TheSamba.com :: View topic - What's The Story With The Orange 76 Antenna Balls?

Wed Oct 27, 2010 3:40 am

I see them for sale and I see people looking for them. What's the story? What are they about? I know it is a tiny replica of the old 76 gas station signs. Does it just add to the vintage look or is there some history to it?

Wed Oct 27, 2010 4:34 am

Yep, that's about it. Those of us who grew up with them don't think much of them. They go along nicely with the poseurs who display fugly old suitcases and ice chests on their roof racks.

Who do they think are kidding? These are VWs, not some poorly arranged Junior High School diorama.

Get real!

Wed Oct 27, 2010 4:34 am

They are a copy of a promo item that Gas Stations gave out back in the '60s /'70s, I guess people use them as a prop like any other period accessorie.

Wed Oct 27, 2010 6:12 am

I remember bringing quite a few of them,maybe 15 or 20, to Chris Mangler of PA in about 1998 or so, on my first trip to Litchfield... they were still giving them out in Southern CA at the time....

Wed Oct 27, 2010 6:25 am

Back in the 60's when gas stations were fighting for business they would give away promo stuff. People would add the to the antenna, ect. Made finding you car in the parking lot easier. Any body remember S&H Green Stamps???
DWP

Wed Oct 27, 2010 6:30 am

They were still giving them out at a Union 76 in Anaheim about 3 years ago.

Wed Oct 27, 2010 7:17 am

DWP wrote: Back in the 60's when gas stations were fighting for business they would give away promo stuff. People would add the to the antenna, ect. Made finding you car in the parking lot easier. Any body remember S&H Green Stamps???
DWP

I still have a couple of incomplete books of them,along with the old Blue Chip stamps, as well.
I forget which catalog it was, but one of them (S&H or Blue Chip) had a deal in the back of the catalog,where you could, with a couple of thousand books, get a brand new Ford Falcon, it was one of the pre-'64 body styles, that much I remember 8)

Wed Oct 27, 2010 8:15 am

DWP wrote: Any body remember S&H Green Stamps???

This bus remembers them. Or at least the driver's door anyway.

Wed Oct 27, 2010 8:37 am

There were little baskets of them on the store counters of 76 stations in Eugene a couple years ago, don't know if they're still around now that I buy gas at Fred Meyer's or Costco. They are actually tasteful compared to the Jack in the Box clown, Dutch Bros. Coffee peace sign or Wal-Mart happy face seen all too often.

Wed Oct 27, 2010 9:05 am

cant find em around here and jackasses steal them, ive had 4 stolen and they go good with any so. cal ride. i was also born in 76 so it has double meaning. :wink:

Wed Oct 27, 2010 10:37 am

Back in the late 70's early 80's Union76 was the last of the gas stations to still have leaded gas, at least in CA. All the folks with older cars gave their business to 76. :wink:

Wed Oct 27, 2010 12:09 pm

ALSO IN rEDONDO bEACH(NO LONGER THERE) they were last had 101 octane frm a public pump. :cry:

Wed Oct 27, 2010 1:47 pm

They were the rage in the UK, being sold at swap meets. Perhaps they still are sought after in England, I don't know. I hear they would get stolen a lot from cars parked in lots, ect. I knew some folks would even go as far as removing their ball when they left their car in a parking lot of parked in the street. I understand "Americana" is very popular over there.

I used to have a delivery job driving all over Southern California in the 1990's. I would stop at any 76 gas station I ran across to get a few of those to give to a friend from England for him to sell. I would also make frequent deliveries to the Union 76 corporate office in Orange County. They usually had boxes of those things in the lobby, and I'd grab a handful.

This is not a pic of that office (that office was a monument to the high profits of crude oil) This is just a random pic of one of the old style signs.

Wed Oct 27, 2010 3:05 pm

Dave wrote: DWP wrote: Any body remember S&H Green Stamps???
DWP

I still have a couple of incomplete books of them,along with the old Blue Chip stamps, as well.
I forget which catalog it was, but one of them (S&H or Blue Chip) had a deal in the back of the catalog,where you could, with a couple of thousand books, get a brand new Ford Falcon, it was one of the pre-'64 body styles, that much I remember 8)

When I was in the Navy back in the early '60's, we had a Navy oil tanker, that had the S&H logo painted on her bridge. "We give S&H Green Stamps".
USS Ashtabula, if I remember correctly.

Wed Oct 27, 2010 3:08 pm

You may have to google this to confirm the basic story and get correct dates and details.
The deal is the union 76 oil company ran one of the most
successful advertising campaigns in history with those balls starting around late 1964 or early 1965. Any one that came in and got ( I think)
a certain minimum amount of gas got one handed to them. The idea caught on like wild fire and even though at some point the official campaign was terminated, the balls took on, a life of their own.

In 1966 I was in the Navy stationed in San Diego. I bought a new 1300 beetle from Truman Motors in El Cajon, a suburb of that city. VW's were thick as fles on a dog at the time and most of them had those balls stuck on their antennas. Even then people would take them.

In that time I lived near a 76 station. For a fill up and five bucks, they would wash, and wax your car and stick one of those balls on the antenna.
I'd go in there at least once a week. A fill up for me was only two bucks
at the time. Forty-four years later I still own the car and drive it.
Sometimes a fill up is over twenty bucks and they don't give you orange
balls anymore. At least up here in Washington. :(

Wed Oct 27, 2010 3:48 pm

The first time I visited the USA was for a 6 week road trip around the West Coast back in 1997, and my girlfriend (now wife) and I filled up at a Southern Californian gas station, the attendant put the gas in the tank and put one of those balls on our antenna.

It stayed on there the whole road trip, and was good for spotting the car in car parks, nobody ever stole it, we still have it now, the one I have is orange and has the 76 logo on one side, and a smiley face on the other.

My 4 year old is fascinated by it, he keeps wanting me to put it on the aerial of my bus, which I do to humour him, but I don't want to lose it so always manage to take it off again, thinking about it, I'm actually quite sentimental about that old polysterene ball.

I see them a lot at VW shows here in the UK, they sell them for about £2 to £3 each (they are a darker orange and no smiley though). When I see one, I think we'v got one of those, but ours is a 'real' one!!!

(Edit: I think a connection here in the UK is that SAE 30 is pretty much the oil of choice for air cooled engines in our climate, the best seller now is the British made Morris lubricants brand, but Castrol used to be the market leader, and SAE 30 by 76 was once widely available, I don't see SAE 30 by 76 over here anymore, plus as mentioned above, it's "Americana", but I don't subscribe to the 'battered roof rack stacked high with ancient suitcases look' myself, the bay window has enough problems with aerodynamics as it is).

Wed Oct 27, 2010 5:04 pm

lemke wrote: They were the rage in the UK, being sold at swap meets. Perhaps they still are sought after in England, I don't know. I hear they would get stolen a lot from cars parked in lots, ect. I knew some folks would even go as far as removing their ball when they left their car in a parking lot of parked in the street. I understand "Americana" is very popular over there.

I used to have a delivery job driving all over Southern California in the 1990's. I would stop at any 76 gas station I ran across to get a few of those to give to a friend from England for him to sell. I would also make frequent deliveries to the Union 76 corporate office in Orange County. They usually had boxes of those things in the lobby, and I'd grab a handful.

This is not a pic of that office (that office was a monument to the high profits of crude oil) This is just a random pic of one of the old style signs.

I'll try to find a picture of that office for you all... right now, all I'll say is that it was extremely strange-looking, had halves of the big spherical orange signs in the walls for logos IIRC, and that I got a $220 ticket for parking my kit car there in 1992. It definitely paid homage to the high profits of crude oil. :)

Wed Oct 27, 2010 5:32 pm

Mr Mike wrote:
Forty-four years later I still own the car and drive it.

Damn, you sure have Glenn beat!!

Wed Oct 27, 2010 6:24 pm

Great stories. They almost make me want to put one on my bus now. 8)
And I always thought the idea of the old suitcases on top was kinda cool, but only because I'm a pack-rat and always over-pack. Those old suitcases are tough and water resistant. But I actually read a post where a guy actually recorded his gas mileage with one on and with it off. The difference was staggering.
Whoops. I've derailed my own topic. :roll:

Wed Oct 27, 2010 8:27 pm

my65vert wrote: Mr Mike wrote:
Forty-four years later I still own the car and drive it.

darn, you sure have Glenn beat!! But Glenn posts pictures of his car more often.