Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums Want to Buy Petroliana 1979 Southwest Flying "A"

Looking for the plastic light covers and glass for the face. Thanks

I might be very dense, with my question; but what is a 1979 Southwest Flying A?

It is a gas pump manufactured by the South West Pump Company. Mine is a Model ETA-2. It was a pump that was once located at a Flying "A" gas station.

I'm sorry to tell you, that if your Pump was built in 1979, it wasn't used at any Tidewater and/or Getty Flying A Stations....

The Tidewater Flying A Company's Western Region, ended all operations in the Fall of 1966. When the Phillips 66 Oil Company acquired; and either renamed or closed all Tidewater Oil Flying A Branded Stations....

In the Eastern Territory, Getty Oil (who actually had owned Tidewater Oil since the late 1950s) took over the Tidewater Flying A Brand in 1968 and renamed the Brand as Getty Flying A... In mid 1970, Getty Oil "killed the Flying A" Brand name... And the remaining Stations were branded as Getty Oil or Skelly....

Royal Petroleum of Santa Rosa, CA; bought/registered the rights to use the Flying A Brand name in the late 1970s. At that time the Company was a bulk product Supplier... Royal Petroleum did not start operating Gasoline Refueling Stations until 2004... According to their Company Website....

Tidewater Flying A has a special place in my heart; as I worked for the Company as a "Pump Jockey" and my Family had interests in a couple Flying A Stations before the 1966 acquisition by Phillips 66...

So that is a no on the light covers?

Haaaa lmao. Somewhat bad news on the pump, but I laughed my a55 off with your response. You will find them soon I'm sure.

The picture you are using above, is that the pump?

If so, I doubt it is a '79 as S/W was making digital pumps at that time. In all my S/W literature I cannot find a model number such as ETA-2. The pump above appears to be a L-507 (1970) or one of the 400 series pumps from 1975.

To find a part for any pump it is necessary you supply the model number or picture of your pump.

Jack Sim

Yes that is my pump in the picture. I think you are right about the date. I looked at the tag wrong. The tag has "installation" above it and "date" below it so maybe it is a date code for when it was put in or where it was built. Don't know. The rest of the tag is as follows:
Model ETA-2
Type GOC
Serial 26536

There was another number at the bottom E225717

Does any of this help?

Thanks for looking.

Scott, I have to admit that my pump knowledge is miniscule compared to most. For some reason, my eye and brain are not on the same path whereas it comes to the small details that separate many pumps from each other.

That being said; I am under the impression that "Type GOC" stood for Gulf Oil Company.... Those will much more knowledge than I will most likely give you a more definitive answer (especially if I am incorrect)... But, I believe your pump started out its life as a Gulf Oil pump...

As I said; I very well could be wrong... But, I get a nagging memory that says.... Gulf....

GOC is Gulf. I am not 100% sure but I think that pump design was done for Gulf. Here are a couple I found on a image search.

The top picture is exactly one pump I have. I know that mine was repainted as a Flying A. If this pump was specifically for Gulf then I will definitely repaint it back to the way it was. Thanks for the info. It's cool that I now know where it came from. It may sound funny but I spent an awful lot of time skipping school my senior year. I remember borrowing my dads Gulf card for some gas and ended up keeping it for almost a month. My friend Lenny and I would stop at the Gulf station by my house and fill up on our way out of town. It's kind of cool that I would end up with a Gulf pump. Lol!

Scott, here is another one on ebay. Build an island... 231753265318

I saw that one too. He is way up in Mass. and it is pick up only. I really don't have room for an island anyway, just one.

Gas pump history:

Pump companies would design pumps and offer them for sale, when they left the factory the common color for a gas pump was red.

Gulf decided somewhere in the 1930s that they wanted all the pumps in their stations to look alike. I feel the first one was designed by Gulf or they had someone to design a pump for them. They then asked a number of pump companies for quotes based on their design. Each company basically used their design, but because of the way they were making pumps at that time, they were slightly different. But, all of the pumps had GOC in the model number, or stated somewhere that they were Gulf pumps. Gulf even specified that the word "GULF" was on the face. As the years went on, these pumps were replaced with newer pumps, the old ones were sold to equipment companies that sold used/rebuilt pumps. Depending on who purchased them, they were branded just about any oil company you can imagine. Your pump started out as a Gulf pump, it was replaced by a newer pump, the rebuilder sold it to someone who re-branded Flying A.

As late as 1961 Gulf had a special pump made for them by Bennett. Or, in this case the pumps shown above. If I knew who made them I would ask for permission to include them in my next book.

Jack Sim

That makes a lot of sense. I like the idea of restoring it back to a Gulf pump though. It will be a pump just for me.