San Francisco has run PCC streetcars since 1948. In 1957, Muni acquired 70 second-hand PCC cars from St. Louis to go with the 35 it already had, allowing the retirement of its last traditional streetcars.

The St. Louis cars arrived freshly repainted in Muni’s green & cream ‘Wings’ livery, displayed on cars No. 1040 and No. 1050. Soon, however, large advertising panels—sought by Muni to hold down fares—covered most of the sides, including much of the “Wings” motif, so starting in 1963, repainted streetcars sported a simpler cream band running along the side panels of the car.

Many of Muni’s PCCs escaped the simplified scheme, running in their Wings to the end of their original service life in 1982. But 30 PCCs were taken a step further in 1978-79, painted in the new white, orange, and poppy scheme developed by famed designer Walter Landor along with today’s squiggly Muni logo, a.k.a. the ‘Worm’.

In 2008, this streetcar appeared in the Academy Award winning movie “Milk,” and was dedicated by Muni to the memory of the movie’s subject, Supervisor Harvey Milk, San Francisco’s first openly gay elected official and a champion of public transit, who regularly rode streetcar with this paint scheme between his home in the Castro District and his office at City Hall.

» PCC Streetcar Makes a Cameo in Harvey Milk Movie
» Harvey Milk Remembered