The Faboulus Torch and Ovals of Detroit

[mtburb]

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...85.11,,0,-3.75

This one is at Schafer and I-96. You can see tarp covering up the "Amoco" name on the streetside sign, but the freeway sign is left untouched. Plus the canopy is in BP colors.

Now click south on Schafer and you can see the Amoco name on the streetside sign clearly and the canopy still in the red, white, blue and black colors. Now go to the south side of the freeway. An old Sunoco freeway sign and a new BP sign in place.

[Whitehouse]

Haven't I seen this junktion before? Wasn't the Amoco station turned into "Obama" during the elections? I remember cause of the gulf oil desaster. The picture of those two stations opposite each other was a way of telling that story of Obama chasing after BP to clean up their act.

Like this one.

[mtburb]

Haven't I seen this junktion before? Wasn't the Amoco station turned into "Obama" during the elections? I remember cause of the gulf oil desaster. The picture of those two stations opposite each other was a way of telling that story of Obama chasing after BP to clean up their act.

Like this one.

And to make things more odd, during the spill, BP announced that they were changing their name to Amoco!

[313WX]

What's funny is the Amoco gas station at Chalmers & Harper has been gone [[demolished & everything) for at least 5+ years and until the past month or so the freeway Amoco sign was still up as if nothing changed.

BP finally took the Amoco sign itself down, but everything else [[the stand) is still up.

Actually, according to Google, the location did actually become a BP before closing [[judging from the street sign).

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...,96.94,,0,2.18

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...,45.82,,0,4.58

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...266.86,,0,11.2

[mtburb]

What's funny is the Amoco gas station at Chalmers & Harper has been gone [[demolished & everything) for at least 5+ years and until the past month or so the freeway Amoco sign was still up as if nothing changed.

BP finally took the Amoco sign itself down, but everything else [[the stand) is still up.

Actually, according to Google, the location did actually become a BP before closing [[judging from the street sign).

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...,96.94,,0,2.18

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...,45.82,,0,4.58

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...266.86,,0,11.2

Well, this past summer I drove up and down I-94 and at Chalmers I saw the freeway torch and oval and I looked to see if there was a gas station next to it. But there was none! I thought "Weird, there's no gas station there, yet a freeway-sized sign advertised so?"

Click on the first link, the BP sign is still standing. Click eastward and you will be transported to last year and the BP sign is gone!

[Whitehouse]

Biggest Amoco sign in the world.

Still there. St.Louis, Missouri.

Three gasstations on one crossing was too much competition...
BP [[= Former Citgo) opposite Obama [[= Sunoco) and a third station which is closed [[possibly also BP).


Partytime!

I think they used the Amoco sign to put a BP logo in top.

[mtburb]

Biggest Amoco sign in the world.

Still there. St.Louis, Missouri.

Three gasstations on one crossing was too much competition...
BP[[= former Citgo), directly across an "Obama" [[= Sunoco) and one station that closed, possibly also BP.

Strange, clicking on either link takes me to the Amoco sign at Chalmers and I-94.

Here's the correct links:

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie...73.69,,0,-2.15 for the BP and Obama stations. Click on either way and you can see the former as a Citgo station and the latter as a Sunoco station.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie...30.8,,0,-10.16 for the largest Amoco sign on Earth in Saint Louis.


http://www.gassigns.org/amoco.htm See more photos of Amoco signs at the link. From here, you can explore the gassigns.org site. It has countless gas station pictures from around the world.


Plus if you take a trip to downtown Durand, there is a BP station that has a Standard sign.

[Whitehouse]

Strange, clicking on either link takes me to the Amoco sign at Chalmers and I-94.

Here's the correct links:

.

I stink! Funny thing is, I search google maps for BP stations. You know how many there are. Hundreds of red dots on the map. And this junktion was the fourth one I picked to see.

Wish I has so much luck in the lottery....

[mtburb]

Partytime!

I think they used the Amoco sign to put a BP logo in top.

Both link to the Amoco station I linked to earlier today.

[Whitehouse]

Both link to the Amoco station I linked to earlier today.

I know... I stink!

[mtburb]

Something odd I noticed while searching for Torch and Ovals in Google Maps:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...183.93,,0,1.26

Crime scene?

[mtburb]

Found this one near Mount Clemens:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...99.99,,0,-3.74

Look around. You will see a freeway Amoco sign which also advertisies diesel being sold at this station. Then you see a leaning light post, then the up-to-date BP, but the convienence store sign is still Amoco.

[mtburb]

Could this be the last Total in Michigan?

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie...141.05,,0,2.89

That is a marina station [[or whatever you call them) on the Huron River near it's mouth.

[Whitehouse]

Could this be the last Total in Michigan?

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie...141.05,,0,2.89

That is a marina station [[or whatever you call them) on the Huron River near it's mouth.

This one is still in basic Total livery.

[mtburb]

This one is still in basic Total livery.

And without the Total name anywhere to be seen. When Total exited the Great Lakes State many became Speedway stations. Today I drove down Jefferson to the Huron River and the Total sign was still there! No wonder why Speedway is refusing to take that sign down.

That trip, I stopped at a BP at Detroit and Alexis in Toledo. Driving back home I came across an Admiral at Telegraph and Seventh Street in Monroe and on Monroe Street north of town I saw an Exxon station. That was the first time I saw an Exxon station in my home state!

See the Exxon station as a Sunoco here: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie...309.64,,0,1.39

[Magnatomicflux]

O/T really quick, sorry folks. Can anyone tell me what these are? Look like some kind of lamps.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...,0.097332&z=13

[Whitehouse]

O/T really quick, sorry folks. Can anyone tell me what these are? Look like some kind of lamps.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...,0.097332&z=13

Looks like air pipes. As you can see there are caps in the pavement. This was the filling spot for the filling station itself. There are underground storage tanks there. I guess they didn't remove the whole station. Over here in the Netherlands these underground tanks in private hands have been disabled. In days gone by homes that were far away from the grid used to have their own heating oil supply and storage.
The tanks are sometimes taken out of the ground but sometimes they are also emptied and filled with sand. In this case maybe there was a financial motive not to remove those tanks. It could mean that there's an environmental hazard here.

Are there more brands in Detroit that are gone now? I can't find a Chevron station.

[Whitehouse]

You'll enjoy this!

[mtburb]

This Speedway's canopy is still in plain Total red: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...70.75,,0,-2.71

[Rocko]

Turns out that ESSO was in fact a simple linguistic branding of the initials of this company's immediate predecessor: Standard Oil. Hence, S.O. or Esso. It's a similar tactic as R.B,'s or Arby's. Several other common day oil companys today have their history steeped in the Standard Oil empire of a century ago. Another was the Socony [[Standard Oil Company of New York) Vacuum Company, which is Mobil today.

I had just noticed that the old Amoco oval and torch had recently come down from along 96 near Schaefer. For years, old Standard signs from the 1960s remained at a few gas stations, particularly large freeway signs similar to the 96/Schaefer example. One great STANDARD torch presided over the interchange of the Southfield Expressway and Joy Road for probably 40 years before the BP flower replaced it 5-7 years ago. Others were prominent up US-23 and I-75 going north. Another was at 94 and Airport Road on Jackson's west side. I have some photos of these someplace....we'll see if I can dig any up!

Union 76's did used to be everywhere. I remember as a small kid the one that was in west Dearborn at Cherry Hill and Military. The sign was so old it wasn't a orange globe but just a disc. A closed 76 is still present on Michigan Ave. in Detroit at the bend in the road near Central. Other old globes still exist in Kalamazoo and Fremont, IN. They are still very common in southern California, among other places out that way.

[mtburb]

Union 76's did used to be everywhere. I remember as a small kid the one that was in west Dearborn at Cherry Hill and Military. The sign was so old it wasn't a orange globe but just a disc. A closed 76 is still present on Michigan Ave. in Detroit at the bend in the road near Central. Other old globes still exist in Kalamazoo and Fremont, IN. They are still very common in southern California, among other places out that way.

A small globe 76 also still exists at Eureka Rd. and 15th in Wyandotte as home base for a towing service [[it is mounted on the building on the west side).

According to here, the Detroit 76 actually became a self-service station before closing: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie...88.54,,0,-2.76 And only a couple blocks west there was an abandoned Citgo station which was demolished some time between the visit from the Google car and the date the satellite image was taken [[5/2010).

[douglasm]

76 used to be Pure Oil in the south and mid-west, right? Maybe I've been in the Pacific Northwest too long [[where Union 76 stations still live, as a part of Conoco/Phillips) but when did Standard stations convert to Amoco?

http://www.savethe76ball.com/

[douglasm]

BTW, I found this little bit of history on a Flikr site.....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25229906@N00/3495432731/

[rooms222]

Boron became BP around 1990 when Sohio and Gulf in the South were also converted [[and Gas and Go).....Sohio had a history of entering and leaving Metro Detroit, but could not use Sohio anywhere in Michigan [[because it was one of the Standard oil trademarks, the one for Ohio).....


Exxon came in right when the Mobil distribution in SE Michigan was sold off to a local distributor. Exxon and Mobil had already merged and Exxon was a second brand [[like @ 96 and Merriman where there is an Exxon and a Mobil together). The one on Fenkell was one of the first ones in MI.

Has Chevron ever been in MI? They just exited the mid-South and Northeast, even some states that they were the Standard Oil brand, like Kentucky. They do remain in the "deep South," FL,GA,AL,MS,GA,TX, and the Western states.....

[reddog289]

After my trip around the thumb and beyond, I can say one thing, I was glad that I found plenty of Speedway Gas Stations, and second.I got to see a old Standard Gas Station up in Port Huron. Had to do a double take.
As a side note my Uncle would only use Amoco Gas in his car for the longest time, After the BP switch I asked him so does the Focus run any different?, His answer was it runs good on Speedway Gas too.
Would love to have one of those signs to hang up on the garage. I grew up with the Standard/Amoco brand. B.P. could really dupe the public if they rebranded their stations as Amoco/ Standard.