I guess different motor oils have been heavily distributed and promoted in different areas over the years. Growing up in the 50s & 60s in Richmond, Quaker State was the motor oil I most remember seeing around service stations there, besides their own company brands.
When I moved to Wilson, NC in 1970, I encountered Wolf's Head Motor Oil for the first time. It was a product I had never heard of, but one for which every single service station and garage in Wilson seemed to have a sign. There must have been an amazing distributor for Wolf's Head Motor Oil in that region of eastern North Carolina.
When we were racing locally in the early 70s, every single car at Wilson County Speedway seemed to be running Wolf's Head oil. I remember it being a very, very dark green in color and I swear I believe we ran a 50W viscosity. It was so thick it would hardly pour out of the can through the oil spout.
Of course, those were the days before the "necked" plastic bottles of today. The big innovation in oil packaging in those days was brands converting to cardboard cans from metal ones. You still had to use an oil spout and I always managed to get some oil on the block no matter how careful I was.
In those days my '73 Monte Carlo and Chevy station wagon, both with 4bbl 350 cu. in. motors, had specs calling for 10W40 motor oil, which was a big deal after the 30 weight oil cars had run for years.
I recall seeing a lot of Kendall Racing Oil signage at the local tracks, also.
I remember it was a huge deal in the mid-late 80s when Exxon came into NASCAR and advertised it was running its over the counter, SUPERFLO 30 weight oil in the Hendrick cars... an unheard of thing at that point in time.
When Southland Corporation with 7-Eleven/CITGO/Chief Auto Parts signed on with the Wood Brothers as sponsor in 1985, the engineers at CITGO worked to come up with a proprietary motor oil blend for the Wood Brothers Thunderbirds. Much testing was done on the dynos of these secret CITGO blends, formulated just for the team. The oil was extensively tested after dyno runs and engines torn down.
I have no idea what the viscosity was.
When Leonard Wood was finally satisfied, the special blend was sent to Stuart, Virginia in 55 gallon drums and, perhaps, 5 gallon cans. My memory is fuzzy. I do remember that we had the Wood Brothers pour the oil into regular plastic bottles and put those in dummy cardboard cases to take to the track so everyone would think they were using CITGO oil right off the shelf. It was pretty interesting to see CITGO come up with the special oil just for the Wood Brothers that outperformed the oil of their previous Valvoline car sponsor.
What oils did you use in your race cars back in the day and which brands were popular around your weekly tracks?
You can see the Wolf's Head decal/sticker near the bottom of the front fender on our '55 Chevy Limited Sportsman car in this 1973 photo:
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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:00:58PM
