I used the top photo for the cover of my 1978 book, “Half Moon Bay Memories: The Coastside’s Colorful Past.” It’s an advertisement for the automobile featured, a circa 1920 Mitchell. I had a very large copy of the photo produced for the San Benito House, where the classic picture still hangs today.
I’m not certain where, precisely, on the Coastside , the 1920 photo was shot, but in the late 1970s, on a lark, I tried to find a spot that looked like it–and that’s what you see in the bottom photo. The vehicle is a propane fueled Jeep that looked great but never worked properly.