8 of Our Favorite Auto-Adjacent Brands

In keeping with the theme that started with our favorite automotive slogans, this week the Hagerty Media team chatted about which auto-adjacent brands have had the most memorable visuals. Some of these stuck with us over the years because of what they meant to us as kids, others for their staying power in the marketplace, and still others for more practical applications. Let us know which ones resonate with you.

Bibendum!

I love Bibendum, aka the Michelin Man. He’s one of the world’s oldest brand mascots, automotive or otherwise (he’s over 30 years older than Mickey Mouse!). Cars, tires, and of course the wider world have changed so much since the late nineteenth century, so it’s fun to see how the Michelin Man has changed with them.—Andrew Newton

Hess Trucks

Hess trucks!—Eric Weiner

We didn’t have Hess stations where I grew up, but just about every kid I knew back then had at least one vehicle with the familiar green-and-white Hess branding. Eric answered this question in our thread quickly and enthusiastically, so clearly those little toys had an impact.—Eddy Eckart

O’Reilly’s

It’s gotta be the O’Reilly Auto Parts logo, with the three leaf clover. Whenever I am in need, I know I can go there and get what I want. The fan clutch went out on my 1983 Ford Sierra after a 24 Hours of Lemons race and the part seemingly had no match in the USA. But the manager at O’Reilly’s pulled out the paper catalog for Hayden, a cooling fan company, and we found a match (for an E30 BMW).

Granted, I have other parts stores closer to me, and other such stores have more appealing coupons/customer loyalty programs, but the folks at O’Reilly’s just seem to work harder to help people with sketchy cars needing bizarre parts.—Sajeev Mehta

Used car lots

When I was a kid, we used to take State Route 20 on our summer pilgrimage from Euclid, Ohio to Eddie’s Grill in Geneva-on-the-Lake for hot dogs, fries, and Richardson’s root beer. (Eddie, by the way, is still around, and has employed generations of locals since he opened shop in 1950.) Especially out in Madison, the roadside teemed with used-car lots, and I always got excited when I spotted their flags and often hand-painted signage through the windshield. “Buy here, pay here” and their other scrawled slogans meant nothing to eight-year-old me—I was busy scanning the lots of shiny chrome and colors as we drove by, hoping to spot a GTO or something else special that I could beg my dad to purchase. I suppose my answer isn’t any one brand, but instead the kitsch and pomp of good-ol’ fashioned used car lots.

Honorable mention, though, to Mobil’s Pegasus. Its roots aren’t quite as old as Michelin’s Bibendum, but any brand iconography that’s recognizable for more than 100 years without changing is doing something right.—Eddy Eckart

Blue and Orange

Branding-wise, my favorite of long standing has been the Gulf oil logo, likely because I equate it to the Zenith blue and Tangerine orange race cars that were sponsored by the company. That color and the Gulf livery looks good whether it’s on a Ford GT, a Porsche 917K or a Lemons race car.—Steven Cole Smith

Buc-ee’s

I’ll put my hand-up for Buc-ees, the gas-station chain whose mascot is a cartoon beaver with the red hat on a yellow background. Unless you live in Texas, where there are some normal-sized locations, you probably know know a Buc-ees as a gigantic roadside oasis with 100 (or more) gas pumps and a convenience store the size of a grocery. It’s the perfect dose of practical and comic relief on a boring stretch of interstate: Immaculate restrooms, an abundance of hot food and road-trip snacks, plus an eye-popping array of items with the beaver logo engraved, stamped, embossed, stitched, or screen-printed. No, there aren’t any picnic tables where you can eat your brisket sandwich—another subtle hint to keep it movin’, folks! An efficient and memorable stop, for so many reasons.—Grace Houghton

In-N-Out

It’s always a good omen on a road trip to spot one of those In-N-Out signs and its arrow.—Brandan Gillogly

Sunoco

I’m a sucker for just about any bright and contrasting branding that also put advertising dollars into racing. If I had to pick a favorite it would be the Sunoco blue and yellow branding. Maybe it’s because it just looks so good on a Camaro, or maybe it’s just because I never saw Sunoco branding in the real world growing up in Kansas. Either way, the Sunoco colors and signage always catch my eye.—Kyle Smith