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

This page shows the updates that were made to the PetrolMaps website during 2008. With time, some of the links may no longer work if I have moved images to a new location (for example through splitting large pages), although most of the content of this website is permanent and can still be found by using its search facility. Special thanks are again due to Richard Horwitz and Dennis Frajevich for supplying me with some of images on these pages and to Tim Nicholson for sourcing some of the other maps. For a variety of reasons, there were rather fewer updates in 2008 than in earlier years, but I still managed to add 69 new images, including some 7 new brands.

Link to most recent updates

Gulf and Marly advertising on a 1954 Belgian map
The Royal Automobile Club de Belgique (RACB) regularly produced a rather basic map of the country showing little more than road conditions, numbers and distances, generally issued as a supplement to its "Royal Auto" magazine. This map often carried advertising for Gulf products, both before and after the Second World War. On the 1954 map, which has now been added to this site, it also carried advertising from Marly, a Belgian lubricant company. (Updated 23 November 2008)

BP's British Racing Circuits
Around 1965 BP issued a fold out map providing track plans for the eight main British Racing Circuits, printed on glossy paper in just 3 colours. (Updated 22 November 2008)

The Esso Card Guide to UK Service Stations
Although most petrol companies have stopped issuing sheet maps in the UK, some firms provide A5 format atlases to their fuel card customers. A 2008 example has been added to the site from Esso; Texaco is another company that has used a similar format. (Updated 16 November 2008)

The Totalcard Site Directory
Total is a third company to use a similar format, although its maps only cover England, Wales and the Isle of Man, in line with the Total network.. (Updated 17 November 2008)

An early postwar Esso diesel map and folder
Esso issued a second version of their postwar map of Germany (showing the division of the country by the four allied powers) that was overprinted to mark towns and villages where there were Esso diesel stations. This map was tucked into in a grey stiff paper folder, with a booklet listing all the diesel stations. (Updated 16 November 2008)

The 1963 Antar map of France
Antar only appears to have issued sheet maps for a very short period (around 1960-64) and the 1963 map has now been discovered to have a different cover design from the 1962 or 1964 editions. (Updated 16 November 2008)

Two recent maps from Sweden
Sweden is one of the very few countries where a number of firms are still producing maps. I have added examples from OKQ8 and Preem to the website that were both published earlier this year (2008). (Updated 15 November 2008)

Old and new maps from Portugal
Until recently it was thought that there had been no pre-1945 oil company maps from Portugal, but a fine 1920s (probably) map has now been discovered, produced for the Vacuum Oil Company and so advertising their Mobiloil and Auto-Gazo fuels. At the opposite extreme of dates, I have added an Automóvel Club de Portugal map from 2006/07 that carries advertising by the Spanish company Repsol, as well as marking towns with Repsol stations. (Updated 4 & 15 November 2008)

Recent maps from the Netherlands
A few companies in the Netherlands remain committed to selling branded maps (and sometimes smaller format street atlases as well). These include Shell and Total, both of which retail a version of a 1:250,000 map from Falkplan, and these are now both shown on the Dutch country page. (Updated 12 October 2008)

More BP Touring Service booklets
BP's Touring Service published a number of non-standard booklets in the 1950s and two more titles are now shown. The first is a BP booklet on "Swiss Alpine Roads", shown in two editions, one dated 1952 and the other undated, but from the end of the same decade. The other booklet is a "Welcome to Denmark" that is known to exist in both English and German versions, and dates from around the mid 1950s. (Updated 5 October 2008)

Esso Stickers promoting Road Maps
By coincidence, more Esso promotional materials turned up after I had posted the item below - this time, a set of three stickers based on nursery rhyme characters who might have benefited from an Esso road map. (Updated 5 October 2008)

Esso Blazes a Trail to Extra Profit
So ran the cover of a 1967 brochure promoting road maps to its dealers, showing exactly how much profit could be made on each packet of maps sold. (Updated 4 September 2008)

Three more 1960s Total maps from outside France
Total was only introduced as a brand name in the 1950s, and still had quite small chains of service stations in most European countries in the 1960s. Three more Total maps from this era have been added to the site; a 1961 and a late 1960s map of Austria, and a 1967 map of part of Belgium that is simply an overprinted stock Michelin issue. (Updated 4 September 2008)

A late Irish BP map
In the mid-1980s BP Ireland began to sell maps that were outside the main UK mapping programme, including an example dating from 1985 that was prepared for them by the Irish Ordnance Survey, and serves as the conclusion to this sequence of updates to BP maps. (Updated 4 September 2008)

BP's Discovery map booklet
In 1962 BP produced a 32 page booklet showing 19 suggested tours that would allow motorists to "discover the real Britain". (Updated 3 September 2008)

A BP Map of the Mediterranean
BP's Touring Service, in conjunction with the cruise ship operator Crociere linea, published a small-scale map of the Mediterranean in Italian in 1961. (Updated 3 September 2008)

BP Touring Guides from 1964
In 1964 BP introduced a series of English language country guides to accompany its map of Europe. (Updated 2 September 2008)

Later Esso Tiger Trails
Another series of Esso Tiger Trails has been discovered, dating from 1968 by reference to opening dates listed inside. This series ran to seven titles each containing 5 suggested routes. (Updated 2 September 2008)

Esso's World Map with Load Lines
Esso has periodically produced maps of the world showing bunker facilities and ports selling Essomarine lubricants, bound into stiff card covers and produced in London on behalf of Esso Standard Switzerland. (Updated 27 August 2008)

Trading's early 1950s atlas
Early maps from the Belgian independent brand Trading are not dated, but it is believed that their second published map was in an atlas format, produced around 1953. (Updated 25 July 2008)

Mobil Maps from North Africa...
Mobil has operated service station chains in most of the North African countries, but until now no maps were shown from Algeria or Tunisia. However Mark Greaves has kindly supplied me with images of a reversible Mobil/Michelin map. (Updated 4 July 2008)

...and from the near East
I have also been provided with a second image of a Mobil map from Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. (Updated 4 July 2008)

Recent maps from Austria
Although Austrian petrol companies sold maps right through the 1990s, there have been very few issues in the present decade. Three recent maps have been added to the Austria page: an OMV atlas, the Doppler atlas (also linked below) and a ski-map of Carinthia from Agip. (Updated 26 May 2008)

Doppler (Turmöl)
Doppler is Austria's largest independent petrol distributor, mainly selling BP branded fuel at its service stations (although an increasing number now carry its Turmöl private brand). In November 2007 it started selling a medium format Freytag-Berndt atlas of the country that promoted its own name, not those of its petrol brands. (Updated 25 May 2008)

An INA map of Yugoslavia
INA is the Croatian national brand of petrol, although by 1970 it had already expanded into most other Yugoslav republics, as can be seen from a newly found map from that era. (Updated 3 May 2008)

Two more Texaco maps of West Germany
Two more Texaco maps of West Germany have been added to the site dating from 1968 and 1973. (Updated 3 May 2008)

The Caltex Driving Abroad guide for US motorists
As the Caltex name was not known to US motorists, the company arranged for a small guide called "Driving Abroad" to be published in 1963 for the benefit of Chevron or Texaco customers planning to visit Europe. (Updated 3 May 2008)

BP Card Service maps for German customers
In 1996 the BP card service published two maps of Germany in a small card folder - one covered all of the country and the other the new Eastern States at a larger scale. (Updated 3 May 2008)

A 1966 German Esso atlas of Europe
Esso's German subsidiary regularly sold near A4 paperback atlases, with cartography mainly by Karl Thiemig. Its 1966 edition followed this pattern, although the small-scale maps were by General Drafting Co. (Updated 28 April 2008)

A DEA atlas from Kux & Krahn
The description of how DEA distributors (jobbers) used slightly customised versions of the standard DEA atlas has been enhanced by showing an example from Kux & Krahn. (Updated 8 March 2008)

BP's 1980 Netherlands map
Most of the major companies continued to issue maps for sale in the Netherlands through the 1980s and later. None of these maps are found in huge quantities, so I will occasionally add new images as they become available - the most recent being a 1980 BP (Falk) edition. (Updated 6 March 2008)

An Esso Tourist Guide of Tunisia
The number of known Esso maps and guides from Tunisia continues to grow with the addition of a green covered 1953 Tourist Guide of the country running to around 140 pages. (Updated 2 March 2008)

Eko-Elda in Greece
Hellenic Petroleum is the Greek national oil company and it supplies filling stations under the Eko brand name in Greece and some neighbouring countries. Until around 2005 it also used the Elda brand in Greece itself, and a 2003 map issue of five Dodecanese islands has now been found carrying both logos. This appears to be from a series of 50 sectional maps, although I have seen none previously. If you can provide me with any other titles in this series, or indeed of any other Greek maps from the past 20 years from other petrol companies, then please send me an e-mail! (Updated 24 February 2008)

An Aral sectional map of Yugoslavia
Prior to the break-up of Yugoslavia, the main international oil company touring services often included Yugoslavia in the map programmes as it was a popular holiday destination, even though they had no retail operations there. In 1969 Aral's Austrian subsidiary repackaged two Freytag-Berndt sectional maps of the country for sale to its customers. (Updated 24 February 2008)

Recent Russian Maps
Oil companies have been involved in the sponsorship of many more road atlases since the Russia page was first created in 2000, and so the page has now been comprehensively rewritten with new images and four new brands shown: Yukos, Lukoil, Phaeton and PTK. However I actually only have two of the maps shown on the page, so if anyone can help me by sourcing oil company branded maps from Russia, then please let me know! (Updated 24 February 2008)

A Fina map of Brussels
Given that Fina was based in Belgium, it might be expected that it would have regularly issued maps of Brussels. However, its regular issues were only just of the country (although Fina did issue several city maps in Germany, and a London map). In the late 1970s, larger Fina stations on the European highways were seemingly encouraged to add bespoke covers to Falkplan issues, and it is from one of these that a Fina map of Brussels is now displayed. (Updated 9 February 2008)

An Agip map from Switzerland
Although Agip has sold a number of different maps of Switzerland, none have previously been shown on this site, and a 1972 edition with an unusual way of locating towns in the index has been added. (Updated 6 February 2008)

Din-X's 2007 stations-guide
Din-X, one of Sweden's largest independent brands, issued a proper road map using Folia's QuickMap system as its 2007 station locator guide. (Updated 2 February 2008)

Igol's 1979 map
Igol is a loose affiliation of French lubricant companies that, nonetheless, issued a map at fairly regular intervals from the 1970s to the 1990s. Using the title "Routes de France" a 1979 (or 1978?) example has now been added. (Updated 27 January 2008)

A pair of BP maps of Morocco
At the end of the 1950s BP issued a pair of Moroccan maps by adding its own card covers to Michelin issues numbered 170 and 171. It appears that the maps inside were already around 5 years old, dating from 1954 and 1955 before the BP covers were applied. (Updated 13 January 2008)

I have taken the opportunity to split the BP standard design maps from the 1950s-70s away from the non-standard national variations. (Updated 13 January 2008)

Two BP maps with the final shield logo
BP introduced an italicised shield logo on a controlled dark green background in 1989. Maps bearing this late logo are relatively uncommon, but two more have been added: a 1993 from Sweden and a 1994 of Benelux, issued to promote the BP-Routex card. (Updated 13 January 2008)

GB in the Netherlands
GB (Gebroeders Broere) was a Dutch fuel distributor acquired in the 1960s by the US conglomerate Tenneco. A GB map has now been discovered, probably dating from the 1960s. (Updated 4 January 2008)

A tenth Esso map of Tunisia
It's relatively uncommon to find multiple designs of a brand/country combinations outside Europe or North America. One notable exception is Esso in Tunisia, for which a tenth distinct design, dating from 1971, has now been found. (Updated 4 January 2008)