During the first part of the 20th century Philadelphia was composed mainly of Electric Streetcars along with many other cities in the US. In the 1950's General Motors was in a Conglomerate with the Oil and Gas Industries. Together they created National City Lines a company who bought out private trolley companies to eliminate emission free environmentally friendly electric trolleys replacing them with gas guzzling oil sucking buses for profit. In 1955 Philadelphia was under going a major public works overhaul program to modernize the City. during that year Many Philadelphia trolleys were replaced with GM buses just like the one you shot. The short ones like the one i have were nicknamed the Davie Crockets, the Longer ones were called Green hornets.

This bus is an exact make and model of what ran in Philly post war from around 1955 to sometime in the 1980's.

The buses were built in a monologue design similar to the war bird airplanes of WW 2, the prewar buses were mainly constructed by women in factories, whom were nicknamed Riveter Annie's.