Road maps issued by lubricating oil companies - France

Celor, Igol, Motul, Valvoline and Yacco

Introduction

France has always had a strong roster of domestic lubricant brands, so it is not surprising that several have occasionally issued branded road maps, mainly as promotional tools.

Celor

Celor was a large independent French lubricant manufacturer.

This Celor map of "La France Entière" was produced by Blondel La Rougery, possibly in 1925. Sold for 15Fr, it is an extremely narrow format (just 6.5cm wide) opening into 16 concertina sections. Inside the rear cover is a unique feature: a card slide rule that allows calculation of speed based on distances and travel time, and petrol consumption based on litres and distance. The map has North and South sections on reverse sides, with inset plans of 16 cities, including such rarities as Roubaix-Tourcoing.

Igol

Igol appears to be a loose confederation of independent blenders/distributors, with a quite separate arm dealing with industrial lubrication.

			The first three examples shown here are map booklets that listed all service stations selling Igol products. On 15 February 1976 there were 4,000 sales outlets, not just at filling stations, which required a 128 page booklet to list them all, with a map of France pasted inside the rear cover. Recta-Foldex produced the next four maps on the right, at 1:1,000,000 scale. Centre top dates from around 1979 (and is a scan of the map, as the card cover has been lost from the copy scanned. Top right is from around 1981 and is pasted into a card cover, together with a 72 page booklet listing garages selling Igol oils. The three bottom row maps lack a separate cover or address list, only saying (c1988) that Igol is available from over 2,000 garages. They are standard commercial maps with the most unusual feature being an inset map showing domestic air routes. The final map is credited to Blay-Foldex. Thanks to Jon Roma, Richard Horwitz and Etienne Houday for some of these images.

Motul

Motul is a French independent lubricating oil company, established in the USA as far back as 1853 under the name of Swan & Finch. On the central logo visible below, the black finch can be seen in front of the white swan, both with outstretched wings. It became part of the Standard Oil Trust, but running into financial problems in the depression was acquired by its French distributors in 1932. In 1934 the Motul name was introduced and although it is still especially active in France, Motul products are sold in over 70 countries. These days it specialises in high performance synthetic lubricants.

The first Motul map above (left) dates from 1954 and appears (probably misleadingly) to show a Motul petrol station on the cover. Inside it had a four colour map by Blondel la Rougery underlining towns with Motul dealers: the names & addresses were listed on the reverse. Two years later an unusual map was produced (next two images). Again produced by Blondel la Rougery it was printed in light green with white roads: the map suggested that users could mark their route on the map with a red pencil! Motul dealers were marked with thin red circles on the map and again listed on the reverse. By 1968 (centre right) Motul was presenting a more modern image and the sheet map had become two booklets linked by a card cover. One booklet had dealers' names and addresses and the other 32 pages of maps based on a Blondel la Rougery design dating back to 1957! The 1970 design (far right) differed mainly in its choice of cover and still used the same cartography.

Valvoline

Valvoline was established in New York state in 1866 and sells oils world-wide (it is now part of Marathon-Ashland Petroleum). Although it once had a few service stations in the USA it has only sold lubricants in Europe (although a licensee in Belgium operates a few Valvoline branded petrol stations). The French arm was for many years associated with Docarlub. This map of France dates from 1957 and is the standard Michelin 998 Grandes Routes Nord, inside paper covers advertising Valvoline, and using the (English) slogan, "the world's first motor oil". The reverse of the map is overprinted with an alphabetical list of all garages selling Valvoline in France and, unusually, the Sarre. Distribution was uneven across the country, as the cities with most sales points were Paris, Nice, Cannes, Bordeaux and Saarbrucken. Many large towns in the North of France had no sales points. (There is no outline to the yellow Valvoline name; my copy of the map has had a former owner outline part of it in blue pen!)

Yacco

Yacco was established in France in 1919 and grew to become one of the largest independent brands under its slogan "L'huile du records du monde" (the oil of world records). In 1991 it was acquired by TOTAL but the brand remains in use today and is sold widely throughout the world.

This 1998 map of France was prepared for Yacco by GT-Gabelli to a scale of 1:1,600,000. Printed on one side of the paper only, it is nonetheless a good quality map, with advertising panels for Yacco's lubricants and, on the reverse, space for the garagiste to affix his stamp: common enough on older maps but rare on such a recent issue. This suggests that it was intended purely as a promotional giveaway for customers and not for use as an on-pack promotion, unlike many of the more modern lubricant company maps.

No maps are known from other French lubricant manufacturers such as BretOil, Hafa, Kervoline, Labo, Orly, Pieroyl, RollsOil or Spidoleine.