It’s fill-up time today. So what ride and what station shall be the one you visit? Here’s a collection of vintage photos to ponder those choices, with vehicles that go from the humble to the pricey.
As usual, these images come from random corners of the web, with no info on provenance on most. But I gather a good number of you might guess locations far better than I ever could, though at least one is rather obvious.
I’m not sure what it was that made Service Stations so compelling to me as a child but they were and I actually enjoyed my time as a pump jockey at an ARCO station with three pumps .
I can’t ever get used to there being 10 as many cars now yet only 1/4 of the stations there were back when .
Nice pictures here, every one .
-Nate
Can’t help noticing the 50s with attendants and 60s with self service. Like many of the cars shown, many gas companies are long gone. I can recall Mom pulling into ART’S City Service in our 55 DeSoto, softly sighing, 29.9 cents a gallon!?! 😲 . That included an attendant filling the tank, checking tires, oil and other fluids, and cleaning all windows. Even in inclement weather. Thanks for this drive down memory lane! 👍 Guess I’ll gas up the Town Car with $3.89.9 self service and drive past the old family home. 👪 🏠 for some great family memories!
That 26.9 cents per gallon in #3 equals $3.14 today. Not as cheap as many would like to think or remember.
A quite rare Cadillac Eldorado Brougham at the pumps. Is that why the photographer decided to take a picture of it?
TANKS, what a GAS! 😄 😁 🤣 Sometimes I just can’t help myself!
Gas stations were members of the family in those days.
Ours was Red Lloyds’s Gulf station on north Main Street in Columbia, SC.
A can of Gulf Valvetop in the tank once a month!
Yes, my mom used to patronize 2 local Atlantic stations back in the day. I can’t recall the owners names now. Ironically, there was a 3rd Atlantic station with a single pump island nearly across the street from our house, but my mom didn’t like the owner! This last station closed in 1966 and became a plumbing business.
That tan 1961 Olds Dynamic 88 is a dead ringer for my aunt’s except for the color (hers was medium blue). Love those ’61 GM bubbletops!
Dear American friend, don’t be so unhappy with the approximately $3.50 per gallon that currently reigns at your place. Here just to the north it’s at least $4.10 a gallon ( 3.735 liter for one u.s. gallon & currency conversion included )
…and we are offered the same large gaz guzzlers vehicles . If we could have the whole range of small cars from the 80s with the efficiency of today’s engines and transmissions it would be fantastic.
Dangling seatbelt from the Chevelle wagon. A familiar sight and sound before three-point belts and inertial retractors.