I saw this old BP Motor Spirit sign at the Cotswold Motor Museum. Perhaps this image stood out to me today as I was at the BP offices in houston earlier this week. Their current flower helios logo is stateless unlike this sign where BP clearly lies at the center of the United Kingdom. I love the quote marks and the angular font. These enamel on sheet steel signs were common in the 1920s. At this time “BP” stood for “British Petroleum” in a nationalist or patriotic way. BP the oil company wouldn't be named that till 1954. At the time this sign was in use, the company was called the Anglo-Persian Oil Company and “BP” was simply a product range that until 1917 had been sold under the Palm Tree Oil label. I'm not sure whether that name was supposed to imply the contents of the cans came from palm trees or if it meant to signify it came from the middle eastern deserts and evoke images oases and palm trees and camels and all those other desert images that only rich or enlisted Britons had actually seen in those days.
