Children of the 80s, what was you favorite petrol station giveaway?

harmoniums

I was dead jealous of all the other kids in school with their Texaco radio watches, with 5 minutes of battery life and big orange headphones.
I was also desperate to free a nipper.

Alas my cavan born father installed an LPG tank in our renault 20TL and they never gave the stamps of for those fill ups.

smash

petrol stations used to give stuff away?

the art box thing - pens and pencils and paints

ash23

We had no car so I don't know about petrol station stuff. But I do remember the Tony the Tiger reflectors that came in the Frosties. You clipped them on to your bike spokes.

....course, I didn't have a bike either......I used to just keep them in a jar.

hamsterboy

NIPPERS!!!

Nforce

Yep..I'd a bunch of the Texaco radio watches and calculator watches too, supplied most of my school mates too:D. The old man knew the garage owner well...so he got a few tokens each fill instead of the 1 per £10 or whatever it was back then.

Dravokivich

Used to love going to the Texaco station just up from where I went to primary school. They had them Golf Ball chewing gums.

fishy fishy

long skinny beige colour mugs with different coloured "insides" - brown, mustard, slime green.

they were better than the fat roundy cups with white and blue stripes.

starlit

I honestly can't really remember, was born into the 80's but was a young child in the 90's so was the freebees from the cereal boxes and stuff you send off for were the only giveaways I can think of other than from McD's and Kinder.

Ponster

smash wrote: »

petrol stations used to give stuff away?

You got 'stamps' when you bought petrol; collected them and cashed them in for 'prizes'. I loved my Texaco Radio watch but preferred Esso's vouchers as you could cash them in at our local record shop.

I still have that Debbie Gibson album

Dyr

hamsterboy wrote: »

NIPPERS!!!

My old man didnt have a car so I never got to free a nipper. I was ragin' :mad:

Boom_Bap

Mexico '86 football.

kincsem

Steak knife (I kid you not.) For year I used it for weeding the garden. It had a very flexible blade.

mikemac1

Esso had Tiger Tokens

Around the Barcelona Olympics Texaco gave out scratch-cards

Ponster

Esso (or maybe Shell?) used to have poker scratch cards where every card was a winner but you could only scratch off 5 squares out of the choice of 10 (I think). My grandfather used to own a garage in Clonmel and I spent days picking up losing cards to find a winner!

Nothingbetter2d

i got one of those yellow sony walkman with the orange earphones from texaco :P

Acidflash

Boom_Bap wrote: »

Mexico '86 football.

This. Still have one lying around in the attic

harmoniums

kincsem wrote: »

Steak knife (I kid you not.) For year I used it for weeding the garden. It had a very flexible blade.

I remember them, they were serrated and had a fake wooden handle made out of plastic.

When I was a kid i was making a fort for my action force men and was cutting the holes and doors in a smurfit group (tm) cardboard box using that exact knife.

After I was done I laid the knife down and sat back to admire my handwork.
Only problem was the knife was not laid down, it was wedged between the couch pillows, tip up, and as I plopped down on the couch, it went up my gary glitter and cut me badly.

I was taken to the Dr and he examined me.
I cant remember if I got stitches or where it was brushed of as a mere flesh wound, but either way I was sent home.

Christ , if it happened today, Id imagine they have to endoscope me for tears, rips internally and then lock up me ma for riding my up the hole with a maxol steak knife.

D1stant

This might be late 70's but David O' Leary footballs from Texaco. (Think Frank Stapleton and Liam Brady had ones also)

Class.

lucylu

My dad travelled alot when we were kids, from texaco stamps he got an electric Kettle, Deep fat fryer and a Sandwich toaster with the tokens.

There are also still mugs at home that had a heat sensitive patch on them that would display an animal underneath

At one stage,my dad was out of work and money was tight at home, dad got pull back cars from the petrol tokens and cassette tapes with tokens.

It was my birthday my parents created a treasure hunt for myself and my brother.. there were clues in the garden, house and garage until we found the cars and chocolate and tapes.I got U2 Rattle and Hum and my brother got the Police cassette Tapes.
Eventhough I was a girl to get pullback cars on her birthday, 25 ish years it was one of the best birthdays ever.

Paparazzo

Those texaco plastic football's were class

Kerry hawk

the kellogs dishes from Esso, that woz the early 90's though probably

Dudess

Yeah the Esso tiger tokens - we used them to get tapes: the biggest albums of 1985/6. Born In The USA, Brothers In Arms, Graceland, Hunting High And Low by A-Ha, a couple of compilations. I wanted Like A Virgin and Hounds Of Love (Kate Bush) but never got them as I was deemed too young...

byhookorbycrook

Glass "tankards", the mother still has a shelf full of them!

Dudess

Oh yeah the glasses and rotten mugs - my mum still has loads of them.

darragh o meara

Got a model of an old Citroen from tokens Jet. My grandfather used to get his petrol there and would give them to me. I remember him saving up for a roof rack for his own car after that.

Koloman

A glass. Eventually had cupboards full of the things! Still have some of them knocking about.

I also remember a sponge that expanded when you put it in a bucket of water.

madcabbage

Got a Daffy duck that could be stuck onto the car window. Think it was with Shell filling stations. Still hanging onto the fridge after all these years!

shamrock55

had to be mexico 86 balls i had tons of em:)

mark_jmc

Boom_Bap wrote: »

Mexico '86 football.

I can still remember the anticipation & bugging the s*** out of my dad to get more petrol for this ball!

kincsem

I also got a Mercedes 500. Only problem was it was about 3" long. But it was quality cast metal.

Capt'n Midnight

Green Shield Stamps, you needed acres of them to get anything.

They became Argos so the stuff wasn't too bad.

But you needed an inordinate number of stamps 0.033p each

http://i.imgur.com/T1Bwg.jpg

Paparazzo

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Glass "tankards", the mother still has a shelf full of them!

Oh yeah! The ones with the diamond shapes "cut" into them. Pretty sure the folks have one at home on a shelf with odds and ends in it.

Autumn Moon

Awww......The Nippers!!!

Autumn Moon

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Glass "tankards", the mother still has a shelf full of them!

Oh My God........! I'd forgotten about them!!!

nlgbbbblth

hamsterboy wrote: »

NIPPERS!!!

RIGH'

General General

How I wanted a McDonald's Hamburglar glass, for some reason, circa '77.

Years later, I saw that among the things of a deceased friend of the family was a Texaco Zippo lighter... did I not covet that.

Nevertheless, I ended up in both cases with nooooooooooooooooo-tttthhhhhhhiiiiiinng.