GPS haters, gather ’round. Bob Holm of Saratoga Springs, New York, recently shared with us some photos of a unique Esso map that would seem like a complete waste of time in light of today’s accepted practice of plugging in the address and listening to some disembodied voice tell you where to go. Yet it shows not only how some people reconcile their comprehension of geography with what they see out their windscreens, it also shows how capable companies once were of serving their customers’ needs, even if those needs were very limited in scope and usefulness to much of their customer base (either that, or it was simply a marketing gimmick). For that matter, when was the last time you saw a gas station hand you a free map? Long before the advent of GPS, that’s when. Bob writes:
This is a map that was in a 1961 Corvette (with fuel injection) that I bought in 1977 from an old guy by the name of Leroy Clous, who lived in the hamlet of Coila, NY, just outside Cambridge, NY (and not far from Hemmings in Bennington, VT). It is literally an upside down map of the East Coast from NY to Florida and was created to make it simple for drivers to read as they headed south. Look at the pictures below, because I find it hard to explain how it works.
Leroy told me that he and a friend drove to Florida in fall 1961 in his new 1961 Corvette, and they actually used this map for the trip south. With this upside down map I also found a regular 1961 Esso East Coast roadmap, I suppose for the trip back north.
I wonder if Esso created a similar upside-down map for West Coast travelers.
