Back in the day, what was your dad's go to oil?

Status
Not open for further replies.
castrol gtx 10w40. And they had ads on tv for it, because it was "engineered for today's smaller cars." Showed a cutaway view of some pistons overheating with that awful viscosity breakdown.
 
When I was a child, I vividly remember my father buying cases of Kendall GT1 and later, Kendall GT1 semi-synthetic in 5W-30, 10W-30 and 10W-40 varieties from Valu Home Centers. Used to get it crazy cheap after mail in rebate. Probably less than $10 a case of oil.

That oil and Fram filters took care of all of the SBC and Buick 3.8 vehicles my parents had.
 
Amalie SAE 30 ... Orange filter - fresh roll of single ply for the Franz can ...
 
60's/70's - Quaker State Super Blend 10W-30.

That is, until 1977, when I introduced him to Mobil 1, which was a 5W-20 back then.
 
Always Havoline. 50's, 60's, and 70's. Metal cans when I was young then the cardboard cans took over. He never saw screw top plastic bottles.
 
My Dad liked Quaker State DeLuxe 10W-40. One of the original "thicker is better" crowd. Back then, it was probably true.
 
My dad was a relatively early adopter of synthetic, specifically Mobil 1. He worked as an instrument and controls technician, and his job was caring for all of the instrumentation and control equipment in a coal fired power plant. They had many conveyors to move the coal, and the conveyors were obviously driven by large electric motors coupled to large worm gear reducers.

A Mobil 1 sales guy called on him, and what was ultimately his best pitch was offering to replace the gear oil in a couple of reducers for free as an experiment. Everyone in the plant knew you didn't dare touch a reducer after it had been running for awhile, because they got really hot. After replacing the lube with M1's gear oil and turning the conveyor on, the salesman dared my Dad to touch the reducer. He smiled knowingly at the salesman and said: "You first." The salesman laid his whole hand on top of the reducer and kept it there. After checking to be sure the salesman didn't have some kind of unseen protection, Dad indeed laid his hand on the reducer, and was amazed - and SOLD.

Dad also switched to M1 for his vehicles, and used it exclusively for many years.
 
Valvoline. Always Valvoline.
Until that day when after a change on a Dart, the oil was pumped out of the canister filter from a pinched o-ring.
Times were a little tougher then, he picked up another o-ring and 5 quarts of Royal Triton. I remember the price tag, .29 a quart at Venture.
Dad and Grandpa would discuss often his love for Valvoline, and Grandpa's love of Pennzoil.
 
Pennzoil 10w40 and usually a Fram filter. He never had any problems using those. His 70 bug went 120+k before he tore it apart to restore it and never did. Was running fine at that milage. 74 Super beetle was crashed @ 145K and his 68 Valant did start to burn oil @154k. From what I hear 150k was a long engine life back then.
 
My father was an Oilzum man purchased by the case at Spags in Worcester MA. Spags always had the best price on everything!
 
Kendall or Amoco was the stuff I'd see my mom..ahem, buying. Amoco was because that's where we bought gas and if there was no Kendall in the trunk.
 
GTX 20w-50. It went in everything. At that time ...in the 80's...he said consumer reports had said it was the only oil that could make it 3k miles! Think of how far we have come!
 
In my case, no idea. My father was a bookkeeper and not one to work on his own cars. When we'd go to a grocery store not far from us, he'd leave his car at a big garage across the street and pick it up afterward, presumably serviced.

So I had to learn on my own, and from friends who'd been taught by their dads.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top