The tank attendant's problems with the hood lock
05/03/2018
In the past, when cars used a little more oil and petrol stations were still serviced, it was part of the service that the petrol station attendant also took care of the car's oil requirements. If the customer agreed, the eager service provider would check the oil level and, if necessary, add a few deciliters of lubricant.
This was a challenge for many a petrol station attendant, especially when less popular cars came in. With a VW Beetle or Opel Kadett, of course, he knew where to find the hood release, but with other models this was not always clear from the start. The Americans, for example, often had it somewhere under the bumper or around the radiator grille, but not so with Studebaker, where it was located in the cockpit. Many European car manufacturers moved the unlocking mechanism to the interior of the car at an early stage, although it was located in a wide variety of places, including the glove compartment. And in vehicles that were actually right-hand drive, which were delivered by the British for export as left-hand drive, the hood latch remained where the driver sitting on the right would expect to find it.
This meant that the fuel attendant had to find his way around again and again, with some people succeeding better than others. In an emergency, he could still ask the driver, but even the driver didn't always know how to unlock the hood.
Today, staffed filling stations are as rare as (modern) car owners who want to check the oil level every time they fill up. But a frequent look under the hood wasn't such a bad thing ...
