1930's: Despite its financial dilemma, Indian merited its competitors’ envy for the technological breakthrough involved in solvent refining. Many of these companies had been seeking to develop a lubricant that would meet the needs of the new high-compression auto engines. Prominent among them was The Texas Company (later Texaco), which had been working on a process of solvent extraction using furfural (a product made from oat hulls) to separate undesirable components from lubricating oil.

By acquiring the Indian Refining Company in January 1931, Texaco gained rights to the dewaxing patents used in the processing of Havoline^® Motor Oil. That same year, Texaco introduced Waxfree Havoline^® through select outlets and later advertised the product heavily, leading off with a Saturday Evening Post spread that showed Uncle Sam at the wheel of a car and proclaimed that Havoline Motor Oil was: “An oil so good all America demanded it.”

The Texas Company gained additional promotional bang when it sponsored an exhibit of its products in the world’s tallest thermometer at the 1933 Century of Progress exposition in Chicago. The 218-foot-high Havoline Thermometer, decorated in the product’s blue, white and red colors, was visible from all parts of the exhibition grounds and became a magnet for visitors.

While Texaco was promoting its new lubricant line, the company was working on a process that combined the Havoline^® solvent dewaxing process with Texaco’s own research initiatives. This was achieved in September 1934, after the company’s researchers proved that they could produce a superior version of Havoline ^® from any crude oil source by applying the combination of solvent dewaxing and furfural extraction.

To promote its new, upgraded Waxfree Havoline^® Motor Oil The Texas Company ran ads in publications totaling more than 6.5 million in circulation. The 1934 campaign introduced “a great new oil with a grand old name” and stressed Havoline’s history of “firsts” – from one of the earliest “branded” motor oils in 1904 to its latest development: “a new Havoline, super-refined by a revolutionary solvent process which takes out thick, gummy, tar-forming substances found in all crude and not completely removed, up to now, by any process.”

Bolstered by heavy advertising, the sales of upgraded Havoline^® Motor Oil increased 600 percent from 1933 to 1935. The Texas Company also reaped added licensing revenues as the petroleum industry quickly adopted the combination of solvent dewaxing and solvent extraction for the production of high-quality lubricating oils.

Following the creation of Caltex, a joint-venture company formed in 1936 by Socal and The Texas Company, the Havoline brand gained a vast global market extending from South Africa through South Asia, Australia and the Far East. Shortly thereafter, Caltex’s Bahrain refinery began producing Havoline Motor Oil for countries across its marketing area.

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