[anjan_c2007]

To start with the thread, information about the erstwhile oil companies operating in India collected from either their respective websites or from Wikipedia or from personal knowledge is provided in a nutshell.

By 1974-78 all the foreign oil companies Burmah Shell, Esso, Caltex and Mobiloil (a smaller player) operating in India were nationalised. Apart from Indian Oil Corporation (estd 1959) that was the only Indian government owned oil company as a PSU, we saw Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum getting established after the takeover by our government of the then operating, foreign oil companies operations in India. Indian Oil Corporation was earlier known as Indian Oil Company, but in 1964 after the Indian Refineries merger with the former, the name got changed to Indian Oil Corporation.





Above- a 1941 Burmah Shell logo



The Burmah Oil Company was a leading British oil company. In 1966, Castrol was acquired by Burmah, which was renamed as "Burmah-Castrol". It operated as a joint venture named Burmah-Shell with Shell in the rest of India, but in Assam, Burma and in the then East Pakistan it operated under the name BOC (Burmah Oil Company). At the international level, BP Amoco (now British Petroleum (BP)) purchased the company in 2000. In India on 24 January 1976, Burmah Shell was taken over by the Government of India to form Bharat Refineries Limited as a PSU. We know it better as Bharat Petroleum now.



Esso's predecessor was Standard Oil of New Jersey after the breakup of the original Standard Oil company in 1911. The company adopted the "Esso" (the phonetic pronunciation of the company's initials, "Standard Oil", S.O.), which was later objected to by the other Standard Oil companies. Standard Oil of New Jersey started marketing its products under the Esso brand in 1926. In 1972, the name Esso was largely replaced in the U.S. by the Exxon brand after the Standard Oil of New Jersey bought Humble Oil, while the Esso name remained widely used elsewhere. In most of the world, the Esso brand and the Mobil brand are the primary brand names of ExxonMobil, with the Exxon brand name in use only in the United States alongside Mobil.



In India we have seen the first two Caltex logos only as the last one came into being in 1997

Caltex is an American oil company, which was formed in 1936 in Texas, and today operates in the Middle East and Asia-Pacific region, being one of the largest players in the market. Despite the fact, that the Caltex brand is widely known as the most popular petroleum company of the Middle East, it was born in America and its visual identity is a tribute to the company’s roots and history.

The redesign of 1947 kept the red star and black lettering but emboldened and modernized their contours. The new structure was placed on a white background and enclosed into a thin black circular frame. The inscription was now executed in a stylized Extra Bold sans-serif with massive heavy shapes of the letters. The star, as well as the brand’s color palette — red, white and blue — is a celebration of the company’s heritage and a tribute to the USA and to the forming company Texaco.

HPCL was incorporated in 1974 after the takeover and merger of erstwhile Esso Standard and Lube India Limited by the Esso (Acquisition of Undertakings in India) Act 1974. Caltex Oil Refining (India) Ltd viz. (CORIL) was also taken over by the Government of India in 1976 and merged with HPCL in 1978.





The 1959 logo



Mobil SAE 30 lubricant



Mobil TT oil for motor cycles and racing cars

In 1955, Socony-Vacuum was renamed Socony Mobil Oil Company. Socony stands for Standard Oil Company of New York, formed in 1911 from Standard Oil after its break-up. In 1963, it changed its trade name from "Mobiloil" to simply "Mobil", introducing a new logo. To celebrate its 100th anniversary in 1966, "Socony" was dropped from the corporate name. Mobil continues to operate as a major brandname of ExxonMobil within the ExxonMobil Fuels, Lubricants & Specialties division.

Mobiloil had a lesser number of petrol and diesel dispensing units in India as compared to Burmah Shell and Esso, but nevertheless was a dominant player in the motor oils or lubricants market. It was so dominant as a player that many old generation drivers or chauffeurs referred to engine oil as mobil oil. So for example, "Sir, we need to fill up the mobil oil in our car", was too common to hear from them. Its akin to the word "Jeep" as we know, which has become a synonym for 4 WD light motor vehicles.

As a common feature, the foreign oil companies were liberal with gifts to their customers in the form of penstands, desk and wall calendars, desk diaries , pens, yo-yo's (I may still have one of these from Esso) and so on.

[anjan_c2007]

Some brand advertisements from the past



From the workshop manual listing makes of oils/lubricants for the Morris Oxford Series II, III (also used by HM dealers for Landmaster, Ambassador) and Cowley



The RE 4 Kirloskar diesel engine that was the most preferred as aftermarket for Willys and Jeep class post oil shock of 1973



November 1979 advt of Goodyear tyres



December 1980 advt of Dunlop tyres



Simpson & Co aftermarket diesel most preferred for mini trucks and also for the older Chevrolet, Ford, Dodge, Fargo and GMC trucks that survived the oil shock



The adhesive tape that is still available (from the late 1980"s)



HP lubricating 2T oil advt from the late 1980's - now becoming scarce !



A late 1980's advt by SAFEX safety glasses



Castrol GTX late 1980's advt

[anjan_c2007]

Some more advertisements (OLD TO NEW) of component/tyre/ gauge/ spare/lubricant/paint and miscelleneous support for auto makers from the bygone years:-

[Potenza]

A big thank you to you for bringing back a flood of old memories. I’ve seen so many of these brands on the two Ambassadors that we had at home and also on the subsequent Premier Padminis.

A few old brands that I can recall to add to the list:-

- Dunlop Olympus tyres on the Padmini

- Ceat Safety Drives which I think were the most common tyres in the 80’s

- Jalwa King horn. As a child I remember our driver pestering my father to have one installed in the Ambassador which he eventually did

- Yenkay/Pricol/Autometers gauges. My dad used to install auxiliary Oil Pressure and Ampere gauges to our Padmini and Ambassador’s as soon as the warranty expired. I remember his unease when he bought a Zen and then wondered where to install the gauges!

- “Jay” branded ignition switch and keys on the Padmini

- In Pune we had a brand of tinted automotive glasses called “Atultuf”. I think it was a regional brand within MH but not sure

- Unicla Superking A/c on our 118 NE. I wonder what compressor was used? Sanden maybe?

- Fenner fan belts. We had a spare fan belt and hose pipes at all times!

- Premier 118 NE and Padmini cars had A/Cs installed by a company called Premier Auto Electric. These were aftermarket A/Cs which were promoted by the pune PAL dealer- Premier Garage (the erstwhile Jay-Vijay Motors). Cars fitted with this AC could be identified with their distinctive Red stickers on the Square portion of the 118’s bumper and by a metal badge rivetted onto the bootlid

- MRF Twin Tread cross ply tyres. These were given as OE fitment on the Padmini along with GoodYears (can’t recollect the name of the tyre), Ceat Safety Drive and Modistone Pioneer tyres

- Dagenite batteries. I believe the brand was owned by Exide and was sold only for a few years

- Camoflex wipers- Apart from Syndicate wipers which are available even now, Camoflex made good quality wipers in the 80s and early 90s when wiper quality was nothing to write home about. If I’m not wrong Camoflex was the first brand to move to matte black powder coated wiper frames from the chrome plated ones which were prevalent in those days

- Since our cars were serviced at a workshop attached to a BP petrol pump (Gogte Garage, Karve road, Pune) the engine oils were of course BP. I’ve seen countless cans of “Bharat Actuma Super 20W40” at home. One fine day when the can looked different I noticed that it was 15W40 instead of the usual 20W40. Asked my father about it and was promptly told that it is “new technology oil” :-))

[maheshm619]

Originally Posted by anjan_c2007

It was so dominant as a player that many old generation drivers or chauffeurs referred to engine oil as mobil oil. So for example, "Sir, we need to fill up the mobil oil in our car", was too common to hear from them. .

This trend has not faded away, at least not in rural north India. Most drivers and roadside garages still refer to engine oil as "mobi oil". Thanks to cheap internet, we can see many vloggers doing auto related content still using this word.

[anjan_c2007]

Originally Posted by Potenza

A big thank you to you for bringing back a flood of old memories. I’ve seen so many of these brands on the two Ambassadors that we had at home and also on the subsequent Premier Padminis.

A few old brands that I can recall to add to the list:-

- In Pune we had a brand of tinted automotive glasses called “Atultuf”. I think it was a regional brand within MH but not sure

- Dagenite batteries. I believe the brand was owned by Exide and was sold only for a few years

- Since our cars were serviced at a workshop attached to a BP petrol pump (Gogte Garage, Karve road, Pune) the engine oils were of course BP. I’ve seen countless cans of “Bharat Actuma Super 20W40” at home. One fine day when the can looked different I noticed that it was 15W40 instead of the usual 20W40. Asked my father about it and was promptly told that it is “new technology oil” :-))

Welcome Potenza! Also thanks to you for the lovely reminders of older brand names.

Atultuf was the brand of M/s Atul Glass Ltd. It was an OE manufacturer of automobile safety glasses and many brands used it till the 1990’s.

Yes, Dagenite batteries were also OE for Premier cars apart from other brands. The brands of batteries viz. AMCO, Standard Furukawa were also acquired by M/s Exide/Chloride India Ltd, Kolkata. I should be having an advt of Dagenite batteries and will post it soon.

For engine and gear oils the grades were earlier SAE 40 (for engine oil) and SAE 90 (for gear oil) commonly. However, Vespa 150/ Bajaj 150/Super/Priya/Chetak used SAE 30 oil (recommended in its owners manual) as its gear oil. SAE stands for Society of American Engineers whose specifications were followed by lubricating oil manufacturers. Only later in the 1980’s we started getting 20-40 W oils and so on. These were better with a low viscosity for the cold engine at 10 moving to a higher viscosity of 40 when the engine got heated to withstand the friction. Hence these were called multi-grade oils. We use these today and synthetic oils have taken over from multi grade oils for the modern engines.

Originally Posted by maheshm619

This trend has not faded away, at least not in rural north India. Most drivers and roadside garages still refer to engine oil as "mobi oil". Thanks to cheap internet, we can see many vloggers doing auto related content still using this word.

Good to know Mahesh. So the name "Mobil' still survives !

Some more images :-



The above image is a replicated period advt by Morris Cowley and Oxford Owners Club, Oxford, UK for their magazine Quality First. The brand SU, UK, for carburettors is mentioned here. SU is a company that used to make leather products. Its full form as many would know is Skinner's Union. They graduated into automotive spare making and were best known for their carburettors and electric fuel pumps.



Off topic, but the PCRA was into "educating the motorist" job since the 1980's.



A tall claim by the manufacturer. It survived the 1980's and early 1990's but became loss making and was acquired by Chloride India Ltd, makers of Exide batteries.





MRF was into motorsport as were many other tyre makers



Protecting car metal and paints then



Just before the Maruti 800 launch - Pace setter, a Willard India Ltd battery brand thought that the Maruti 800 will sport circular headlights from the past Alto !







Above image is from the Matador brochure- lists Mico fuel pump and fuel injection equipment, Lucas (not yet named TVS- Lucas) starter and alternator, JMA Hella head lamps.

[anjan_c2007]

A few more advertisements from yore:-



An Ambassador Mark 4, Diesel, alongside a HP fuel dispensing outlet



Carter carburettors- Carter carburettors and fuel pumps were fitted to many US made cars. Our Willys jeeps were fitted with these carburettors till around the mid 1960's after which a switchover was made to Solex due to the government's indigenisation moves banning imported components. Solex had set up its manufacturing unit in India.



Dagenite batteries OE for Fiat and later Premier cars







The Morris car and Castrol equation - in fact most British car brands preferred Castrol



S.U. carburettor and petrol (fuel) pump advetrisement



Lockheed brake kits



Yenkay gauges' advertisement from the 1980's courtesy Mr Manoj Kumar on FB Ambassador and Landmaster page

[anjan_c2007]

Madras Rubber Factory (MRF) was making tyres in collaboration with Mansfield Tire and Rubber Company of USA. This advertisement is from 1966. After the collaboration was over the changeover of name was effected from "Mansfield" to "MRF". Apart from the other foreign brands present in India then, an Indian brand "India Super" was a competitor.

[anjan_c2007]

Two brands of light bulbs viz. Union and Moonlit. The latter though saying "Super Quality" and so on was not as famous as Union. Though headlight bulbs are shown here, Union also made tail lamp bulbs.

[anjan_c2007]

M/s Triplex Safety Glass Company Ltd was a laminated and toughened automobile glass supplier based in the U.K.. The auto glasses would be regularly supplied to umpteen British automobile brands and later in the 1960's it had become a monopoly, after this company acquired its main competitor M/s British Indestructo Glass. Our older Landmaster and the oldest Ambassadors were fitted with "Triplex Toughened" glass as factory fitted OE. Please note the X X X in the company logo.







The company retired the Triplex brand in 1993. Sadly saw that the company founded on 9th September 1929 became defunct on 24th September 2019.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triplex_Safety_Glass

[anjan_c2007]

Not very old but still old ones from the 1980's and early 1990's

[anjan_c2007]

Found these two SU H Series carburettor repair kits in my spares stock of Camo-flex make, made in England. The beauty is that these were manufactured decades ago and as stated in the package, are sealed air tight immediately after production to stay fresh and new as on the date of production and to prevent any shrinkage or alteration in shapes or sizes. (not for sale)

[anjan_c2007]

Two more very familiar products from yesteryears

[bdman]

Can you help me identify the brands associated with these images for Kerosene? Esso had an Elephant. what about Camel, Monkey and Tractor? These are century old die plates used in the manufacture of kerosene tins. (Click to Expand).. TIA.

[anjan_c2007]

Some older brands with some old surviving brands of spare suppliers:-



Autometer gauges (kmph) for the HM Ambassador that was a poor man's replica of the Smiths meters. This situation came some months after the introduction of the Mark II (October 1963) to January 1966, when Yenkays fully took over. Smiths were continued with the stocks available but quite a few were fitted with Autometers by mid to late 1965. And the spares market also had adequate Autometers.



Above image from Lucas distributor point spare Courtesy : member @Babyhindustan



Oilguard oil filter for old HM cars



Hindustan Manufacturers Ltd glass rubber and rubber beadings for PAL, HM, Mahindra, Tempo, Tata




Amrep clutch plate for old Ambassador/ Landmaster