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

New in 2003:

Most recent updates to this site

An overview of maps from Portugal
Four or five brands dominated the Portuguese petrol market from the 1930s right up to 1988: Shell, Mobil, BP (originally Atlantic) and Galp (formerly Sacor and Sonap). As a result, there are relatively few petrol maps from the country, but this new page shows a selection of post war maps. (Updated 30 December 2003)

Hinrich Stöhr
Hinrich Stöhr operated a Großtank-Anlagen in the 1960s and, like a number of other small West German petrol companies, sold a customised version of a stock map of its home region of NW Germany. (Updated 30 December 2003)

Gulf maps from Finland
Two more maps have been added from the collection of Juha Tuulaniemi, this time both dating from the 1950s and being issued by Gulf. (Updated 21 December 2003)

Union and Kesoil maps from Finland
Finnish petroliana collector Juha Tuulaniemi has kindly sent me some scans of Finnish road maps in his collection, and the first to be added come from Union and Kesoil, two of the predecessor brands to Neste. His website has some excellent photographs of old Finnish service stations, as well as petrol pumps and other items from the service station industry. (Updated 20 December 2003)

A transitional Gulf-Kuwait Petroleum map
The Kuwait Petroleum Company acquired most of the European operations of Gulf in stages between 1984 and 1986, but its new brand Q8 was not launched until 1986. As a result there was a need for a transitional map design, which still used the Gulf logo - albeit in green and white - as well as the Kuwait Petroleum name. (Updated 9 December 2003)

Three more OK maps from Sweden
Swedish OK maps have often been issued jointly with other organisations including the Motormans union, the Swedish Tourist Board and the Post Office. Three additional joint venture examples have added to the site, with the respective sponsorship from 1969, 1979 and 1985. (Updated 8 December 2003)

More from OMV Istrabenz and Deltin
The OMV group is known as OMV Istrabenz in Italy and former Yugoslavia, and the Slovenian company has quite recently issued a credit card sized map using the Z-card system. Around 15 years earlier, OMV's Bavarian predecessor company, Deltin, issued a map showing its final logo. (Updated 7 December 2003)

A map from the "new" Gulf
Between 1984 and 1995 the European Gulf chain was sold off, mainly to Q8 but finally to Shell in the UK. As Chevron had lost interest in the brand, it seemed that Gulf would never be seen again on European service stations, but in 1997 Indian interests acquired rights to the name and began to franchise it to independent suppliers in the Low Countries and the UK. The first map known from any of these franchisees was published in Belgium in 2002 to show the route of the Ronde van Vlaanderen cycle race.
I have also added a 1965 Gulf map of Europe. (Updated 29 November 2003)

An Elf map from West Germany
Elf has issued very few maps for a company of its size, and an example from the only known series of German Elf maps, dating from 1969, is now shown on this site. (Updated 29 November 2003)

Brands with no known maps
There is a page on this website that lists some of the larger brands for which no maps are known. Since it was first posted in 2000, maps for at least ten of the names on it have now been found, including - most recently - Frisia and Agrola. However, I am compensating for this by adding other names; the most recent batch are Tamoil and its predecessors including Gatoil and HEM. As with several of the other "possibles", I have included small photographs of service stations from the three companies. (Updated 22 November 2003)

Frisia
Frisia was the brand name used on petrol in West Germany and Luxembourg by Saarbergwerke, a company controlled by the German government. In 1970 it sold its 650 service stations to Gulf, but it issued at least one map in the 1960s. (Updated 21 November 2003)

OK and IC maps and atlases
The OK/IC page has been revamped, with ten new images, including two small map extracts, the first OK Map known from Norway, and all new images for IC. IC, later replaced by OK, was a motorists' co-operative based in Sweden that later allowed the OK name to be used by co-ops operating in other countries. (Updated 20 November 2003)

What businesses sold Gasolin petrol?
This may sound like a rather stupid question; surely filling stations sold Gasolin fuels! But the answer is more complex, as an analysis of the details of Gasolin sales points in Austria has shown, taken from a 1954 map booklet. Barely more than a fifth of sales outlets described themselves as tankstellen (filling stations); more were at general stores, with a surprising number at hotels and guesthouses. There was even one at a textile works. This map (but not the analysis) has also been added to the Gasolin page. (Updated 15 November 2003)

A late 1950s Mobil map of Austria
Mobil had its strongest market position in Europe in Austria, so it is no surprise that several Mobil maps can be found from the country. The latest to be added to this site dates from around 1959, and includes strip maps on the reverse that need to be inverted when driving between Klagenfurt and Villach. (Updated 14 November 2003)

An earlier Statoil map of Sweden
Statoil first appeared as brand name on service stations in 1985, and a map of from just two years later has now been added to the site. (Updated 8 November 2003)

Primagaz LPG in Belgium
Primagaz (formerly Cargas) has become the leading independent brand of LPG at Belgian service stations, and is the dominant supplier to Jet and Texaco, as well as several smaller firms. To help car drivers using this gaseous fuel find its outlets, Primagaz have issued a road map of Belgium. (Updated 8 November 2003)

A football map of Belgium, produced by Esso dealers
It is unusual for groups of dealers to club together to issue maps, but in 2002, twenty Esso dealers in North-East Belgium co-sponsored a map of the country with the football club KRC Genk. The map gave driving directions from Genk to all the other main football stadiums in Belgium, and also located the sponsoring Esso stations. (Updated 6 November 2003)

BP Sweden's Kartguide över Europa
Although BP withdrew from the Swedish market in 1994, as late as 1992 it produced a booklet for BP Plus card holders in Sweden showing the location of BP stations in all European countries. (Updated 23 October 2003)

An early AVIA map
Although AVIA was established before World War II, no pre-1950 maps are known from the company. Indeed a 1953 sectional map of Switzerland is one of the earliest known. (Updated 21 October 2003)

Union from Finland
Neste is the largest Finnish petrol company today, but it has its roots in three older brands: Kesoil, E and Union. A map from Union is now shown on this site for the first time. (Updated 15 October 2003)

A colourful BP cover from Norway
Norway was BP's oldest continental European market, and sometimes issued maps away from the main international style. A 1959 example had an unusually colourful cover and inside split the country into three sections using a folding system similar to that of Foldex. (Updated 13 October 2003)

A Motorist's Guide to Early Opening and Late Closing Shell Service Stations
The booklet title says it all, except that it was published in 1959 and has 12 pages of small scale maps! (Updated 12 October 2003)

A pictorial Aral map of European Route 3 (E3)
In the mid 1950s new European routes were designated, carrying there prefix E. Part of E3 ran from Frederikshavn (Denmark) to Hamburg, and was shown pictorially on a map sponsored by Aral. (Updated 12 October 2003)

La Route Joyeuse
In the mid 1960s Esso France produced a series of EPs (7 inch records playing at 33rpm) with the title "La Route Joyeuse". These included a map extract on the rear cover, and featured folk songs from the appropriate region of France. (Updated 11 October 2003)

Another atlas dated 2004
The autumn is the time for new editions of atlases and maps to appear, and for 2004 Aral has introduced a new spiral bound atlas of Germany at the generous scale of 1:200,000, using the mapping previously reserved for its regional Freizeitkarten. It was on sale until the end of September at a special subscription price of €12.50, little more than the cost of two of the sectional maps. (Updated 10 October 2003)

An early Italian map with an Esso advert
There has been a gap of just over a month adding new maps to this site. During September I have ben finding lots of new maps, firstly at the Beaulieu Autojumble and then at the annual swapmeet of the Road Map Collectors Association (RMCA), held each autumn in Hammond, Indiana. This in turn has given me the pleasant problem of updating my databases to reflect maps bought or swapped in and out. However the good news is that I now have more maps to add to the site, plus additional scans from other collectors in the RMCA.
The first map to be added actually comes from a different source again, but is an attractive 1930s map from Italy carrying a fine early Esso advert on its rear cover. (Updated 9 October 2003)

Four small map extracts
I am occasionally asked "Where are the actual maps?" This site does not have too many extracts from the maps, as opposed to the covers, for a number of reasons: (i) it is primarily about oil company maps (and the unique features of these maps are often confined to the covers); (ii) I don't have copyright clearance to include more than very small extracts; and (iii) at the web resolution scanning in raster map images produces poor quality images. (True web maps use digital techniques to retain clarity while retaining reasonable file sizes.) However there are over 95 small map images hidden round this site if you seek them out. To help you, and to draw attention to one of the less visited corners of this site, I have added four to the acknowledgments page "thankyou", illustrating the four corners of Europe that I visited as a child. (Updated 6 September 2003)

Shell city plans in Poland and a road map of the Czech Republic
Shell has re-entered most of the formerly communist countries of Eastern Europe, and Shell maps can be found for several of them. In Poland it sells an extensive series of city plans, and a 2003-4 map of Lodz has been added to the page on Polish maps. It also sells a high quality road map of the Czech Republic through its service stations there. (Updated 6 September 2003)

A purely Migrol map from Switzerland
Migrol is affiliated to the Migros co-operative movement, and until relatively recently any maps issued by the group showing Migrol locations were primarily branded for the Migros parent. However Migrol currently supplies a dedicated map and station location booklet, using good quality modern cartography by Hallwag. (Updated 3 September 2003)

Morrisons supermarkets sell a road atlas
Morrisons is the fifth largest store chain in the UK (although it is likely to acquire Safeway, which ranks one place ahead of it) and has in recent years spread South from its Yorkshire base. Its 111 petrol stations now carry its own brand of fuel, and they sell a high quality AA road atlas of Britain at a low price. (Updated 29 August 2003)

A German Mobil Atlas
Mobil has never sold petrol in Germany, as until recently it owned a minority interest in Aral, the market leader. However it has sold lubricants, and in 1984 produced a hardback atlas for use by its German subsidiary. (Updated 26 August 2003)

An MS map from the Irish Republic
Most oil companies operating in the UK and Republic of Ireland had a single map programme for the two countries. (Texaco was an exception, possibly due to using different logos in the two countries.) It now turns out that the independent company MS also produced different versions of its maps for use by its service stations in the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland. (Updated 26 August 2003)

An index to road map articles in Check The Oil!
Dave Leach has been contributing a regular road map column to Check The Oil! magazine for almost a decade. Although they look most often at maps from the USA, his articles cover all maps worldwide from petrol and oil companies. Initially this page is simply an index to the articles, but I intend to add representative illustrations of non-European maps to it over the next few months. (Updated 13 August 2003)

A Q8 location map from Britain
Q8 has recently begun to import the concept of Automat (unmanned) stations from its Scandinavian affiliates, and a 2002 leaflet promoting its fuel cards - again using the Scandinavian model - opens up to provide a map of Britain marking Q8 station locations. (Updated 10 August 2003)

An intermediate MS map
Previously there was something like a 10 year gap between the two MS maps shown on this site. A 1962 example has now been found to fill in the gap. (Updated 6 August 2003)

The first 2004 map!
It may only be August 2003, but the first 2004 badged petrol map is now on sale. It comes from the Murco chain in Britain and - like all Murco maps over the past 10 or so years - is a large format road atlas with cartography by Collins (formerly Bartholomew). (Updated 4 August 2003)

Two maps from Aero
Aero, Société Champenoise des Carburants, was based in Rheims and had around 160 service stations in the early 1950s. Two maps from this brand have now been found; one from that era and one from 20 years before, when the brand name was still accented Aéro. (Updated 3 August 2003)

A special 1992 Campsa guide
In 1992 Spain hosted the Olympics in Barcelona and the Seville International Expo. Campsa commemorated these events by issuing a supplement to its guide giving information for visitors to the two host cities and Madrid. (This guide has also been added to the Olympics page.) (Updated 27 July 2003)

VK and Jet
VK Georg von Opel started life as Volks-Kraftstoff, but but the late 1960s had built of a chain of 180 black and gold VK stations. It issued a map in 1969, now shown here, but the following year was sold to Conoco (Jet). I have also upgraded most of the older Jet images, and added a 2002 Jet map of Denmark to the page. (Updated 22 July 2003)

Agrola
Agrola is Europe's largest petrol brand owned by an agricultural co-operative. It has grown to be Switzerland's fifth largest chain of petrol stations, although its maps are uncommon and the 1968 one added is the first shown on this website. (Updated 10 July 2003)

Tesco's latest store finder
Tesco is the UK's largest food store chain, measured by sales, and also ranks high for petrol sales. In recent years it has occasionally given away a "Storefinder" which locates all Tesco stores and Petrol stations, as well as including 18 A5-sized pages of maps, marking store locations. (Updated 6 July 2003)

Belgian supermarkets
Belgium was the second country in Europe to develop service stations attached to large supermarkets. Unlike in France, these were soon sold to major oil companies. As a result few had a chance to issue maps, although a recent example is shown from a CORA Hypermarket (which has own-brand petrol) and from GB supermarkets (which generally sell Shell petrol). (Updated 6 July 2003)

Paul Donath (Donizin)
Paul Donath was another member of the Uniti trade association that was based in East Germany, and so absorbed into the Minol monopoly after the 1939-45 war. Based at Görlitz, its brands included Donizol and Donizin, and its map included a pen and ink illustration of its chief service station in its home town. (Updated 4 July 2003)

Four more maps from East Germany (DDR)
No East German maps appear to have been printed in large quantities, but a range of titles were produced by VEB Hermann Haack for Minol and Intertank. An earlier edition has been added for Minol (1960) and a later one for Intertank (1977), as well as a 1974 example printed for Petrolchemisches Kombinat Schwedt, the holding company for the lubricant blending plants in East Germany. Finally a (West German) Shell map of the DDR has also been added to the page. (Updated 27 June 2003)

Calor Autogas LPG
Calor Autogas was the largest UK supplier of auto-LPG in the first wave of installations in the late 1970s and issued at least one map, in 1982, to allow motorists who had converted their cars to run on gas to find its outlets. The cover design was synchronised with maps from the Belgian company Cargas and the French VIFF. (Updated 22 June 2003)

More recent Texaco maps of the Netherlands
Although a recent Dutch trip yielded a surprisingly large crop of recent maps from brands such as Shell, Esso, BP, Total, Avia and Haan, none were found from Texaco. This has now been rectified with a typical Dutch Falkplan edition from 1998 and a Texaco Belgium map of the Netherlands produced in association with a local press group. (Updated 22 June 2003)

A joint Shell/DEA atlas
Shell greatly enhanced its market position in Germany by acquiring DEA in 2002. Although DEA had stopped selling its own maps a few years earlier, Shell produced a special cover edition of the Grosse Shell Atlas for 2003-4, to allow an appropriately branded version to be sold in DEA stations. (Updated 9 June 2003)

Mobil in Austria
Austria was one of Mobil's strongest markets, so three more maps from the 1950s and 60s have been added to the main Mobil page. (Updated 2 June 2003)

Petrom
Petrom is the successor to the old monopoly companies in Romania, and has issued maps of the whole country and Bucharest. These are now shown on this site, together with another map of Bucharest produced for Agip. All three maps were prepared by the local company Amco Press. (Updated 31 May 2003)

AS24 automated truck stations
AS24 is the name used by Total on its automated truck refuelling sites in 14 countries across Europe. AS24 publishes an annual guide (containing some maps) to help truckers locate its outlets. (Updated 30 May 2003)

Total in Bavaria and Germany
Total entered the West German market around 1960 and before long issued a panoramic map of Bavaria, as well as its normal road map of the entire country. (Updated 27 May 2003)

Earlier maps from Azur
Two earlier maps (1936 and 1952) have been added to the Azur page. The latter of these is the first example of a sheet map; all other Azur maps are in the form of a booklet, often known as "Guide Azur". (Updated 27 May 2003)

Maps from Sweden
Following on from Norway, a page has been added summarising the history of service stations and their associated road maps in Sweden. This page includes 10 images new to this site. (Updated 26 May 2003)

More about the Standard Streckenkarten
Standard (Dapolin) produced a series of map postcards around 1930 covering all of Germany in 19 sections. A complete set of these maps, bound into a cloth pad has now been found. (Updated 24 May 2003)

Maps from Norway
Petrol company branded maps have been found in Norway for almost 70 years. This new page gives an overview of maps from the country, which has always had one of the highest numbers of service stations per capita in Europe. (Updated 18 May 2003)

Oelvertrieb Nordhausen
Oelvertrieb Nordhausen is another small Uniti member that supplied a chain of filling stations in Eastern Germany before the war. Unlike many of its peers, it owner - Kurt Isermeyer - restarted in business in the 1940s and his company still survives as an AVIA distributor almost 80 years after it was first established. (Updated 12 May 2003)

Even more from AGIP
After reviewing the updates to the AGIP page, it became clear that the comments about the 1954 atlas were not quite right as the different designs actually related to different years; the earlier 1952 version has thus been added to the site. (Updated 8 May 2003)

De Haan
Following up on the theme of recent Dutch maps, a map has now been added from De Haan Minerale Oliën, a regional distributorwith around 25 haan branded stations. (Updated 6 May 2003)

More from AGIP
Although it has never been as prolific an issuer of maps as some other companies, AGIP has produced a steady variety of maps, including ones for motorways (autostrade), motels and campsites over the past 50 years. Five more images have been added from its 1960s and 70s titles. (Updated 5 May 2003)

Orlen
Poland's PKN (Polski Koncern Naftowy) changed its name to Orlen and updated its image at the start of the current decade, and I have now been able to add two maps with the new image to the site. (Updated 29 April 2003)

Esso's giveaway map at the Brenner Pass
Sometime around 1960, Esso printed a small card in the shape of its Happy oil drop, for free distribution to motorists crossing the Austro-Italian border at the Brenner Pass. The reverse side of this card had an extract from the Esso map of Italy and promoted the Brenner's Touring Service office as well as Esso service stations in Italy. (Updated 22 April 2003)

More maps from Slovenia
Slovenia is the one former Yugoslav republic for which maps can be found issued by national companies (Petrol Ljubljana and Istra-Benz). Two recently discovered maps have allowed an update of the section on the main Yugoslav page, including an extract from one of the maps. The map covers are also shown on the specific pages for PETROL and OMV Istrabenz. (Updated 21 April 2003)

An earlier Amoco map of Britain
An earlier Amoco map of Britain has been found, covering the UK on a single sheet by Geographia. (Updated 15 April 2003)

Recent Dutch maps
Petrol companies in the Netherlands continue to issue road maps occasionally, and following a recent trip to the country I have added examples of recent sheet maps from Avia and Total, plus a BP Street atlas. (Updated 14 April 2003)

A DEA map from Otto Fricke
Otto Fricke distributed DEA (or Texaco) products for over 50 years until the end of last year, when it was forced to switch to AVIA following the sale of DEA to Shell. It appears that in 1957 DEA printed a special sectional map for use by Fricke centred on its home town of Gütersloh. (Updated 12 April 2003)

Montan Union
Montan Union had almost 400 service stations at its peak, but its maps are uncommon. An example has been added of a 1957 sectional map by Ravenstein.
This is the 150th brand shown on this site.
(Updated 12 April 2003)

National Benzole Maps
At long last I have completed the upgrade to all the images on this site! The last page to be rescanned and upgraded is the one relating to National, and I have added an earlier road atlas, three examples from their series "Our National Heritage" and one of their 1964 books to complement the maps. (Updated 1 April 2003)

Esslin Tank
Esslin Tank was a brand name used by Wilhelm Grothues of Lippstadt in West Germany. An early 1960s JRO map has now been found from this small company, which still operates a few service stations in the area, but no longer under the Esslin Tank name. (Updated 28 March 2003)

Gasolin Tips booklet
Gasolin issued a booklet of "Tips" each year; the content varied and did not always include any maps. However two examples from the early 1960s contained maps - one dividing West Germany into sections, and the other street plans. (Updated 22 March 2003)

A Souvenir map from Sun Oils
Sun Oils was the name used on lubricants by the Belgian Sun Oil Co, and its distributors, in the early 1950s. One such company, Wodoil of Austria, produced a map of the Salzkammergut to be given to Scouts attending the 1951 International Jamboree. (Updated 17 March 2003)

Price's Motorine
William Price & Co have been the UK's leading supplier of candles since 1830. For 100 years from the 1850s they were also a major supplier of lubricants, and their Motorine issed a series of 31 promotional maps in the mid-1930s. (Updated 4 March 2003)

OKQ8
In 1998 OK merged with Q8 in Sweden to create a composite OKQ8 brand; I have now added a map from the combined company. I have also taken the opportunity to rescanned several of the other maps on this page. (Updated 19 February 2003)

Mobil maps from Britain
I have added a transitional design of map from the early 1960s and rescanned all but one of the other maps on this page. (Updated 16 February 2003)

PAM in Austria
The Dutch company PAM had a small chain of service stations in Austria during the 1960s. A map has now been found from this brand, probably dating from around 1964. (Updated 15 February 2003)

More Optimol advertising
Optimol was a South German lubricants manufacturer which regularly advertised on maps from JRO, a cartographer based in its home city of Munich. A 1960s example has been added to the page looking at advertising on maps by oil companies. Optimol survives today as a specialist in biodegradable oils in BP's Castrol lubricants division. (Updated 7 February 2003)

A Shell guide to the 1952 Olympics
I have added a small booklet listing events at the 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games to the special page about Olympic maps, and have at the same time upgraded some of the older images. (Updated 3 February 2003)

Tiger Hightest's Glossary of Gas Station Collectibles
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. When the magazine ceased regular publication in 2001 the website was closed. 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)

An overview of French maps
An overview of French maps has now been added. This looks at the range of road fuel company maps and atlases from the BP Guides of the mid-1920s to recent maps and booklets locating hypermarkets, LPG stations and truck diesel outlets. In the middle there are a wide range of maps from all the main operators in the country. In common with the other country overview pages, it also looks at the broader history of fuel retailing in France, using 31 maps sold or given away by service stations to illustrate the text. Five images are new to this site. (Updated 30 January 2003)

More 1990s Total maps
As part of a review of the French sections of this site I have added two more 1990s Total maps, illustrating the range of purposes for which Total has issued maps in the past decade. (Updated 30 January 2003)

OZO (Omnium Française des Pétroles)
OZO was the trading name of the Omnium Française des Pétroles (OFP) which was established to develop oil marketing activities mainly in Francophone countries. OZO maps are extremely rare, but a 1956 Kümmerley & Frey map of Switzerland has now been found. (Updated 24 January 2003)

Another Deltin map
Deltin was West Germany's largest independent brand, measured in terms of the number of filling stations, in the 1960s. As most of its sites were small rural locations, Deltin maps are quite uncommon. A 1965 example has now been added to the earlier one already shown. (Updated 16 January 2003)

The earliest BV map
The earliest map from BV (Aral) appears to have been issued in the 1920s by Lux, a commercial cartographer. As well as showing this map, I have added a better scan of the mid-1930s Derop atlas, plus photographs from the atlas of a Derop tanker refuelling the Graf Zeppelin and a very cluttered oil works near Berlin. (Updated 12 January 2003)

Authorised DEA Distributors
DEA has always had a number of independent authorised distributors (Jobbers) in Germany. On rare occasions these have issued their own maps to their own designs, and a 1953 example from Fritz Sibilsky of Hannover is now shown (Updated 11 January 2003)

Benzina in Czechoslovakia
Benzina is the brand name used on Czech stations controlled by Chemopetrol (the name in Slovakia was Benzinol). A 1978 map of the country has been found for Benzina, the first oil company map known from the Communist era in country. (Updated 5 January 2003)

BP Rumania and Bulgaria
As part of its Touring Service in the 1960s, BP issued maps of some countries where it did not operate, including one of Rumania (sic) and Bulgaria. (Updated 5 January 2003)

Another VCG (Vogt & Co.) atlas
Vogt & Co. was a Uniti member with a plant before the war near Gorlitz, in what is now part of Poland. A second, slightly later, atlas has now been discovered from the company. (Updated 4 January 2003)

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 new 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)