Who can think of a good title for this picture?

Shell shocked!!

Book it to Mummy’s account please !

Only clean Petrol here- none of that nasty Benzene stuff !

This Morris has the new features of a 1924 model 11.9-h.p., two-seater 3-stud hub Cowley, which from autumn 1923 Morris advertised with five electric lamps: separate front/head and wing/side lights replacing previous single wing-mounted units. This one also has an inside door handle; outside from late 1925, when a wiper was also fitted to the top of a horizontally split screen. A 1924 two-seater cost £198, falling to £175 for 1925 but only painted blue or grey. And of course, still filled and tuned up at the factory exclusively with Shell oil and fuel.

The curved radiator was replaced with a flat one for the 1927 model year but the name “bullnose” does not seem to have been used to describe a second-hand curved radiator Morris until well into the 1930s.

The photo was used in a press advert during 1926, a year when pump petrol was still new and many drivers only trusted and in some areas could only get, petrol sold in a sealed two gallon can, often delivered direct to them. Shell and other large companies were trying to undermine the can traders by encouraging the use of pumps. They did this partly with targeted advertising and by reducing pump price but also by giving garages financial incentives to sell only from the pump. Ditto engine oil; Shell introduced their oil dispensing cabinets at about the same time.

For this advert’s photo caption the petrol man was “Shellsplaining”: “Yes Madam - it is Shell. These signs show that I have arranged with the Shell people to lock the tank every time they put in a load of petrol. So this pump is just as much a sealed container as the sealed can. You're quite right in enquiring, however. It does pay to make sure you're getting Shell. Can't beat it for power AND IT KEEPS YOUR ENGINE CLEAN. SHELL: The Well-balanced Petrol.”

The same chap, oil-pourer in hand, car bonnet open and madam, out of the car wearing her fur stole and a coat, also appeared in a 1926 Shell motor oil advert captioned: “Filling up is a messy job.” The identical Morris’s number in that advert’s photo was XU (maybe XO) 1574, which looks to be the same here.

When UK petrol price per gallon rose from its pre-WWI one shilling and four pence to over – shock-horror – four shillings and seven pence a gallon in August 1920 when there was no apparent shortage of supplies, the Government appointed a Profiteering Act Committee to look into the petrol companies. Even though the Government was still a shareholder in Anglo-Persian Oil it was critical of what it saw as monopoly cartel pricing; companies like Shell claiming to comply with “oil trust” principles may not have agreed but by late 1926 pump price was only about one shilling and seven pence per gallon nationally, a penny saving on the can price.

Madam, wisely guided by Shell, saved enough pennies on thirty pumped gallons of petrol, to buy herself, secretly, twenty cork-tipped Craven-A fags, instead of raiding her husband’s housekeeping allowance.

"Oh I say " How Much !!!!!!! London Reg 1927

I remember those old forecourt fuel pumps; there were still a few around in British remote areas where there was no electricity in the 1960’s when I started my apprenticeship - the lowliest of the lowly, it was my job! The pipe nozzle, inserted in the car’s tank had a simple on/off valve. The large handle is a manual rotary pump which was revolved to fill a one-gallon glass jar visible inside the top of the pump. When the jar was full the upper handle by the glass jar was moved, the pipe nozzle valve was opened and the gallon of fuel flowed into the car’s tank by gravity. If the driver wanted more fuel, the operator rotated the big handle and filled a second one-gallon glass jar while the first was discharging. The glass enabled the customer to ensure the jar was properly full to the gallon mark before discharge into the car’s tank. These pumps were hard work when a truck required a lot of ‘gallons’ of fuel!

Could you please move the petrol stand, I can´t come closer

Enlarge your Morris

Five bob for six gallons! Don't be ridiculous my man, do you think I'm made of money!

I'll try again:

Lady in car: Has the price of petrol has gone up?
Attendant: It'll be up here soon.

A couple of bob to fill her up and the petrol attendant pointing his finger skywards is saying: One day we'll be millionaires.