When Driving My Healey ...

[HealeyRick]

...I prefer to wear white gloves:

1956 photo of Mobil station across from Disneyland: https://anaheimhistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2012/01/mobil-gas-station-1956.html

 

[shorn]

Those were the good old days, the pegasus. What a great logo that was, The Flying Red Horse. You use to see it on Indy cars and hydroplanes back then. Then Mobil merged with Exxon and we seem to have lost both the flying red horse and the tiger in your tank. Now all we get is ethenol and $4.00 plus gas.

 

[dougie]

Some of us are trying to keep "The Flying Red Horse" alive.....
Stop by my pits at the PNW Historics on June 29th-July 1st at PRW Kent, Wa.
The Horse will be running hard that weekend...

 

[bighealeysource]

I don't know Rick, can't see you in white gloves with your Nasty Boy !
Regards,
Mike

 

[HealeyRick]

I don't know Rick, can't see you in white gloves with your Nasty Boy !
Regards,
Mike

Mike,

They'd probably keep the grease from beneath my fingernails.

The description of the photo is as follows:

"For these images, architects Whitney Smith and Wayne Williams enlisted the talents of their friend, famed photographer Julius Shulman. Shulman staged the photo on the spur of the moment, with a customer's red car and the wife of one of the architects, driving her own Austin-Healey convertible, with white gloves, in the foreground. Anaheim's ubiquitous orange trees, loaded with fruit, border the blacktop in the distance."

Don't know if the white gloves and fancy bracelet was Mrs. Shulman's regular garb for Healey driving, but it makes a wonderful picture.

Here's another description of the picture:

"The above image by Shulman has a fantastic story. Shulman reported that his architect friends Whitney Smith and Wayne Williams were commissioned by Mobil Gas to do a mockup for a new type of design for the Mobil Gas image, including the flying horse. In the background of this photograph there is a story. “The architect’s wife was there, ” Shulman said. ”She was driving an Alfa Romeo convertible, with white gloves. I had her pull her car up just far enough that the bumper would not come inside that shadow line. And then her arms would show. She’s just coming in to get gas, to that station. It’s a story-telling picture.” In fact, it was her own car along with a customer’s red convertible. The moment the customer pulled in, Shulman ran over and asked, ‘Would you mind? I have a young lady with a car waiting for me, with a convertible.’ Shulman asked, ‘Would you stay in your car while I photograph it? I’ll have the attendant talking to you, ‘How many gallons do you want?’ ” Shulman staged this image in such a natural way."

 

[Frankenhealey]

Those were the good old days, the pegasus. What a great logo that was, The Flying Red Horse. You use to see it on Indy cars and hydroplanes back then. Then Mobil merged with Exxon and we seem to have lost both the flying red horse and the tiger in your tank. Now all we get is ethenol and $4.00 plus gas.

$4.00 plus gas! Mr. Obama's obviously not taxing you enough

 

[Jeepster]

Oh how I wish I could buy a gallon of petrol for the equivalent of $4.00.

Those were the days.

 

[reddsprite]

I'm curious,how much is a gallon of gas in the UK after the imperial gal/US gal are figured into it?

 

[Jeepster]

We pay almost £1.40 per litre. ( I live in a rural area and I am sure others can buy it for a few pence less)

At todays exchange rate that is $2.17 per litre.

1 US gallon = 3.785 litres

So we pay just over $8.00 a gallon equivalent. A huge percentage of that goes to our wonderful Government.

 

[HealeyRick]

This picture has really stuck with me. There's just something about it that instantly transfers me back to mid-century Southern California, where the world seemed so full of promise. Apparently, I'm not the only one as I forwarded it to The Chicane blog and it's been featured there: https://thechicaneblog.com/2012/07/11/just-a-healey-pulling-in-for-a-fill-up/

 

[pan]

Pegasus has a special connection with the Austin-Healey Owners' Club of Queensland. Every year we award the "Pegasus Trophy" to our club champion.
The trophy was donated to the club by two founding members, Raymond Perry & Rhys Davies who, at the time were proprietors of a Mobil Service Station.