Various oil company promotions have been used to secure loyalty at the retail level, and toy trucks have been especially popular.
Many US gasoline retailers have been producing annual toy trucks for years, fostering a burgeoning market of collectible tankers, trucks, planes, cars, and motorcycles. Often incorporating coin banks and usually timed for the holiday season, the industry toys have been offered as service station promotions or exclusively to company employees or credit-card holders.
Anniversary tanker
In 2004, Amerada Hess Corp. celebrates the 40th anniversary of its toy trucks, a tradition started by company founder Leon Hess. The first was a replica of the original Hess tanker trailer. The replica sold for $1.29. In 1966, the company offered a free-rolling model of the Hess Voyager tanker ship. The next year it followed with an 18-wheel fuel oil tanker in a red velvet box. In the 1970s, Hess created a gasoline and fuel oil box trailer truck, with three miniature oil barrels and working lights. The company has also offered models of fire, police, rescue, and emergency trucks; training vans; helicopters; box trailers with race cars and motorcycles; sport utility vehicles; and even 18-wheel flatbeds. One of the flatbeds carries a motorized airplane, and another, issued for the 35th anniversary, carries a space shuttle with a launchable satellite and retractable solar panels.
Other companies, past and present, with toy truck promotions are Amoco Corp., BP PLC, Citgo Petroleum Corp./Cities Services, Clark Oil & Refining Corp., Coastal Oil & Gas Corp., Conoco Inc., Crown Central Petroleum Corp., Fina Inc., Exxon Corp., Getty Oil Co., Gulf Oil Co., Humble Oil, Marathon Oil Corp., Mobil Oil Corp., Phillips 66, Quaker State, Royal Dutch/Shell Group, Sinclair Oil Corp., Sunoco Inc., Texaco Inc., and Unocal Corp.
Chevron Corp. began offering blue and orange Gulf Oil tankers and other trucks in 1994. The first was an Airflow fuel delivery truck inscribed "Gulf Refining Co." Chevron has issued tractor-trailer and tanker trucks and began a series of 43 whimsically named cars for children in 1996.
Crown Central Petroleum, Baltimore, which sold its retail gas stations early in 2004, issued red, white, and blue tankers and other truck toys during 1994-99.
In 1997, a year before its refining and marketing assets merged with those of Ashland Oil, Marathon commissioned a series of four historic red trucks named for Ohio Oil Co., its predecessor founded in 1887. Ohio Oil became Marathon in 1962. The trucks commissioned by Marathon were die-cast by First Gear Inc. Marathon also offered two "M" tanker trucks to its credit-card customers, a silver one in 1997 and a red one in 1998.
Phillips Petroleum Co. has produced a 1913 Ford Model T fuel delivery truck and a 1:24 scale 1934 Ford tanker truck bank featuring a model of the 80 hp Ford V-8 engine.
Shell has issued toy cars, trucks, Formula Shell tankers, and, since 1992, dozens of planes. The first plane was a 1:32 scale die-cast metal Travel Air bank, followed by a Vega in 1993. Later models included racing planes, float biplanes, the military Corsair, blimps, and the Shell Petroleum Corp. DC-3.
In the 1930s, Standard Oil Co. salesmen promoted Stanavo oil, fuel, and aviation products by flying around the western US in three custom-made 1930 Stearman 4E airplanes based in Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. The company later recreated the plane as a die-cast bank for children, marketing Chevron aviation fuel.
Planes galore
In 1984, Texaco began to offer a series of historical tanker trucks and other vehicles, die-cast by Racing Champions Ertl Inc. Texaco also began issuing a long series of toy planes in 1992. The first was a 1:32 scale replica of Texaco's No. 13 Travel Air mystery ship. Later Texaco models included a vast assortment of trimotor and stagger-wing aircraft, gliders, and even hot air balloons, blimps, and pipeline helicopters.
Among many toy trucks, Texaco has offered a model of a 1951 Ford F-6 stake-back truck used for pipelines, a 1953 white tanker marked "Key Oil Co.," and a Port Arthur, Tex., refinery fire truck. Texaco began a series of red and gold Getty Oil trucks in 1994, 10 years after taking over the company. Alaskan distributor Sourdough Fuels commissioned a bright red Texaco tanker trailer for limited distribution in Fairbanks. Many oil company toys have become popular collectors' items and are frequently found under Christmas trees at this time of year.
