Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Ronniej]

Many years ago when I was an impoverished car mad student and dinosaurs still roamed the earth I took a job in a small local petrol station.
This was long before the advent of self service and I was expected to dispense fuel and check oil, water and tyres if requested by the customer.
We were always happy to make these checks as it usually was rewarded by a tip.
The site was a Shell station and while I was there they operated a promotion scheme called “Make Money”.
Customers were given an envelope with half of a Monopoly style banknote.
If they got the other half of the same denomination note they would win that amount.
The top prize was £100.00 but I never heard of anyone actually winning that.
Wins of the smaller denomination notes were fairly regular.
The promotion attracted a huge amount of interest and we became much busier than usual.
One weekend the boss had a major clear out and we disposed of a lot of stuff that would now be regarded as valuable Automobilia.
Lubrication charts, tyre pressure lists, oil tins and glass bottles and a few metal adverts.
At the time these were regarded as clutter with no potential value.
I have often reflected on this and what they might fetch today.

Ronnie

[peter scott]

As a kid I used to scour the tip at our local garage too and still have an acetylene bicycle lamp and a very large vice from that source that I still use.

Peter
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https://www.nostalgiatech.co.uk
1939 SS Jaguar 2 1/2 litre saloon

[baconsdozen]

I can remember the scheme with the half of a bank noite. Thinking about it there were various promotions and things like green shield stamps,you dont see much these days. The days of the petrol pump attendant are long gone as are the Redex dispensers and free air for your tyres.
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Thirty years selling imperial hand tools for old machinery(Now happily retired).

[Dipster]

A long time ago I worked in a garage that was part of a Texaco station. The deal was simple, rent was very cheap but Texaco expected a regular (quite high) amount of their products sold. We, on the other hand, just wanted the workshops to earn a living with!

The Texaco products were petrol, diesel and oils, obviously, but also loads of other stuff that was impossible to shift such as screen washes, shampoos etc.. The petrol was not too difficult to shift and we used the oils in the workshop. But the other stuff? We topped up screenwashers at services with Texaco liquid for nowt but most we simply gave away to our regular forecourt customers in addition to the quadruple Green Shield stamps they expected!

The forecourt never made money (for us!) but it was part of the rent we needed to bear to get the workshops. I expect many garages were in the same situation.

[Ray White]

Some of my earliest memories are of travelling the length and breadth of England with my parents looking at different garage businesses. This went on for years because it seemed if the garage business was a good prospect, invariably the owner's accommodation was poor; and conversely, if the accommodation was O.K. the business was a dead duck.

Eventually, while I was looking through the Exchange and Mart, I came across "The Old Cottage" not far from where we lived. In an outstanding deal, my parents swapped our modern terraced property for the big 17th century house. Next to "The Cottage" was a large timber building that Dad and a partner used as a garage, with customers drawn from his engineering job at James Walker in Woking.

The garage was in use mostly evenings and week ends and I learned quite a bit but with property prices going up in leaps and bounds, Dad eventually sold the land for development and retired.

[Ellis]

Among my earlies "car" memories is the black Morris Minor traveller my parents owned in around 1958. I remember more about the black Austin A50, GBV 715 that followed it and the beige Morris Oxford MO with the red leather seats that accompanied for a while.

Other memories were the fast journey in 1960 to the casualty department of the local hospital when I broke my left arm. The car was my father's grey Wolseley 1500.

When my parents were busy running their shop in the busy summer months I was quite content to watch the cars going by from our upstairs lounge window and wondering why some cars seemed so old fashioned compared with others.
For some reason whitewall tyres fascinated me. Whitewalls were more common on Vauxhall Crestas, Ford Zephyr Zodiacs, Austin A90 and often on brightly coloured little sportscars which I know now as Austin Metropolitans.

Smell. Passing what I called "old fashioned" parked cars the smell emanating from them was different to new ones.

Over the many hours I spent watching, the one shape of car which appeared most often to me, or so it seemed were Hillman Minxes. Why I have no idea.

The faces of cars, why some smiled, others scowled. I was afraid of Standard 8's because they looked like angry little cars.

Childhood thoughts......................
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Starting Handle Expert

1964 Jaguar Mark 2 3.4 litre
1962 Land Rover Series 2a 88"
2002 BMW M3 E46 Cabriolet

[lowdrag]

I worked weekends in the sixties at Totton, serving petrol. I'm rathert ashamed to admit it now but it seemed a good wheeze at the time. Did you, in the day, ever check that the little bubble was full before you were served? I know that no one I served did, since after someone left the forecourt I drained the hose into a can, and had a few gallons for the Cooper S at the end of the day. I think I was on about £500 a year in those days.