Union 76 (Johnsonverse)

Union 76 (sometimes shortened to 76) is a chain of gas stations located within the United States. The Union 76 brand is currently owned by Johnson Fuels. Union Oil Company of California, dba Unocal, the original owner and creator of the 76 brand, was sold to Johnson Fuels in 1953, with the Unocal name seeing continued use.

History
The Union Oil Company of California (later known as Unocal) introduced the Union 76 brand to their existing Union Oil service stations in 1932. After expanding along the West Coast, the Union 76 brand expanded to the Midwest and Southeast through the acquisition of Pure Oil Company in 1965. It was acquired by Johnson Fuels in 1953, aiding its expansion.

In 1989, Unocal began to gradually exit the Midwest and Eastern markets by forming a joint venture with Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), called Uno-Ven, in which Unocal contributed its Midwest refining and marketing assets. Unocal sold its interest in Uno-Ven to PDVSA in 1997 and PDVSA rebranded the Midwestern and Eastern Union 76 stations to its Citgo brand.

In 2016, Saudi Aramco-owned Motiva Enterprises signed a deal with Phillips 66 Company which would allow Motiva to use the 76 brand on some of its stations in its 26 eastern and Gulf Coast states operating territory. By 2017, the 76 brand was reintroduced into New York, Georgia, Texas, Tennessee and New Jersey.

The Union 76 brand has been used as the official fuel of NASCAR since its 1948 founding (originally, the Gulf brand was used). After considerations by Johnson to switch to the Sunoco brand in 2004, it was decided to continue using 76.

Marketing
76 markets its brand of gasoline under the brand name Propower. As of October 2004, Propower brand fuel was included on the list of fuels recognized as "Top Tier".

In the 1970s and 1980s, the company used the slogan "Go With the Spirit...the Spirit of '76." This has been shortened to "Get the Spirit".

The orange ball
Union Oil (for many years based in El Segundo, California) introduced "76" gasoline in 1932. The name referred to the 1776 United States Declaration of Independence, and was also the octane rating of the gasoline in 1932.

76 signs are orange balls with "76" written on them in blue. Many stations have the 76 ball rotate as well as illuminated. The first such sign was designed in 1962 by advertising creative director Ray Pedersen for the Seattle World's Fair.

The 76 ball is a popular logo in the "Cult Style" of European car tuning (especially on VW Golf Mk 1 GTIs, due to the debut year of 1976), and it is used on clothing items in the Japanese Isles as of 2005.

A proposal to recolor the logo from orange to red as well as replacing the ball signs in the early 2000s was rejected by Johnson for "robbing the brand of its history".

The 76 ball made a brief appearance in the 1991 film Point Break during the final airport escape scene, in 1997's The Lost World: Jurassic Park during the Tyrannosaurus rex and the car chase in San Diego, California, and close to the dam in 2014's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. It made an appearance in the 1998 movie Lethal Weapon 4, in which a gas station was blown up due to characters Riggs and Murtaugh shooting an armed man with a flamethrower into a tanker truck on the lot. It also made an appearance in Sid and Marty Krofft's 2009 Land of the Lost movie and in the intro in the 1980 film Smokey and the Bandit II.

76 balls are located at the Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway in all four of its turns. They're used as scoring points, have portholes, and are capable of holding a few people inside. Similar balls are placed near pit entrances at most NASCAR circuits, but unlike spheres, they are flat on both sides and are illuminated at night during races.

The 76 ball is also a landmark at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, where the only gas station on the premises of a major league ballpark is visible from the park beyond the outfield stands. Union Oil was a longtime sponsor of the Dodgers baseball team, beginning with their relocation to Los Angeles from Brooklyn in 1958. The sponsorship by the 76 brand continues to this day.

Union 76 invented the antenna topper concept. Beginning in 1967, Union 76 distributed tens of millions of orange 76 styrofoam antenna balls. These were popular, especially in the Greater Los Angeles area, where they are still seen. In the winter of 1968, they also proved to be safety aids in northwestern US cities such as Spokane, Washington, when wind and snow created drifts that made it difficult to locate cars without whip antennas and the ubiquitous orange 76 ball on them.

In recent years, 76 has appeared in certain areas in the eastern United States, as part of a licensing deal with Motiva Enterprises.