Whatever Happened to...Gulftane?

Ahhh, nostalgia. The balmy days of August and as the summer heat and humidity fill the air, thoughts turn to summer days past, of cruising down the streets in a '53 Chevy with the windows rolled down, breeze blowing through the cowl vents and the wing windows (remember those?) with the only worry being how long that few gallons of twenty-five cent Gulftane gasoline would last.

Maybe another worry if you were not cruising solo was if your buddies had any money to chip in to buy a few more gallons if you ran out? (If you were smart, you did the "chip-in" thing before you went cruising so you knew you had enough fuel...although some didn't; thus harried phone calls to friends and parents to bring gas or tow/push them home at various and sundry hours from all sorts of places. I suppose whether you called parents or friends depended a lot on where you ran out of gas or broke down, because there were places you just would be embarrassed to have your father tow your car home from, such as the drive-in theatre, car hop, or god forbid, you and your date at the local lovers' lane where any such appearance by a parent would mean being ridiculed forever by everyone in the entire world, or at least by anyone who would ever recognize you or your car.

This was the summer of 1962 and the last before my final 5 months of high school. (I graduated mid-year, as schools then had what were known as "A" and "B" classes, with the "B" classes half a year ahead or behind the other classes, depending on how you looked at it. So, the Class of 1963 had half graduating in February and half in June.

Working part-time in a gas station, where more times than not, payment was in a few gallons of gasoline in return for picking up needed repair parts from the supplier, and a few trips in a day meant a full tank of Gulf gas. And, if the boss was paying to put gas in, I used the "good stuff" and not the cheap gas, which, honestly, the old Chevy couldn't tell the difference. Plus, often customers would tip us for extra services like checking the oil, tires and air filter and cleaning the filter with compressed air to prolong its' life a bit rather than try and sell them a new one. Plus, doing an extra good cleaning job on some extra dirty windows sometimes garnered a few cents tip. Credit cards were common, but you never had the possibility of a tip on a credit card; the beginnings of the downfall of full service in gas stations perhaps?

A big benefit of working at the station was being able to use the lifts and equipment to work on my own car. Again, when the boss was short of cash, which was most of the time, (he was a gambler and played the horses, and unfortunately didn't usually pick winners!) payment was in free oil and filters, etc. I had the cleanest oil and internal engine in the country, I believe!

Gasoline delivery was, of course by tank truck, and had to be paid for in cash or by the credit card receipts, which the driver tallied up and used against the total owed for the delivery. I believe some times we received a short delivery as the boss had gambled all the money away and we hadn't enough to pay for a full delivery, so the driver counted up the credit card receipts, and that's all the gasoline we received, split between Gulftane, Good Gulf Regular and Premium. I know there was almost never any cash in the register, other than what I took in selling gas and oil changes, and sometimes that would disappear if "track money" was needed.

In the end, the business failed, but by then the summer was over, and school was back in session, so cruising became less frequent, and that tank of cheap Gulftane lasted lots longer as winter approached. It wasn't free anymore either, and as time went on, it wasn't twenty-five cents a gallon either!