Special features about petrol company road maps

Index by title

Jump to summary in date order

2006 Road Maps from Petrol and Oil Companies
50 maps from 50 years of the EU
Adverts from Oil Companies on road maps
        Adverts from Oil Companies on British road maps
        Adverts from Oil Companies on German road maps
        Adverts from Oil Companies on Italian road maps
Bibliography of Gas Station and Petroleum History books (mainly US)
BP's 1926 Guide to Paris and its environs
Brussels World Fair (1958)
Dating Petrol Company Road maps
        Dating British Esso maps from ca1949 to 1958
        Dating US Gulf maps from before 1930
Diesel & Truck Facility Maps
Energy Saving Tips for Motorists:
        The Mobilgas Economy Run
        The Shell Guide to Good Mileage
        Tiger Tips for Stretching Gasoline Mileage
Errors on maps (1)
        Errors on maps - two more examples
Esso Guides to London and Irish Airports from the 1960s
Fake & Reproduction Road Maps
Freiburg im Breisgau - street maps
Glossary of Gas Station Collectibles terms
Husbands Bosworth - comparing post-war Shell maps for accuracy
Some special Shell maps from George Philip
Summer Olympic Games maps
        Winter Olympics
Promotional tools for maps
Maps from World's Fairs & Expos

Summary in date order

50 maps from 50 years of the EU
25th March 2007 marked the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the predecessor of the European Union. To commemorate this I created a page showing a map from each of the 50 years. All the maps are from companies based in the EU at the time the map was issued. (Updated 25 March 2007)

Special Shell maps from George Philip
In the 1960s Shell worked very closely with George Philip & Son Ltd, one of Britain's leading map companies. Among the special issues produced were an experimental wipe clean map using a "Shorko" plasticised map coating for a 1964 Geographical Congress, and later 1960s Shell maps in card covers produced for Philip's to sell into the map trade, rather than through Shell filling stations. (Created 17 October 2006)

Errors on maps
Many maps have errors; most are quite small and many are deliberate. This new page looks at some that appear to be of both types, ranging from a non-existent bypass to a village spelled wrongly; from a map with the cover photograph reversed to one pasted into completely the wrong cover. Others show production errors, such as an atlas with some pages missing whilst others were bound into it twice. (Created 9 April 2006)

Two maps with errors
Many maps contain small errors; sometimes deliberate to help protect copyright (and trap others who have made illegal copies) and sometimes inadvertent. This page looks in some depth at two examples - a Greek map of Britain that is riddled with small errors, and a deliberate error on an Exxon map of New York State. (Updated 19 February 2006)

Winter Olympics Maps
Maps from the Winter Olympic Games were rather hidden at the foot a page devoted to the summer games. Two maps are from Innsbruck in 1964, and two from Grenoble four years later. As it is 38 years ago today since the Grenoble Winter Games closed, with a choral concert featuring Olivier Messiaen at the Maison de la Culture, I have decided to promote them to their own page. (Updated 18 February 2006)

2006 Road Maps from Petrol and Oil Companies
Although relatively few maps and atlases are still being sold by petrol and oil companies, there are some with a 2006 date, and this page will attempt to pull together examples from some of the main markets. (Created 2 October 2005)

The Mobilgas Economy Run
With the ever increasing threat from Global Climate Change, it is interesting to look at the - relatively few - initiatives by petrol companies to promote fuel economy. One of the longest running was the Mobil Economy Run, and a 1959 booklet of Mobilgas locations in Britain offered some useful tips to motorists on how to conserve fuel. (Updated 25 September 2005)

Diesel & Truck Facility Maps
Diesel fuel was first used to power lorries and other commercial vehicles in Europe in the 1920s. Dedicated maps for diesel fuel customers appear to have been produced only occasionally, starting in the 1950s. In more recent years, though, maps and directories with quite rudimentary maps have been produced for commercial vehicle drivers (truckers) as a way of showing where sites with truck facilities are located that will accept a particular payment system card. (Updated 24 July 2005)

Comparing maps of Husbands Bosworth
Motorists rely on maps to be accurate representations of the roads on the ground, taking into account the scale at which the map is drawn. Although cartographers occasionally introduce deliberate errors, most of the time even the cheapest (or free) maps made available have met this aim admirably. One map that allows us to test this - and how it has stood up to the test of time - is the 1974 Shell map series produced by George Philip & Son, notable for showing an aerial representation of part of the map on the cover. This page compares several maps, mainly from Shell, with the actual layout of the roads around the village. (Updated 6 December 2004)

Maps from World's Fairs & Expos
There have been almost 30 World's Fairs (or Expositions Universelles) since the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London's Hyde Park. Road maps or site plans have been produced by petrol companies for around a third of them, with the fairs held since the 1930s in North America well represented. This page shows some 20 map images, mainly from the USA, in an overview of the subject to complement the page dedicated to the 1958 Brussels Expo. (Updated 7 November 2004)

Tiger Hightest's Glossary of Gas Station Collectibles Terms
Tiger Hightest was a magazine published in the USA for collectors of items associated with service stations (including road maps). In 1999 Guy Kudlemyer, a regular contributor, put together a web glossary of interest to collectors and general historians or the downstream oil industry. The glossary has now been re-published on this website in an updated version, with slightly more emphasis given to European matters. (Updated 1 February 2003)
To help keep the page a reasonable size, the Bibliography has been moved to a new page.

Tiger Tips for Stretching Gasoline Mileage
Tiger Tips for Stretching Gasoline Mileage were included on the back of Exxon (USA) road maps in the 1970s - the panel from a 1974 edition has now been included as a comparison to the 1979 Shell Good Mileage Guide. (Updated 4 January 2003)

Promotional tools for maps
Petrol companies spent a lot of money developing map programmes, so would naturally wish to use them to encourage more customers. This page looks at some of the ways this was done, including advertising their road maps and point of sale marketing through map racks. (Updated 2 January 2003)

Esso Guides to London and Irish Airports from the 1960s
There are at least three versions of an Esso guide to London Airport (Heathrow) from the 1960s and one to Irish airports (Dublin, Cork and Shannon), which dates from around 1963-4. Each guide includes drawings of aeroplanes from each of the main airlines serving the airport, as well as information on Esso refuelling facilities and plans of the airport. (Updated 20 July 2002)

Street maps of Freiburg im Breisgau
Freiburg is a medium sized city in Southwest Germany which is large enough to have been included as an inset on several different petrol companies' road maps. A selection of these street plans are shown here, together with more images from the 1935 Shell map of the city.
Warning: This page has around 400K of graphics, so may be slow to load. (Updated 2 February 2002)

Fake & Reproduction Road Maps
Petrol and oil company road maps are not terribly valuable. As a result there is (luckily!) little incentive to produce fake or reproduction items, unlike for some other collectibles (eg. gasoline globes). However, I do know of one reproduction map and this web-site is not above a little deception.... (Updated 1 April 2001)

The 1926 Guide "BP" to Paris and its environs
Within 5 years of entering the French petrol market, BP commissioned a 400 page guide to Paris and its environs. The guide contains many pages of maps, black and white photographs and delightful pen and ink advertising images. This page looks at the guide in some detail; it also contains the earliest known petrol company maps of France (and the oldest known BP maps, as well). (Updated 13 January 2001)

The Shell Guide to Good Mileage
In 1979, Shell published a full colour leaflet advising motorists in the UK on ways to avoid wasting petrol. Although some of the information has been superseded by improvements to car technology, much of it is still valid, and I am grateful to have been permitted to convert it into a web page, which reproduces the complete text and original illustrations. (Updated 29 December 2000)

Maps for the 1958 Brussels World Fair
Michel Breugelmans has kindly helped me to compile this page showing five maps for the Brussels World Fair, from BP, Caltex, Esso, Mobil and Shell. (Updated 17 November 2000)

Oil Company adverts on road maps
Not all petrol & oil companies issued their own road maps; some of the smaller ones could not afford to and so it made sense to consider advertising on other, commercial map issues. However, it appears that most adverts found on maps are nonetheless from the major brands of petrol - especially Shell, Esso, BP and Mobil. This page looks at some of the other brands with adverts on maps, including examples from Belgium, Finland and Portugal and, on additional pages, from Britain, Germany and Italy. (Created 7 October 2000; last updated 10 April 2005)

Dating Petrol Company Road maps
Many road maps carry a clear copyright date on them. However a significant minority lack any clear date and there are some cartographers' codes that are worth discovering. Otherwise, it may be necessary to compare the road network with a map of the same area that is dated, or to fall back upon the general style of the map... (Updated 1 October 2000) I have also created a specific page looking at the sequence of British Esso maps from ca1949 to 1958. (Updated 1 October 2000)

Special Maps for the Olympic Games
Eight summer and Eight winter Olympics have been held in Europe since 1930. For a few of these games, leading petrol companies produced special maps to help their customers get to the Olympic venues. This page includes examples from Berlin (1936), Helsinki (1952), Rome (1960), Munich (1972) and Barcelona (1992). (Updates 7 June 2000 to 29 July 2003)