The return of the star

By Staff
March 21, 2004
ChevronTexaco Corp. plans to resurrect the Texaco star this summer in Mississippi, Texas and several other states where the brand is said to have great heritage value. According to The Associated Press, scores of Texaco service stations have switched to the Shell banner or gone out of business since 2002, when Shell Oil Products and Motiva, a joint supply venture between Shell and Saudi Refining, obtained exclusive rights to the brand.
But the exclusivity of Shell's rights will expire on June 30, and ChevronTexaco plans to re-launch the brand the next day, the Houston Chronicle reported last week. ChevronTexaco, which divested the brand as a condition of the October 2001 merger between Chevron and Texaco, will regain exclusive rights to it on July 1, 2006.
According to The Associated Press, a recent Oil Price Information Service study showed that drivers prefer Texaco stations to competing brands and are willing to pay 2 cents a gallon more at Texaco stations.
Well, drivers will have to speak for themselves on that. We just wonder if the company will also bring back the old advertising jingle, "You can trust you car to the man who wears the star …" and whether it really matters now.