STANDISH – Two antique gas pumps flank the driveway at Don Crozier’s home along Route 35 in Standish, the first sign that therein lives a serious auto aficionado.

What started out in his childhood as a love for old American cars branched into an interest about 15 years ago into the accessories, right down to wiper blades, points and plugs, service manuals and oil cans. About five years ago he even built a storage shed, dubbed Don’s Filling Station with a lighted Texaco sign out front, to house the growing collection.

“The passion started with old cars: Chevrolets, Ford, Chrysler, all American made,” said Crozier, a retired National Guardsman who worked the motor pool in South Portland. “It’s definitely grown from there, though.”

Crozier has grown his collection so much, in fact, that in recent years his scale-model filling station is overflowing with supplies, and he is thinking of expanding the structure, the third renovation to date. All his artifacts were on display last Monday as he held his annual cruise-in, a chance for he and his like-minded friends to get together and talk shop. A few dozen cars cram into his driveway and lawn around Don’s Filling Station enjoying the ambiance and a few hot dogs and hamburgers.

“It’s a fun time, we have a good time, some of my friends and their friends,” Crozier said.

While he never worked at a filling station, Crozier said his passion is based on a love of America when big cars with equally big personalities ruled the roads and gas stations were monuments of the open road.

“It reminds me of a better time, and this stuff is going away,” Crozier said. “A lot has been crushed. There’s probably a million gas pumps out there that have been crushed when they were upgraded, so it’s pretty nice to bring them back to the way it used to be.”

Crozier has many cars, his favorite being a blue-green 1938 Chrysler Royal. He has also completely restored a 1931 Model A Ford, a 1952 Plymouth, a 1954 Dodge pickup, 1966 Mustang, 1963 BelAir, 1959 Edsel, 1972 Dodge Demon, 1973 Corvette, and a 1947 Dodge truck that he’s planning to convert into a wrecker “just for the gas station,” he said.

Crozier said he attends two major car and car parts shows a year in Pennsylvania, one in Carlyle and another in Hershey. Another source of memorabilia are friends or passersby who bring him items they think he would want for his collection.

“People I don’t know sometimes stop in because they see the pumps and say, do you want this? Something they’ve had it in their garage forever, might as well put it some place where it will be appreciated,” he said.

A few recent examples of prized donations were a collection of large black Texaco letters originally meant to adorn the overhang of a gas station, still in their original box. Another man brought mechanic workwear and five-gallon Mobil oil pails from different eras.

Crozier and his wife, Beth, also enjoy riding the antique autos around, meeting with friends and making new ones during trips to cruise-ins and ice cream shops.

“It’s fun to go see some friends and go get an ice cream. We go everywhere, wherever there’s ice cream,” Beth joked.

Not a fan of judged car shows, where he said car enthusiasts “brush off their cars all day,” Crozier has made many friends by attending cruise-ins at restaurants in Scarborough and Cumberland as well as in other towns. Some of the other attendees also share a passion for gas station memorabilia.

“I have a good friend who has an old gas pump inside his man cave. Another has one with a TV mounted in it, and it’s mounted on rollers so he can roll it around in his shop wherever he’s working so he can watch TV,” Crozier said. “I don’t have anything like that.”

While he says he treasures every item in his collection, right down to the antique wrenches and quart-sized oil cans (with the oil still in them), Crozier said the most collectible items are a dozen old gas pumps, which span the last century. He’s restored the pumps, some of which stand 7 feet tall and appropriately are called “talls,” from rusty iron shells into beautiful works of art. But Crozier doesn’t consider himself an artist.

“No, I like to keep busy and I like to fix these up and show them off,” Crozier said. “About everybody I know has stopped in and they really like them, the gas pumps, the signs, and all that.”

Old gas pumps, Crozier said, had worked by way of a plunger system, which, like a hand-pumped well, sucked gasoline from the underground tank and into the vehicle’s gas tank up to a certain limit, which in the old days didn’t exceed 5 gallons. The taller the gas pump, the more it could pump.

Crozier’s restored gas pumps may look great, with their bright reds, greens and blues depending on the original color schemes, but they don’t work, and Crozier has no intention of installing an underground gas tank and retrofitting the old pumps. “The town would shoot me if I had them working,” he joked.

But that doesn’t stop drivers from trying to fill up.

“I have had people stop,” he said, “and ask for gas, ask if I take credit cards, or if I do inspections.”

A wall of collectible oil containers, most of them still full, is part of Don Crozier’s gas station memorabilia.
Don Crozier of Standish has grown his collection of gas station memorabilia to include former station signs like this lighted one from a Texaco filing station.
Don Crozier, whose home on Route 35 in Standish is outfitted with collectible gas pumps and a replica filling station, is American car afficianado first and foremost. Here he is pictured his favorite car, a 1938 Chrysler Royal he rebuilt himself.
Don Crozier starts with a rusty gas pump and turns it into a work of art.
 
 
 
Obrey Gas Station Artifacts 0047.jpg:
Fuel lines and gas pump handles are part of the collection.
 
 
More memorabiliaFuel lines and gas pump handles are part of the collection.