This is a gas pump that we restored at Vintage Vending years ago. It is a twin pump model called the Tokheim 350-P. Manufactured from 1956 to 1960, this pump was made by the Tokheim Corporation of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. There is a large “face” on each side, allowing gas to be pumped from both sides as well as offering two different brands of gasoline on each side.

Restoration consisted of stripping, repairing and painting with our auto body restoration process. It was clear-coated and detailed with the Sky Chief and Fire-Chief Texaco brands.

This item is not for sale. We show restored items in this blog to encourage discussion, prompt questions and further the hobby.

The Ford Eco Air Meter Model 93 Tire Pump

We restored this Model 93 Eco air meter using a Ford theme, utilizing Ford graphics and colors. It is the same model air pump mentioned in our earlier blog featuring an air meter with Texaco graphics. This is an example of a great piece of roadside Americana that has been beautifully restored and updated so it can be used today as a display piece in a home, garage or business.

Many of us can remember pulling into a gas station to use one of these, or to watch our parents use one. These air meters have the distinctive bell that rings as the air is pumped into the tire. Each infusion of air was accompanied by a “ding” as the meter checked to see if the amount of pressure set on the gauge had been reached yet. These meters also were equipped with a handy reel and automatic recoil to wind the hose back onto the reel once tire inflation was completed.

Produced: From 1947 to late 1950s.

Manufactured by:
Service Station Equipment Company

The Bennett Pump Division
Muskegon, Michigan

This item is not for sale. We show restored items in this blog to encourage discussion, prompt questions and further the hobby of collecting and restoration. We also enjoy sharing the photos of the many items we have restored over the years.

Here are some photos of a great Gulf Oil display we once owned. We really did not do much to it as far as restoration goes besides giving it a good cleaning. This is an unusual piece and I would guess it could have been found in the corporate offices of a refinery or maybe given as an award to certain dealers? If you have any information please blog-in and let us know. We do not own this anymore but had the photos and wanted to share them.

This is a 1960 Coca-Cola tire rack and 2-sided metal sign combination. Never missing an opportunity to advertise, this clever solution was designed for filling stations that also sold Coca-Cola. It was made of tin with a carry handle on top. It’s a very clever design solution since the inclusion of the tire will also promote tire sales for the filling station owner as well. As the text states, “It helps the dealer by suggesting a check of tires and possible sale, and also suggests that the motorist ‘Enjoy Coca-Cola’”. They’re pretty rare and one of these in very good shape recently went for $2,600 at auction.

Dimensions: 17”W x 32”H

Another of the vintage gas pumps restored at Vintage Vending is a 1941 Wayne 100. It is a swing-arm style gas pump, designed so gas could be pumped from either side of the island. The hose was positioned on a reel inside the pump so the excess would retract when not in use. The glass on the face was curved toward one side of the pump.

This Wayne has a striking art deco appearance, with the sight gauge on the side of the pump, so it can be viewed from either side of the island.
The pump was stripped, repaired and painted with our auto body restoration process. It was painted, including pinstriping, and clear-coated. It was finished with Texaco decals.

This item is not for sale. We show restored items in this blog to encourage discussion, prompt questions and further the hobby of collecting and restoration. We also enjoy sharing the photos of the many items we have restored over the years.

The 1955 Wayne 501 Island Display was designed to sit on the filling station island, making products available for purchase right at the pump. This unit was intended to be placed alongside the Wayne 500 series pumps. There wasn’t a pump on this unit; it was designed purely to encourage sales. Beginning in the early 1930’s, oil companies realized the opportunity to make sales right at the pump by making products available to the customer who didn’t usually get out of his car, as filling stations had gas attendants in those days. The 501 not only displayed cans of oil, it also has a glass display case on the top and within that is an electric rotating platform to display other necessary automotive products.

This Wayne 501 Island Display was restored by us at Vintage Vending. This item is not for sale. We show restored items in this blog to encourage discussion, prompt questions and further the hobby.

To view more pictures of the Wayne 501 restoration, visit the RetroPlanet.com Museum.

The iPump iMac Computer Gas Pump

At Vintage Vending we first put an Apple iMac computer in an original gas pump in 1999. The idea was to create a workstation for a car collector’s garage or a kiosk for an automobile dealer. The one pictured here we did for ourselves to use at trade-shows and in our retail store. With the iMac you could surf the web, listen to iTunes or show photos with an iPhoto slideshow.

To pull this alteration off, we took an original Gilbarco 96 gas pump and mounted the computer where the faceplate would have been. Then we custom finished the opening for a nice clean look. The faceplate became the screensaver. To access the keyboard we built a slide out drawer and mounted a mousepad to the right side of the pump. We also added extra speakers and a cooling fan in the back. As with all of our restorations, it was finished inside and out.

We hope you like it and if you have any interest in owning one we still have one available painted in Chevy colors.

This item is not for sale. We show restored items in this blog to encourage discussion, prompt questions and further the hobby of collecting and restoration. We also enjoy sharing the photos of the many items we have restored over the years.

1950’s Esso Tiger Advertising Statue “Put a Tiger In Your Tank”

These pictures and video are of the Esso Tiger we restored a few years back and that still guards the Retroplanet.com world headquarters. The pictures show the ‘before’, ‘during’ and ‘after’ stages. At Vintage Vending we restored 3 of these over the years. This one is the smaller of the two sizes that were used by Esso, and is different then most Tigers because of the embossed Esso logo on the back leg.

The Tiger is fiberglass so the restoration process entailed stripping the old paint, fiberglass repair work, primer, sanding, a basecoat of paint, airbrushing the details and then clear coat to finish.

Here are a couple of tips if you decide to restore one.
1. If you sandblast—be very careful. Use a media that is not that abrasive; you do not want to break through that outer layer of fiberglass. I believe we used crushed walnut shells.
2. Also, do your best to find one with its tail. Many are missing theirs and they’re not the easiest things to duplicate.

All in all, it is not a hard restoration, especially if you have access to a good airbrush artist. Good luck.

Mobil Oil
“At the Sign of Friendly Service”

In 1870 the oil tycoon, John D. Rockefeller and his partner, Henry Morrison Flagler incorporated the Standard Oil Company. By 1878 Standard Oil had control of $33 million of the total $35 million refining business in the United States and in 1882 Rockefeller reorganized his company into the Standard Oil Trust. This was the first “trust” in business history in the United States. In 1890, the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed, in a reaction to this trust, making it illegal for any company to run a monopoly.

In 1892 the Standard Oil Trust was sued, and as a result the trust was dissolved. It was divided into 34 smaller companies. One of the companies to be broken out was the Standard Oil Company of New York that used a Pegasus for a logo. Another of the resulting “Baby Standard Oils” was the Vacuum Oil Company that sold petrol using the brand name of Mobilgas. The two companies merged, combining the Pegasus, or flying horse symbol, and the Mobilgas name.

In 1955 the company name changed to Socony Mobil Oil, and in 1966 it became the Mobil Oil Corporation. Exxon and Mobil merged in 1999, creating the Exxon Mobil Corporation.

Historical events worth noting:

● In 1903 the Wright brothers used fuel from Jersey Standard and lubricants from Mobiloil in their airplane during their historic flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

● In 1927 Charles Lindbergh used Mobiloil in the “Spirit of St. Louis” during his solo flight across the Atlantic.

● In 1928 Amelia Earhart used Mobiloil in her airplane, “Friendship”, when she made her historic solo flight across the Atlantic.

● In 1958 the first trans-Atlantic flight, made by Pan American Airways from New York to London, used fuel produced by Mobil.

ExxonMobil

5959 Las Colinas Blvd.
Irving, Texas

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Gulf Oil “Stop at the Sign of the Orange Disc”

Gulf Oil was established in 1901 by a group of investors after a discovery of oil at Spindletop, Texas. The largest investor in the company was William Larimer Mellon, who became the head of the corporation and continued in that position for 45 years. In 1907 several oil companies combined to form the Gulf Oil Corporation.

Gulf Oil opened up the first ever drive-in service station in 1911. In addition to offering complimentary road maps, Gulf was a pioneer in the early days of product branding by selling gasoline from gas pumps with their logo on them. It not only helped to create a brand identity, it also assured the customer that the gas they were purchasing was a quality product. This was at a time when many businesses were offering gasoline of an inconsistent quality, or that was possibly even contaminated.

In 1917, the Gulf Oil tanker fleet went into military service during WWI. In 1928 Gulfpride Oil was first introduced. Gulf Oil had become a major US corporation by the early 1930’s. In 1934, with British Petroleum (BP) as an equal partner, Gulf formed the Kuwait Oil Company.

Gulf Oil continued to grow and expand into new ventures. In addition to oil refineries and exploration, Gulf Oil produced plastics, and agricultural, industrial and household chemicals. In the 1960’s the Gulf logo was redesigned to make it easier to identify. Around 1970 Gulf Oil reached the peak of its success. But a downturn occurred in 1974 when the Kuwait National Assembly acquired 60% of the Kuwait Oil Company, with Gulf Oil and BP sharing the remaining 40%. By 1974 Kuwait had total ownership.

Gulf Oil merged with the Standard Oil Company in 1984 to protect itself from a buyout. The newly formed company became known as Chevron. This was the largest corporate merger to have occurred up until that time. In 1985 Chevron sold Gulf’s gas stations, a refinery and some of their international operations to BP and Cumberland Farms of Canton, Massachusetts. Both still use the Gulf name on their gas stations, as do some independently owned stations. The Gulf Oil Limited Partnership in Massachusetts bought the rights to use of the Gulf brand from Chevron, although Chevron still owns the Gulf brand.

Gulf Oil Company Limited Partnership
275 Washington Street
Newton, Massachusetts
At Retroplanet.com we offer reproduction Gulfpride motor oil cans and a vintage-style steel Gulf sign. We also have loads of other automotive signs and other products to add to your garage, home or office.

Please share your feedback with us by blogging-in.

Cities Service “For People Going Places!”

Cities Service Company was started by an oilman, Henry Latham Dougherty, in 1910 to supply gas and electricity to small public utilities. The next three years saw enormous growth, including the purchasing of the Quapaw Gas Company, much of the Barnsdall Properties, and in addition, the Empire Gas Company. In 1914 the Empire subsidiary discovered oil in Kansas. By 1915 Cities Service Company possessed 98 subsidiaries and had its headquarters on Wall Street.

In 1916 Cities Service bought their first oil refineries in Oklahoma and Texas. By 1918, or the final year of the First World War, Cities Service was the supplier for half of the oil used by the US and its Allies. In 1928 a Cities Service subsidiary discovered oil in the Oklahoma City field which, at the time, was one of the largest oil fields in the world.

In the 1960’s, the Cities Service Company realized the need to modernize its corporate identity. The name CITGO was introduced in 1965, using the word “GO” to promote the company as one with “power, energy and progressiveness.” With the name change came the introduction of the famous red triangle, known as the “trimark” logo. In 1982, Cities Service was sold to Occidental Petroleum. The following spring, CITGO was incorporated, and in August of the same year, was sold to Southland’s 7-Eleven. In 1986, Petróleos de Venezuela bought 50% interest in CITGO, and in 1990, Venezuela’s national oil company bought the remaining half, for total ownership of the CITGO name.

CITGO Petroleum Corporation

1293 Eldridge Parkway
Houston, Texas

Do you have a story to share about Cities Service, or Citgo? Please blog-in and let us know.

Shell Oil “Clamshell” Sign Restoration: Before and After

There are a lot of collectors who think that signs should never be restored or touched up in any way. Personally, I have never had a problem with it depending on the sign, where it would be used and how bad the condition was. You should be careful, however. In some cases, touching up a very valuable and rare sign may actually lessen the value of it. A lot of collectors will not even consider buying a sign that has had work done on it. But when I came across this 1941 ArtKraft Shell “Clamshell” sign I knew it was a great candidate to be made new again. This piece had once been a component of a Shell filling station sign. It was originally double-sided and placed on a pole. There were neon lights around the edges. And now that it was going to be the first thing you saw when you entered my office, I wanted it to be perfect.

As you can see from the “before” pictures, it had some chipping issues and had faded over the years. To correct it, the sign was lightly bead-blasted to rough up the porcelain finish and eliminate any rust. The missing porcelain was then repaired with body filler. The sign was hand-sanded, primed, hand-sanded again to get ready for paint. At this point the sign was painted with the base coat of yellow. Next came the tedious part of masking and taping off the red portion of the sign, which took many hours. The red was painted and the mask was peeled away. The sign was wet-sanded and then clear-coated and, most likely, wet sanded again.

I think it was well worth the effort. The sign is beautiful, a work of art and a wonderful piece of Americana.

This item is not for sale. We show restored items in this blog to encourage discussion, prompt questions and further the hobby.

Production Notes:
This sign was painted with PPG paints. Not sure if the colors are 100% accurate to the original sign, but we liked them, so we used them.
Yellow DCC 83409
Red DCC 72356

1932 Wayne Model 861 Clock Meter Pump

Another piece from the Retro Museum is the Wayne Model 861 pump. Around 1929, gas pumps were beginning to be designed with indicators that showed the amount of fuel that had been dispensed. These indicators were first created as dials with clock-like hands that pointed to the number of gallons that were pumped. Because of the resemblance to a clock face, with its dial and “hands”, these early gas pumps were referred as clock face pumps. On this clock-like dial face, only the total gallons were displayed. The small hand measured gallons and the large hand measured parts of a gallon. To calculate the total price, the attendant would have to rely on price-per-gallon signs and his own arithmetic skills.

An original ad for the Wayne 861 pump listed the “10 Distinctive Features”:

1. Clock
2. Octagonal dial
3. Pumping unit
4. Expansion chamber
5. Piston meter
6. Motor protection
7. Non-shock nozzle
8. Chassis
9. Flow indication
10. Wiring

This restored pump is electric motor-operated. It utilized a see cage glass on its upper body to monitor the flow of the gasoline. This clock face pump has been stripped and repainted in a vivid blue and yellow, and is topped off with a globe featuring the Richfield Hi-Octane gasoline logo.

Restoration work was completed by Vintage Vending. This clock meter pump is not for sale. Please post any questions you may have. There may be a collector out there that can help you.

1935 Wayne Model 60 Gas Pump

Wayne is one of the oldest and most successful original gas pump makers, dating back to 1891. The Wayne Company revolutionized the service station industry in 1933 when it introduced the first computing pump with the Model 40. In response to the need for a more modern and attractive computing pump, came the new Wayne 60 narrow body pump. This pump has a more streamlined Art Deco-inspired design, with stepped sides, resembling the elegant design of the Empire State Building. The Wayne Co. promoted this 1935 model as the “World’s Most Beautiful Pump”. The new Model 60 was a tremendous hit in the service station industry, having been placed at the stations of major companies including Texaco, Shell and Phillips.

The people at Vintage Vending have restored this original 1930’s Art Deco style gas pump to its original glory. This 1935 Wayne Model 60 has been restored with the Mobilgas Special logo. Note the sight gauge is outside of and above the computer face. In the later 30’s, the gauge was moved inside, on the computer face. The purpose of the sight gauge is to see the flow of the gasoline.

The computer was first referred to a “variator” when it was released by the Wayne Co. in 1933. The term “computer” was first used by manufacturer Veeder-Root to describe their revolving number meter that displayed the amount of gas pumped and the price. Other companies adopted the term by 1940. These computers were in use until digital pumps were introduced around 1975.

The Wayne Model 60 pumps came with the factory option of glass insert panels that were painted with a generic or sunburst design or with an advertisement. This example has the sunburst design.

Features of the Wayne 60 Model Gas Pump:

● Volume computer unit
● Price synchronizing mechanism
● Gallon totalizer
● Rotary pump unit
● Air separator
● Four-cylinder piston meter
● Computer reset control mechanism
● Visible flow indicator
● Non-shock nozzle
● Explosion-proof motor
● Electric advertising sign

The 1935 Wayne Model 60 represents a high point in the evolution of gas pump design. Today these pumps are so desired by collectors that the demand far exceeds the supply. We’re sorry, but this restored gas pump is not for sale.

If you have any questions, please post it. Maybe another collector can help you.

1935 Wayne Model 50 Displaymeter

Displaymeters were the mega-pumps of their day. These gas pumps were outfitted with display shelves to facilitate sales directly at the pump. Gas retailers realized the potential for additional, impulse sales if products were displayed at the island for the customer.

(Remember: these were the days before self-serve gas, when a gas attendant came to your car and pumped your gas, checked the oil and washed your windshield. You didn’t need to get out of your car. Unfortunately, those days are gone.)

Pumps with display space were introduced around 1932. The built-in display cases showcased batteries and accessories, while some larger cases could even accommodate tires. As if these were not large enough, Wayne made the Model 56 in 1936 that combined two pumps and display cases into one structure. There was also the Model 55, with a single pump and a doublewide display case. In addition to oil and other small car accessories, these massive pieces were used to display tires, car batteries and other large merchandise.

Wayne Factory advertisements stated that the Displaymeter “makes your island a blazing front of light and your station becomes an attractive place to shop at night when other stores are closed.” And from a purely business perspective, “In the market of petroleum today it is conceded that the eye-appeal of the dispensing pump is a paramount importance. The island is the sign of service and the pumps tell what kind of service to expect.” The Wayne Co. was very successful, even through the Depression, so evidently, their strategy worked.

In terms of style, the Model 50 Displaymeter had the elegant Art Deco stepped sides typical in the 30’s Wayne pump design, with the addition of the 4 glass sides and shelves to display merchandise. Lights inside the case illuminated the products on display.

This pump was restored with the Texaco gas company logo and illuminated globe. The sight meter is outside of and above the clock face as was the design in the early 30’s. Not only are these pumps very striking, but also they are extremely rare. Not many of them have survived the test of time.
This Wayne Model 50 Displaymeter was restored by Vintage Vending and is not for sale. If you have a question for another collector that might be able to help you, please post it here.