Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion Sinclair H-C

I posted a question some time back about the meaning of H-C in Sinclair's advertising signs. All of the answers I received was that it stood for "Houston Concentrate". I have been told this by many collecters at swap meets also. I recently got the following e-mail from someone saying that we were all wrong. I really don't care which meaning is correct, I just want to know so I don't tell anyone else the wrong meaning of H-C.

Your thoughts,

Mike


As I stated H C is Holding Company. It dose not matter what the people at old gas.com thinks it is. They are wrong! This information came from the legal department at Sinclair. Call the number for Sinclair and talk to the legal department 801-524-2700 The answer that you was given by the other person dose not make any sense if you really look at it. You could say that H C stands for anything that you want it to, but when Sinclair says it is Holding Company I am not going to argue with them.
D

That sound like a typical "legal dept" answer. The marketing dept might say something else.

Just because someone called Sinclair and got some kind of answer doesn't necessarily mean it is correct. Might be just a "give this guy something to get him off the phone" answer. lol.

I'd always heard Houston Concentrate but never had anything to absolutely confirm it.

my .02

I live near a resort town called Sun Valley,Idaho. The man that owns this little place also owns most of, or all of Sinclair. His name is Earl Holding.

Mike,
The answer most guys will give you is Houston-Concentate but I,ve been told that isn't what it really stands for. I have a friend whos dad was a regional manager for Sinclair. The story I got was that when Sinclair was developing a gasoline for high compression engines that would help eleminate knock, they tagged it H-C (short for High-Compression). They said it stood for Houston-Concentrate because they didn't want their competitors to use the High-Compression name.
Sinclair even used globes that siad High-Compression as an experiment. Why they didn't continue to use the High-Compression globes I don't know.
The Houston-Concentrate story was just a smoke screen to protect the name they really wanted.
I doubt the Holding-Company story is true. Why would they put that on their signs and globes? I'm sure it has nothing to do with Earl Holding. I believe the majority stock holder of Sinclair at the time they started using H-C (1926) was Harry Sinclair.
Bob

As an avid collector of Sinclair and co-author of Sinclair Collectibles Book let me set the record straight. First of all most of the responses were correct saying H-C stood for Huston Concetrate. In 1926 Sinclair had just opened their new refinery in Huston and introduced Sinclair H-C Gasoline that year. According to the book Sinclair Through Fifty Years written by Sinclair Oil Cororation in 1966 H-C stood for Houston Concentrate. According to that book the marketing men dubbed it High Compression but nontheless it stood for Houston Concentrate. In my collection I have the only known Sinclair High Compression globe which was an experimental logo used only on the US side of the US/Canadian border. This globe was supposed to lure Canadian customers over the border to buy gas here in the states. Some Canadian companies used the term High Compression so that is why they tried this logo on the globe. Scott Benjamin.

There was an E-Mail floating around about my last reponse to the Sinclair H-C question. I do not claim to be an expert on Sinclair History and never said so. My expertise is in gas globes. Anyway the statement about H-C came directly from the book "Sinclair Through Fifty Years" written by Sinclair Oil in 1966. So this was not an opinion of mine. This is what Sinclair says. If Sinclair chooses to retract that statement in their old book with a document saying otherwise then I'd go with that. Otherwise I'll stick to the book. Scott.

I have a original bennett that is a HC pump and has a decal that says high compression..just got this pump and i have never seen this decal in the 10 years i have done pumps..but if anyone knows it will be Scott....so i will go with his HC

I HAVE A GILBARCO 96C PUMP THAT APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN USED BY SINCLAIR. THERE IS A DECAL ON THE DOOR - GREEN LETTERING WITH SILVER BACKGROUND THAT READS "HIGH COMPRESSION". HOPE THIS WILL HELP.



[This message has been edited by aarontla (edited 12-08-2002).]

[This message has been edited by aarontla (edited 12-08-2002).]

Hey, Please lets not run Scott B. off this site. I noticed he has been registered since 2001 and just made a post and this is a guy that has his expertise in gas globes. I know his help here will be greatly appreciated! There are a lot of very knowledgeable people here at oldgas and i know from time to time every one will see a different view but let's not start "the bashing".

First off, I will agree with Scott Benjamin on HC standing for "Houston Concentrate". He has done countless hours of research on Sinclair. Now, here is my theory based on the pics of the decal posted. Notice the "check" mark on the decal. This appears to be similar to Sinclair's experimental re-imaging in the late fifties. The HC brand had already been around since the mid 20's. I believe by the late 50's, with the horse power and cubic inch "wars" heating up, the Sinclair advertising guys coined HC into "High Compression". It was a much better ad campaign for the time then "Houston Concentrate". But, in agreeing, with Scott, "Houston Concentrate" was the original name.

H-C Ethyl, etc. was used by many fuels besides Sinclair. Standard used it as did many others. It stood for "High Compression" premium fuel. When I was a kid, old timers would say High compression or Ethyl. That meant they wanted premium. They were there so I didn't question them.

I tend to agree with Gary Drye. Seems to have evolved from houston concentrate to high compression over the years. Maybe Sinclair's the one confused. Either way, my h-c globe is staying on my shelf.