Happy Motoring Ahead!

This 1940s promotional film, likely produced by Esso (Standard Oil), celebrates postwar driving culture and roadside service in vibrant Kodachrome. It opens with buses and cars buzzing past an Esso station, setting a cheerful tone of mobility. A family narrative unfolds: a father reads the paper with his son, then piles into a convertible with his wife and two kids—boy and girl standing gleefully in the backseat—for a highway jaunt. POV shots from the driver’s seat capture open roads, while a couple in another convertible chats breezily, the camera nestled between them. At an Esso stop, a family tips a dollar to a gruff attendant who smokes and pumps gas, contrasted by a kid washing hands at a station with no towels, drying them on his shorts. Stop-motion coins dissolve to tout affordability, and scenes of a rundown Esso being spruced up—painted, mowed—promise quality service. “Esso Credit Cards Honored” signs nod to convenience, ending with the family cruising onward, a snapshot of 1940s optimism and car-centric freedom.