New and improved pages on the
European Petrol Road Map Web Site

Updates from 1999

This provides a chronological list of updates to the site, with the most recent ones listed first. In addition to the updates listed there were technical changes to help navigation around the site and to update some of the company histories.

A Maxol road map of Ireland.
Maxol is an independent established in Ireland for over 75 years, which has issued maps right up to the 1990s. (Updated 30 December 1999)

Mobil road maps.
Two web pages of Mobil and Mobilgas maps. The first has 11 images from continental Europe, including a rare 1948 Mobiloil series from Portugal. The second page has 7 images from Great Britain, including a special map of viewing places for the Isle of Man TT motor cycle races. (Updated 30 December 1999)

Murco road maps of Britain.
The US independent company Murphy Oil has sold petrol in Britain since the 1960s under the Murco and EP brands. Both maps and atlases are amongst the seven images, which includes two from a 1972 Bell/EP map of Lincolnshire, produced by Bell Oil Operations, a jobber for Murco. Sadly no maps are known from its Swedish operation. (Updated 30 December 1999)

National Benzole road maps from Britain.
National Benzole was formed in 1919 to market this by-product from the British coal industry as a motor fuel. From the late 1950s to 1982 it sold several series of maps and in 1960-1 had the most extensive range of maps ever produced by British petrol companies. (Updated 30 December 1999)

Neste road maps.
Neste Oy is Finland's leading oil company. It recently produced an unusual map titled "St Petersburg to Warsaw". (Updated 30 December 1999)

OK road maps from Sweden and Denmark.
OK is a common brand name used by co-operative oil companies in several European countries. Seven images from Swedish and Danish maps are shown here. (Updated 30 December 1999)

OMV road maps from Austria.
OMV is the Austrian national oil company and despite having only appeared as a brand name in the last decade, some maps have been produced. This page also includes an image of an Elan map. (Updated 30 December 1999)

A Preem road atlas of Sweden.
Preem replaced Texaco in the mid 1990s in Sweden. Its friendly bear's head can be seen on an atlas with two quite distinctive cartographic styles. (Updated 30 December 1999)

A road map from RBP - Raffinage Belgique des Petroles.
RBP was an independent refiner in Antwerp; although it probably had no service stations under its own name, it did produce this map around 1958-9. (Updated 30 December 1999)

Road maps from recent Austrian independent petrol companies.
The independent companies A1-Tankstellen and Avanti have both produced road maps. A1, with under 10 outlets, is probably the smallest European petrol company to have produced its own map. (Updated 30 December 1999)

Jet and Sopi road maps.
Conoco's JET subsidiary has issued maps intermittently on a country by country basis. This page shows examples from Britain, West Germany and Scandinavia, as well as a map from Sopi, a German predecessor company. (Updated 23 December 1999)

An Italian road map from Marathon.
The midwest company Marathon only sold gasoline for a few years in Europe in the 1960s. Nevertheless, a map from its operation in Northern Italy has survived. (Updated 28 November 1999)

Scandinavian road maps from Hydro, HydroTexaco and (Danish) Uno-X.
Norsk Hydro started life generating electricity, but over the past 25 years has grown to be a significant force in Nordic petrol retailing. Using the HydroTexaco and Uno-X brands in Denmark and Norway, and Hydro in Sweden, it has issued several maps in the last 10 years or so. (Updated 28 November 1999)

Gulf road maps from Europe
Gulf Oil sold petrol (gasoline) in Europe for over 75 years before the final stations were sold to Shell in 1999. Although it was never a top player (except in Luxembourg!) there are a wide range of Gulf maps to be found. (Updated 28 November 1999)

Heron road maps from Britain
Heron was an operator of service stations that built up several chains before selling them on to major brands. In 1978 it issued a map...(Updated 28 November 1999)

API road maps from Italy
Two images of a 1960s map from Anonima Petroli Italiana (API). (Updated 23 November 1999)

Elf and Antar maps
Elf and Antar maps from France. (Updated 21 November 1999)

Fina group maps
A substantial web page showing 12 map covers from Fina, Purfina and Socal Fina maps, together with a brief history of the Petrofina group up to its 1998 merger with Total. (Updated 20 November 1999)

More 1930s Standard maps
Three additional Standard maps are illustrated: a 1933 of France, a 1935 or 6 of Denmark that include two bound-in booklets running to almost 100 pages and a large format 1939 map of Norway with a great graphic cover. (Updated 1 November 1999)

Amoco & Adler
Additional information about Amoco's operations in West Germany, including an image of an Adler map, have been added. (Updated 26 October 1999)

Rheinpreussen
A Rheinpreussen map image and information about this company have been added to the DEA page. (Updated 21 October 1999)

A graphic 1940s Caltex map
Stan DeOrsey recently added a great Caltex map of Belgium & Luxembourg dating from the late 1940s to his collection which is now shown on this page. I have also added more detail about the division of Caltex between Chevron and Texaco in 1967. (Updated 20 October 1999)

A Chevron map from Caltex
The Chevron page has now two images added from a German Chevron map created by taking the old Caltex map and adding a Chevron sticker over it! (Updated 19 October 1999)

Gasolin Road Atlas
A 1967 road atlas issued by Gasolin has been added to the Aral page. (Updated 19 October 1999)

Esso Maps from Europe
Over 100 images from Standard (New Jersey) and Esso maps from the 1930s to date, spread across 12 web pages for easy navigation. Special features include 1950s scenic maps from Scandinavia and country overviews for Britain, Germany and Italy. There are also pages devoted to cruising guides and item materials, such as phrasebooks, available from the Esso touring service. (Updated 12 August 1999)

This was the point where the "new" page was itself brand new! The original Excuses Excuses.. was on display for about 12 months, until I reached a point where I felt the site was almost complete...

Excuses, excuses...
This site is an amateur site, so I apologise if it's sometimes a little slow to add new pages. I have a rough target of completing the overview by brand by mid 2000, with the exception of Shell which may take a little longer to achieve. During the first half of 2000 I also hope to add a more comprehensive section of links, and later on to produce summaries of each of the major European cartographers.

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Text, "new" icon and layout © Ian Byrne, 2000-1

All original copyrights in logos and map extracts and images are acknowledged and images are included on this site for identification purposes only.