Looking at older service stations and pumps pictures online, appears there were two primary shades of Shell Yellow paint.
Does anyone have a timeline of when they used the more mustard/darker yellow VS. brighter yellow shade?
More specifically, in the mid 50's did they us one vs the other or was it up to a station owner or Shell distributor in a given region?
Any info would be great and if you have an original painted Shell pump, be great to see a few photos including brand and year if known...
Got the yellow matched from my sign
Great info and pix! Thank you. Keep them coming.
Any thoughts on specific years Shell used this darker yellow which I love btw. vs bright or pale yellow if you will.
Did look thru an older gas pump guide with color illustrations yet it’s unclear if there was a cut off at x-year or if station owners/regional distributors got to choose which paint scheme.
From a business point of view would think large corporation would have strict guidelines with regards to marketing campaigns and brand “image”. Continuity across brand and regions, but I certain could be wrong.
Given so many independent station owners and being practical, maybe they painted using what they had or pump resellers repurposed their inventory when stations switched brands at a specific gas station.
Can paint it what I want, but for me it’s painting more in spirit for a 54-56 Tokheim w/Shell colors.
Automotive paint is expensive.
Buy once, cry once..
54-56 would be a different color than I provided, I think the sign is dated 1942
Dated sign in 40’s and visual color info.
Now we are getting somewhere.
Thank you cggas
The PPG paint store I used to go to would have multiple colors for Shell or whatever company really, usually it was for their fleet vehicles anyway, and not there signs necessarily. I think matching off the decal or the sign is the way to go. Handy to have a paint chip book for one of the larger paint companies, we have a Sherwin-Williams chip book we look at pretty frequently to match. We are finding the auto paint stores dont seem to be able to match paints anymore.
That is a really good idea.
These pumps are in original 50s paint and decal scheme (pre 57).
Hi Matt excellent pumps! Wow
Questions:
From your eyes would these be more bright yellow or have some orange or mustard tint?
Asking as sometimes camera flash can lighten or change image. So your first -person perspective please.
Second, was the red paint on the pump base original or do you see any black paint peeling thru?
Asking as I have seen several with black painted base while others look like a vintage 2nd paint/repaint sometime during the pump service station life.
I have never seen a unrestored Shell pump with a black base. They were red. I would not call my pumps bright yellow but they do not have an orange tint. In the 60s and 70s they did use a bright yellow. Here is a close up picture. You can see the orange yellow where the paint is chipped.
Matt helped me with the correct colors for my pump. He knows his Shell colors….
Matt, Great up close picture. Thank you.
Really shows the difference between yellow shades and super helpful.
Now I know what to get mixed up.
Thanks for all the info here. This has been something i have been eagerly trying to figure out for my own restoration work as my pump has at least 2 shades of yellow within the layers. Seems like the colour changes depending on what year/decade your looking for and what part of the continent!
The other thing i am trying to figure out is the red.
What did not hit me until Matt's up close pump photo was the two layers and shade of yellow paint.
It now makes since to be that some 40's pump(as example) would have the darker Shell shade and then in 50's many of these pumps were still active/in-service.
When Shell corporate changed their color scheme/marketing campaign, stations re-painted those same pumps.
Hopefully this helps but in doing some prep work on my 996C, I believe it shows the differences between the older and original to this pump 40/50s era mustard yellow and thr 50/60s era bright yellow.
Thank you Red_Green
This visual is excellent. Much appreciated!
