LOVE THAT LUBE RACK - AN ERA LOST

Mac has a smog shop in a converted Mobile Service Station. Along side all that electronic smog equipment, in the adjoining bay, there lies an original hydraulic lube rack, sitting doormat. The two of us pondered the possibility that a Renaissance in Lube Lifting could again be realized.

In the ‘40’s the lube rack was a social center piece of car life. “I’ve got a squeak in my rear springs.” “Let’s have a look” “Maybe a little penetrating oil will do the job.” “Pull it up on the lube rack.” Squirt! Squirt! “That did it!” “How much?” “I’ll catch it next time.” And that’s the way I remember it.

Norm Oliver's Standard Oil Service Station on Golf Links Road. Also Al’s Signal Station at 82nd Avenue in Oakland, with a lube rack on a small outside concrete slab adjoining that black and yellow little metal hot house station office. Those lube racks were an after school hang out. Whatever went up on the rack needed a complete under side first hand forensic examination. Ford, Hudson, Olds, or a Plymouth owner and the attendant, and a roundup of the usual curious, the elevated auto became the center of conversation. An ensuing critique of the car’s quality or lack of whenever that 10 inch diameter metal piston did it’s 6 foot lift.

Word would come into Elliot’s Drug Store next door, which included Happy Days Soda Fountain. Larry and I would wander over to check out another bottom side of an All American Auto Iron.

It seems to me the lube rack was the coffee table conversational piece of the ‘40’s. Movie reviews, who’s smoking cigarettes, who has joined the Army or Merchant Marines, girl scuttle butt. With WWII over, new car talk was passed around that Lube Rack Social Circle. I think the lube rack breed an enthusiasm for the auto, in addition to helping do tire changes, brake jobs, muffler changes, oil changes and lube jobs.

Today there is a chain across the entrance to Pep Boys service area. “EMPLOYEES ONLY” now you are put away on spindly plastic chairs in a glass enclosed waiting room, staring at a candy vending machine. And when I asked Mac about running my car up on the lube rack to check it out, like the old days, he declined, indicating he was not allowed to do any repair work in the Smog Station ( even though I know he is an excellent mechanic. )

Cars don’t squeak any more, thanks to all sorts of rubber grommets and plastics here and there. Lube jobs are a thing of the Past !!! Tires last too long now and no longer have tubes..