slung automobile designed and built from the chassis up by George Barris and his brother Sam. On this particular car, every body section was hand-formed into a Barris design that certainly has graceful eye-appeal.
Golden Sahara at the 1955 Motorama
The bumper bullets, entirely new at the time the car was built, later came out on Cadillac and became famous. Also new was the checkered grille, later to be seen on the '55 Ford. The thin-line rear fender fins, new then, today are seen on more than one make being built in Detroit. The spare tire well, impregnated on the rear decklid, appears on '57-'58 Imperials. Perhaps these were ideas already on the drawing boards in Detroit at the time the Golden Sahara was being constructed; but, like many another idea that is dreamed up by different people in different locations at the same time, George was able to build it first because of his hand-formed methods.
Golden Sahara Interior: Interior is luxuriously "furnished" in pleated Naugahyde, padded top and bottom on twin dash enclosures and encasing TV set. Note the rabbit-ear TV aerial, tape recorder installed between driver and passenger, telephone and mike ready for instant use. Bar has built-in refrigerator. source: Custom Cars 1959 Annual by James E. Potter
Probably the most familiar customizing feature on Barris automobiles is the lowering of the car. George has devised every conceivable method to give the car a ground-hugging, low look, believing simply that a lower car looks better. The chopped top is practically a Barns trademark; he's certainly clone enough of them to earn it. He is one of the first to admit the only real way to lower the car and keep proper proportions in both the upper and lower body areas is to "section" the car. This requires taking out a three-to-four-inch section of metal all around, usually in the widest area of flat metal in the vertical position. This, as you can readily visualize, is quite a task when there are a multitude of angles and contours on nearly every body design. Sectioning, without a doubt, is the costliest of custom modifications. Luckily for enthusiasts, Detroit designers have narrowed the depth of the body sides on the newer cars so such lowering will soon be unnecessary.
Golden Sahara 1955, Front: A luxury automobile at its ultimate, the "Golden Sahara" was completely designed and built by George and Sam Barris from ground up. Transparent top is hinged at center for easy entry; tire is molded into rear deck, as on current Imperials. Cost reported to be in excess of $25,000. source: Custom Cars 1959 Annual by James E. Potter
Another Barris innovation which can be recognized as having started a trend is the "floating" grille. Subsequent to this operation performed on a few cars in the early Fifties, manufacturers adopted the idea, with Pontiac and Oldsmobile being notable examples.
Air scoops — in the hood, at the forward section of the rear fender, over the headlight, and in other places — have long been a re-styling modification practiced by Barris. So have the not-so-apparent "molding-in" (making one-piece by filling and welding) of all body seams, bumper pans, and the like. On earlier customs, the V-butted windshield, forerunner of the curved one-piece glass now universally used, was an idea initiated by Barris. Of course, such metal artistry as trenching headlights and taillights, smoothing off emblems (nosing and decking), and the like are so common today in the customizing field that you can hardly identify Barris or anyone else as the originator; yet these are the modifications most often done by the youthful customizer wherever he may be — in Hoboken or Honolulu.
1953 Lincoln Capri Hardtop
The main features included high-tech electronics. Five way electronic steering: steering wheel, push button, remote control, floor board covers and voice control. Sensitivity solenoids to open the doors, activate door openers, operate TV, stereo, record player, radio . The exterior was finished with 40 coats of pure oriental pearl which was made from scales of an imported fish. All metal fabrications were 24 karat gold plating. The Golden Sahara was featured in the movie "Cinderella" starring Jerry Lewis.

 

Why are new Fords being hauled by a GMC truck?

 

View of the intersection of Chatsworth Street (17800 West block) and Zelzah Avenue (10600 North block) in Granada Hills. 1961

 

This Bud's For You!

Anheuser Busch's $50,000,000 brewery at Roscoe Boulevard and Woodley Avenue in San Fernando Valley,
where Budweiser beer will be park produced. The brewery will have a capacity of 920,000 barrels.
Photo dated: December 17, 1953.
This is one hell of a lot of money in 1953, check it out with this inflation calculator
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
The max you can enter $10,000,000.00 but enter this number x 5 or just take my
word for it,it's a hell of a lot of money.
I remember when the whole thing was built my family and I went
and we rode in these little sky buckets and we could see the whole facility.




In 1954 Anheuser-Busch opened a brewery in Van Nuys, California, followed by an updated version of Busch Gardens in
1966. By this time, the Busch Entertainment Corporation had already opened their Tampa Bay gardens in 1959, which
was an admission free hospitality facility with a beer garden and bird sanctuary. In a similar fashion, Busch transformed
a cabbage patch adjacent to the Van Nuys brewery into a tropical beer garden and bird sanctuary. It was very cool.
This is where I received my first taste for beer.



View shows the Busch Monorail car moving forward at the ribbon cutting ceremony dedicating
the new Busch Gardens in Van Nuys. On May 16, 1966, the first pair of cars, containing Busch
and other dignitaries, snapped a ribbon as it began moving, and the dedication was official.
In total, there were seven pairs of cars that would carry passengers on a 3,500-foot loop around
the 17-acre Anheuser-Busch facility.


Passengers line up as they prepare to board the Busch Gardens boat ride.
Amongst the many activities provided for visitors were boat rides across a lagoon, a monorail, a log-flume ride, and
a suspended trolley tour through the brewery; but perhaps the most popular attraction was the free beer. Once the
park admission was paid, anyone of drinking age was allowed “two 10-ounce glasses of beer at each of the five pavilions.

By the mid-seventies attendance began to slow down and August Busch III decided to close the park in December of 1976.
Busch Gardens, however, reopened on January 5, 1977 as a bird sanctuary and boasted "1500 birds of some 180 different

species,". Many wandered freely and some were viewable from the boat ride. Guests began their trip with a 15-minute tour
of the brewing facility, with audio narration provided by Ed McMahon. But, that didn't last long. S**T!
The Van Nuys park closed in 1979. Two other Busch Gardens, in Tampa, Fla., and Williamsburg, Va., are currently open.

 

I live in the valley currently. Zelzah & Chatsworth, my wife took banjo lessons for years at the Pickin Parlor (now closed). Which seems to be the hardware store behind the Key store in the photo.

Busch Gardens.. ah the memories. Lots of folks wobbled out from free beer.

 

The Panorama City Hospital in Southern California was built in 1962 and featured two circular towers. Within the towers, the concept of "circles of service" was born. Later Kaiser Permanente hospitals retained the basic design but the "binocular" towers were enclosed in rectangles. In 1942, Henry Kaiser built a steel mill in Fontana to supply steel for the ships he was building to help America win the war. When he learned that his workers couldn’t get adequate health care, he built a hospital and medical offices right on the steel mill grounds. It was the first Kaiser Permanente facility in Southern California. The name Permanente came from Permanente Creek, which ran by Henry Kaiser's first cement plant on Black Mountain in Cupertino, California.

 

That's really something of all the pictures that are out there,
once someone post them somebody can relate to them.
Kind of like the six degrees of seperation except you substitute
the people with pictures. For those who don't know what that is,
its the theory that everyone and everything is six or fewer steps
away, by way of introduction, from any other person in the world.
So for every six people you come in contact with you will know
them or someone they know or visa versa. That's the best way
I know how to describe it.

 

Seeing this picture, I remembered that the Falcon station wagon didn't come out at the same time as the sedans. I believe they came out a couple of months later.

 

Ansel Adams doing what he did best.