Shell Oil is formulating plans for fueling stations that are quite different from what we have today:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-look-at-the-gas-stations-of-tomorrow-1495203459
On a recent trip to Brazil, our driver tanked up at a station that had:
- Diesel
- Alcohol
- Three grades of gasoline
- CNG
- Propane
In addition the restaurant had great coffee!
I remember the gasoline stations where the men’s restroom was accessed from inside the building from behind the counter, but the women’s restroom was accessed from a door on the side of the building. I suppose the reason for this was that the employees​ of the station were men and thus it was more convenient for them to have access inside the building.
I remember when they gave you a key to the restroom attached to a 1 ft long 2x2
I can still recall my mother’s reaction to the women’s restroom at a Pure gas station, somewhere south of the Mason Dixon Line, back in the late '60s. She came out holding her nose, and stated that she had been in stables that were cleaner and more hygienic than the one that she had just refused to use.
Luckily, my father was able to find another restroom a few miles down the road, where the concepts of sanitation and cleanliness were known. For the rest of her life, all you needed to do in order to make her grimace was to say, “Pure gas”.
Given that most gas stations, especially adjacent to the highways, already have drinks, snacks, and restaurants, they only need add chargers for the electric vehicle drivers. The stations already want you to spend more money since they don’t much selling gas. NOW they have a great opportunity to keep you there for a good half hour to an hour at least trying to top off your EV enough to get to the next station. Drive 3.5 hours (245 miles) charge an hour, repeat.
Hmm… At that rate, it would take me 7 hours just to leave the state instead of the 5 it does now.
I imagine the outside entrance for the woemen’s room was for modesty originally. Then came the creepy men barging into the women’s rooms, and the ladies had to go in to get the key anyway. Most of the stations with shopping have the restrooms inside the shop.
Some of those shops are huge. There’s a store associated with a gas station at Narcoosee Rd east of Orlando on the B-Line that is quite large and has been there for 20 years or more.
@VDCdriver. I remember the slogan of Pure oil company back in 1950:
Be thrifty in fifty
Be sure with Pure.
I remember when there were only two grades of fuel: a pump for regular and a pump for premium.
At Standard oil stations Red Crown was regular, White Crown was premium;. at Texaco Fire Chief was regular, Sky Chief was premium. I’ve long since forgotten the names other brands used to differentiate regular from premium.
At Gulf stations, regular was “Good Gulf”, and premium was “No Nox”.
Hmmmm…Good Gulf…
It’s too bad Gulf’s regular gas wasn’t really good.
And, related to that brand, I can recall that when we moved from NYC to NJ, the locals in NJ insisted that “Gulf” was pronounced the same way that you would pronounce the word “golf”. When I heard other kids saying that their father used “golf gas”, I imagined that their families traveled in a golf cart.
BP gasoline with Invigorate ®
Someone needs a new marketing team…
;-]
What do you expect from a company that claimed their failure to contain pollutants in the wake of Hurricane Katrina was as a result of EPA regulations? This is tantamount to a rapist claiming that his victim “had it coming to her” because of the way that she dressed.
Needless to say, I haven’t bought gas at a BP station for…a long time.
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I don’t understand the point. It’s spelled right. What’s wrong with it?
Whatever happened to Gas-o-mat? I haven’t seen one in years. It was one of the first self serve stations where I lived at the time. In return for a little less expensive gas than the full serve stations, you’d pay in currency to the cashier, and they’d give you big round tokens worth $1 in gas each, then you’d pop the tokens into the slot in the gas pump. Does gas-o-mat still exist out there somewhere.
Someone here suggested a book about Harry Truman and his wife’s road trip from Missouri to Philadelphia the summer after he turned the country over to Ike, summer of 1953. I just read the part where he crossed into Maryland with his brand new Chrysler, and he stopped at a well known gas station there. That station apparently was practically the center of that small town, sold candy, food, tools, all sorts of stuff besides gas. Harry didn’t just fill up and go, like we do today. He stopped and chit-chatted w/the the owner and the car repair guy for nearly an hour. And bought a coca cola in a glass bottle to sip while doing so. Looked to be about 8 ounces. The owner was a democrat, and the repair guy was a republican. Today anybody near by would have to wear a bullet proof vest in that situation … lol … but by all reports it was a polite and friendly discussion. Today that gas station is gone, replaced by a 4 bay transmission shop…
Isn’t “invigorate” a verb?
We never had Gulf around here but I remember going out east on a road trip and stopping at a Gulf station and getting those neat little horse shoes to stick on the window. I wonder where they went. Probably be worth a couple bucks now.
I remember Platformate.
I bought lots of Gulf gas for my 64 Volkswagen Type 1. It ran on anything. They had a grade below “Good Gulf.” It was called “Gulftane.”
CSA
We could start a new discussion based on different restroom key “anti-theft” devices at gas stations.
My favorite was a chain attaching a full-size car wheel cover to the key. I guess the owner figured he had lost the last key he’d ever lose! 
CSA
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There’s a chain of gas station convenience stores east of I-35 in OK named Kum and Go.
I would give anything to have been present during the corporate board meeting when a suitable name for their operation was being discussed.