Vintage gas station Pictures

“Ford Approved” Lubrication Service at a Ford Super Service Station in 1939. Note the elaborate Art Deco grease and gear oil dispenser on the far right and the “Clarifier” (a bypass oil filter) display on the far left.

 

Super Service Station mechanic carrying a Ford battery service kit in 1936 out to a customers 1932 Ford Tudor.

 

McCombe Motors Inc. Ford Super Service Station Ravenna, Ohio, 1934.

 

And to think, that all started from these humble beginnings:

 

At first I was wondering "Gee, they had the bypass oil filtration then?" but that is 1939 and oil filters were options then; there were no (what we'd now call) "Primary Oil Filters" when speaking of Bypass Filtration. I'm not sure how well the bypass filtration would have worked then (it's still bypass filtration, it's not filtering all the oil consistently) but it's better than nothing.

Also, what in the world is or was "Oil Plating?"

 

It's getting more difficult than ever finding any usefull information, on the internet anymore

 

The left-hand side of this image, dated November 10, 1937, contains a view of Horvitz Motor Sales which was located at 5555 Penn Ave. in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA. The right-hand side of the photo contains a Gulf Oil Company filling station on property owned by W. L. Mellon and to its right is the intersection of Penn Ave. and North Negley Ave. The lettering on the side of the Highland Market Chevrolet panel truck at the intersection identifies it as being located at St Clair and Jackson St.

Horvitz Motor Sales apparently handled a few late model cars but the bulk of the inventory which extends behind the Gulf Station contains cars and trucks some of which date back to the late-1920s. The used car and truck lot has not survived, although a National Tire and Battery service center is located on the site today. The parcel where the Gulf filling station was sited is now a vacant lot. See a street view of this area today.

Courtesy of The Old Motor.

 

Selma Ave and Vine St., Hollywood

 

Wilshire Boulevard and Doheny Drive, Beverly Hills in 1939

 

This is about as "vintage" you can get for a gas station:



My how things have changed in the last 110 years. This circa 1908 to ’12 image taken at a gasoline station located at two West 6th St. in Brooklyn, NY, demonstrates just how primitive early filling stations where. The automobile being re-fueled is a 1911 or earlier White steam car.
(if it's a steam car, why does it need fuel? )

This business apparently operated out of a small shack on the side of the street and supplied motorists with gasoline and possibly kerosene. Instead of using a rubber hose, fuel was dispensed out of a series of iron pipes connected with some type of an adjustable joint that must have leaked (note the funnel and jug on the side of the building.) We do not know exactly what was used to power light above the car, although it certainly looks like it could have been a fire hazard.

 

To generate steam, you need fuel and water. But I think that pipe contraption is water, as until pumps with a graduated glass vessel were invented, gasoline and kerosene were sold in 1-gallon and 5-gallon cans. They had to meter what gas you bought, to know how much to charge, so until those pumps came along, that's basically how they did it.