TEXACO

The oldest known Texaco maps from Europe are of Belgium and share the 1929-31 USA cover design, but are in entirely in French and backed with 12 town plans. Although three year variants are known, they probably cover a longer period than their US equivalents. The oldest carries the slogan "Touristes n'employez que TEXACO" (Tourists only use Texaco on the cover; the later ones "Pour la vitesse: TEXINE" (or Souplesse on the back cover), and mark the Waaslandtunnel in Antwerp that was opened in 1933. The youngest has a panel advertising Texaco motor oil in bottles (right).

The same design was used on Netherlands maps, but the 1939 issue (left) has a cover design unique to the country. This must be one of the last European Texaco maps issued before the war and the almost 30 year long gap until after the breaking up of Caltex.
Image courtesy of Michel Breugelmans
The Netherlands map (right) is from the late 1930s and, apart from the outline of the country in the middle, is also similar to the 1938 USA cover. The map is quite simple and was drawn by J. Smulders & Co at 1:400,000.

Texaco was also active in Scandinavia, and in Sweden started a tradition of selling branded softback, spiral-bound road atlases of the country. The one shown here dates from 1938 and cost 1kr.50, but the format changed little through its years as a Caltex atlas, its continuation under the revived Texaco identity from the 1960s to the 1990s, and its subsequent transfer to Preem.
Image courtesy of Jon Roma

In common with some other countries, such as Sweden, Texaco initially published an undated small format atlas of Ireland with a metal spiral binding, folded into two. The atlas marked all places where Texaco products were available by a red star, and was produced by George Philip & Son of London at 8 miles to the inch, with 10 pages of maps facing gazetteer entries. The inside rear cover advertises Insulated Texaco Motor Oil, understood to have been introduced in 1938, suggesting a date between then and 1947 when Caltex replaced Texaco in Europe. No Texaco stations are shown in Northern Ireland, so it may have been post-war when the UK had a single unbranded "Pool" spirit on sale.

Texaco issued maps for nearly twenty years in Britain, but with few variations in cover design.
From Left to Right: The first series were similar to the final design of Regent maps covering Britain in four sections at five miles to the inch with a fifth section for Ireland. This transitional style still had a small Regent logo on the rear cover. The next series used identical maps from Geographia but had a bold yellow and red cover design that was used throughout the 1970s - there are a number of detailed map extracts and a discussion about the frequency which this series was updated on the page about how often maps were reprinted.

A year earlier Texaco had joined forces with NatWest Bank to promote the 10 locations in West London and the Thames valley where the NatWest Servicecard could be used. They were marked on Handy Map of South England - it's not known if any other parts of the country were produced. Cartography was by John Bartholomew at 10 miles to the inch; the map was dissected into 11 sections using the same system as the Scandinavia Quick Maps; the paper was laminated on both sides and folded in a skew. All the participating service stations were on section 4, shown here.

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The hardback atlas (centre) uses the same Geographia cartography as the earlier sheet maps and dates from 1978. In 1988 Texaco issued a mid-format softback road atlas with a very plain cover using an older design of George Philip cartography than the short-lived series of sheet maps. Finally, in 1999 they again sold a Road Atlas of Britain, moving to the common large format and scale of 1:250,000.

In 1989 Texaco commissioned IMP Ltd to create an 80 page booklet (left) called "Motoring with Texaco 89". Enlarge image Although sold for £2.95 it was quite promotional in nature with 20 pages of fairly basic maps at 16 miles to the inch marking all Texaco sites in the UK. Former F1 racing driver James Hunt wrote the introduction, and the booklet contained an eclectic mix of useful and offbeat information, as well as a full listing of all Texaco service stations taking up 26 pages - more than the maps. It is not surprising that this appears not to have been repeated.

Early Texaco maps of Ireland (such as that shown far left: enlarge) retained the Swiss Orell Fussli cartography used on the Caltex/Tourist Board issues (and 1958 copyright date), even though the logo means that the map can be no earlier than 1967.

With a strong position in the Low Countries, it is no surprise to find a range of Texaco maps. The 1976, 1982 and 1998 Netherlands maps (left) used typical Falkplan/Bootsma cartography pasted into card covers; with time the map size and scale increased.
The recent (1992) Belgian map also uses a stock map pasted into Texaco covers, this time with a Geocart base map at 1:250,000. This example includes a gazetteer booklet pasted into the cover with colour city maps in its centre.

Belgian petrol companies have moved in recent years to issuing some very small format maps - just 10cm by 8 cm when folded. Texaco Belgium SA issued this map of neighbouring Netherlands around 2000 for free issue jointly with Group Vlan publications - De Streekkrant and De Weekkrant. Inside, Geocart provided a serviceable map at 1:450,000, by splitting it over both sides of the paper.

A more normal size for Belgian maps is 15.8cm by 10cm. Several firms have issued maps by Geocart-Claus in this format on glossy paper, principally to locate their service stations. The Texaco example shown here is dated 1.1.04, and has a serviceable map at around 1:525,000. Dutch maps of the same format are less common, but this undated example is probably also from 2004 and uses Wegener-Falkplan cartography at a similar scale. Both maps list all Texaco stations on their reverse.

A station locator map of Benelux is shown on the page dedicated to 2006 maps. The final Texaco branded map was probably an atlas of Benelux produced in 2012 in both French and Dutch language versions; this is shown on the Netherlands page. The Texaco chain in Benelux was sold in 2007 to the Israeli company Delek, and then re-sold to the EG Group in 2014; they retained the name until 2018 when it was replaced by Esso.

These three maps of Norway date (L-R) from 1973, 1982 and the 1990s, showing how the folded size grew larger with time. The oldest has a typical Texaco cover of the era; it is printed on cheap gloss paper, and has a reasonable (anonymous) tourist map of the country at 1:1.45mn. The 1983 edition is on better paper at 1:1mn; it was prepared by Fabritius and includes selected tours and tourist information in 4 languages. By the mid 1990s, shortly before the merger with Norsk Hydro, Folia/Legindkort had taken over the map production and used their patented Quickmap system to divide the country into sections. The scale remained at 1:1mn, but with no space for additional information

Here are two of the last Texaco maps from Scandinavia. The Danish map is a Folia/Legindkort production at the common Danish scale of 1:510,000 (widely used since the 1950s). The 1994 Swedish vägkarta is in fact a spiral bound folded atlas by Liber Kartor with 11 double pages of sectional maps and 9 of town plans. Both maps mark service station locations with a small Texaco star.

Texaco maps are less commonly found from Southern Europe, even though the company was present in Italy, Switzerland and Austria. Its strongest market was in Greece, in which it co-sponsored this map of Samos (enlarge), prepared primarily for Hertz in the mid-1990s. I. Mathioylakis & Sia produced the map at 1:100,000 with town plans & tourist information in 5 languages on the reverse; inside it carried adverts for Texaco's CleanSystem³, and listed Hertz locations.
The 1992 map of Romania is misleading, as Texaco never sold fuel there. The map was issued by a Texaco lubricant importer called Interako.
Image courtesy Ion Zecherou