What do beauty parlors, real estate agents and auto repair shops have in common? They all belong to industries that gave rise to new English vocabulary in the 1920s. But while we still talk about beauticians and realtors, who still uses the term lubritorium? Virtually no one. In fact, I’d never heard of a lubritorium – or its companion term lubritory – before recently coming across a 1950s gas station site plan. As an enthusiast of both old cars and archaic words, I just had to stumble down the greasy rabbit hole of exploring these terms’ history. It turns out that the terms emerged in the late 1920s to denote a type of high-end “Grease Shop”… then became more widely applied to greasing services in general… then became somewhat disused… and finally disappeared from common use about 30 years after their inception. It’s not often that we write Curbside Classic articles about words, but this seems like a good time to start a new tradition.
The site plan I had seen was for this 1953 former Mobil station in Fairfax, Virginia, which is still standing in its original form. It looks like a regular service station of its era, though the service area was identified on the plan as a lubritory. When this station was built, the terms lubritory and lubritorium were on the decline, and had lost much of their original distinction. However, just two decades earlier, those terms would have referred to a state-of-the-art facility, and a business model aimed at making car owners’ lives a bit easier. A glance back at the early history of auto service provides clues as to why this was so important.
Early cars required frequent maintenance that’s largely unknown to modern drivers, and “greasing” or “lubricating” was always high on the to-do list. This Ford Model A Lubrication Chart identifies two dozen parts that required lubricating every 500 miles – which also happened to be the oil change interval. For most drivers, that would occur several times a year.
Since all that greasing was messy and time-consuming, not everyone did this work themselves. During the 1920s, as cars became more popular, grease shops offering various kinds of “light repair” sprang up throughout North America. Many of these places were dirty, grimy, and didn’t exactly provide a great customer experience.
Early Lubritoriums: Upper-Crust Service Centers
As with many industries, some entrepreneurs created a better idea. Specifically, offering drivers clean service facilities that shed the shady image often associated with repair shops. It’s not clear just where the terms lubritory and lubritorium were first used, but the terms saw their first widespread use in 1928, following a business model of providing customers with quick, clean and professional auto maintenance. The owner of the Chicago lubritory shown above noted that “the appearance of any place of business inspires the customer with confidence” and likened service stations to restaurants, where if people encounter “clean and cheerful” premises, they’ll tend to trust the business’ service – and be willing to pay for it. At this shop, a “white-collared superintendent” greeted customers.
Aside from service and cleanliness, another aspect of early lubritories was the speed with which jobs could be handled. Pressurized greasing guns made this speed possible; a full greasing job could be done in as little as 15 minutes.
The terms were often preceded by “modern” – as in, “a modern lubritorium.” (Lubritorium and lubritory were used interchangeably, though lubritorium became the more dominant term.) Late 1920s lubritories and lubritoriums straddled the line between repair and service. They were typically not full repair shops, but rather provided light vehicle services such as greasing, oil changes and car washing. Catering to a largely upper-crust clientele, these establishments often located near business districts where office workers could drop their cars off, and then walk or take a ride into work.
1930s: Expanding the Term
The 1930s saw an evolution of the lubritorium trend, with many gas stations and car dealers, particularly in affluent areas, adding lubritorium bays. The appeal was obvious. When drivers stopped by for gas, an attendant could sell those drivers on additional services. With lubrication taking only a few minutes, it was a profitable upsell.
A California Ford dealer who opened a lubritorium in his facility offered an interesting observation. “Many years ago… oiling and greasing cars was looked upon as the lowest job in the shop, requiring the least intelligence. Nowadays, the situation is entirely different.” In the early 1930s, lubritorium workers were part mechanic and part customer service specialist.
Lubritorium service bays themselves were often built to facilitate lubrications… and nothing else. The above photos show a Cities Service gas station’s lubritorium bays. Two pits feature a walking-height space beneath the cars where undercarriages could be quickly accessed. Workmen could be ready with their various grease guns as soon as a car was driven overhead. Many lubritoriums featured hydraulic lifts instead, but pit service was quicker.
Around this time, filling station architectural renderings routinely showed “lubritory” or “lubritorium” bays as part of the building. The above picture shows an ornate 1930s stone-facade filling station, featuring a common setup: A small office straddled by a lubritorium and a washing bay. Both provided light-duty, quick and profitable services.
This image shows a model lubritorium layout from a Sunoco pattern book. Aside from an exterior sign identifying this as a Lubritorium, it looks like a typical service bay. Over the course of the 1930s, the term went from signifying a specialized, state-of-the facility to being more of a generic term for light service. Future decades would magnify that trend.
Post WWII: Lubritoriums Fall Out of Favor
In the booming post-WWII economy, lubritories and lubritoriums continued to be a part of gas stations, though they rarely received the billing they did before the war. Few postwar gas stations erected new “Lubritory” signs; by then, the term became little more than a jargony description of a place that performed routine service.
This is the site plan that attracted my attention, where the two service bays were collectively labelled as a Lubritory. By the 1950s, the term receded out of common lexicon, and served as an “official” term for a vehicle service area… as if such a term was necessary.
This particular structure was built as a Mobil station in 1953, and continued in gas station use until the 1970s. In recent decades, it’s been used as a propane retailer, though that business appears shuttered. Importantly for us, the structure itself is largely intact, complete with its porcelain enamel facade.
Postwar gas station trends are reflected in the original architecture. 1950s gas stations began to function a bit more like retail outlets. Products (oil, tires, etc.) were often prominently displayed, and the facilities themselves strove to be clean and welcoming, particularly to families, who constituted a large part of the stations’ customer base. Large office and shop windows enabled customers to see what kinds of work and products the establishment offered.
But while gas stations became part of everyday life, the terms lubritory and lubritorium seemed to belong to another era. Well, in the United States, at least.
Canadian and Australian Lubritoriums
While lubritory and lubritorium started in the US, the terms migrated to other countries as well, principally Canada and Australia. Canadian lubritoriums emerged in the late 1930s, and the term became widely used. For example, when Austin Ontario Motors opened its $1 million Toronto showroom in 1949, ads promoted it as containing “the most modern Lubritorium on the continent.” Canada also gave us the largest corporate use of the term. Canadian Tire used Lubritorium for many years, with Sandy McTire even issuing “money” for lubritorium services.
Our featured terms spread Down Under as well – above we see a Queensland lubritorium with some Ford Consuls being lubed.
Australia also gave the word lubritorium a high honor by nudging it into the pop culture realm. When the Melbourne Hilton opened in 1974, the hotel contained a basement discotheque called “The Lubritorium.” Decorated with a race-car theme, bold colors, and chrome trim, the dance establishment was popular for a few years, but eventually received a new name and theme. While the hotel is still in business, the former discotheque site is now a conference center.
The End of the Lubritorium Era
Back in the United States, however, our featured terms rapidly faded into disuse. Oddly, the killshot for these words came from the US Postal Service. In 1962, James F. Kelleher, a special assistant to the Postmaster General, implored post office employees to stop using jargon. Lubritorium was his primary example (and with the world’s largest vehicle fleet, the US Postal Service had plenty of need for vehicle service). Mr. Kelleher held a bachelor’s degree in journalism; one can just imagine him having been taught to write in a pithy, succinct manner, and being appalled at bombastic lexicon.
Kelleher may have eradicated lubritorium from more than just his employer’s memos. A Google Ngram Viewer (which graphs word frequencies in published documents) shows that while lubritorium’s usage dropped through the 1950s and early ’60s, it went into a freefall in 1963, right after the Postal Service’s anti-lubritorium dictum.
Ultimately, with cars needing less frequent lubrication, references to “lubing” took a back seat to other maintenance. With one notable exception. In 1973, the first Jiffy Lube station opened in Ogden, Utah, promising customers a 10-minute oil change and “lube.” Advertising quick service and a clean facility, the concept sounded remarkably similar to 1920s lubritoriums.
The franchise, which currently has 2,000 locations, is now our main connection to automotive lubrication. Amusingly, the term lubrication doesn’t even appear on the Jiffy Lube website’s list of services.
While lube is still used to describe car maintenance, lubritory and lubritorium have been consigned to the dustbins of automotive antiquity. In a world of constantly-changing business vocabulary, it’s not surprising that some terms just get left behind. I’m glad I stumbled upon the old plan where I became acquainted with these terms. And since trends always come and go, I think it might be time for lubritory and lubritorium to make a comeback!
Thank you Eric! Any article about words is going to get my attention. Obsolete words are even better.
I’ve long been fascinated by the lubritorium (a word so special it apparently doesn’t even register with the WordPress spell checker, go figure) and delight when running across either an old station that still has the term applied in bright enamel letters, or in old pictures. It’s great to get your detailed history…and I’m particularly bothered to learn that it was the Post Office that killed such a delicious term. Fortunately, their influence over the language has steadily declined.
Great article 🙂
Thanks! When I first came across this term, the first thing I did was to look it up in my Unabridged Dictionary – which is the best source for finding meanings of archaic terms. Neither Lubritory or Lubritorium were in there. At that moment, I knew I just had to write an article about these words. Glad you enjoyed it!
For Gulf stations, it was Gulflube. At one time, Gulf had its own line of batteries, tires, oil, filters, etc.
I thought I’d look it up in our old family dictionary (Odhams Press New English Dictionary, 1932 edition), but couldn’t find it, not even in The Supplement which includes, among other things, ‘Colonial and Amercanisms brought from overseas’. I suspect it may not have caught on this side of the Atlantic.
It does shave all kinds of odd words like hickboo (airman’s slang for an air raid, apparently). Obscure words are definitely a distracting way of loosing oneself…
It seems peculiar to me how “lubritorium” caught on in Australia and Canada, but not in the UK. I did come across some scattered references to British lubritoriums, but the term just didn’t seem to gain traction.
And “hickboo” – that’s a new one for me! I’ll have to find a way to use that somehow. In researching it quickly, it seems that hickboo emerged as WWI slang, but disappeared quickly after the war. An even shorter spotlight than “lubritorium.”
Love it! I would have been happy with a look at the Mobilgas, Mobiloil and Mobilubrication that would have been the offered by this old Mobil station, but this was even better.
Lubritorium is a great name for an automotive themed bar, and I’m surprised it hasn’t been seen more in this context.
Oh, and I remember that Model A lubrication chart well! Doing a lube job was a major Saturday morning project. Fortunately, the car sat tall enough (and I was young enough) that it was easy to hit the stuff underneath without jacking it up.
At first, I’d assumed that “Lubritorium” was a trademarked name of some kind, since it just has that ring to it, like Mobilubrication, or others.
And I wish I could track down better pictures of the nightclub’s interior – apparently it had lots of chrome and car parts.
Can you imagine any assistant postmaster general (or any administrator) today railing against jargon? This is why we have words such as “synergy.” The fact that the post office was using “esoteric prose” is in a sense gratifying, because at least they were trying. I remember looking at the word “utilize” in the Oxford English Dictionary, and famous writer of fiction David Foster Wallace added an editorial note that “utilize” was a “puff word” that did nothing that “use” couldn’t do. His passion about the word’s pretentiousness was so over-the-top that I’ve remembered it ever since.
Even though it spelled the end of the word “lubritorium,” I’m a fan of Mr. Kelleher’s zeal for accurate word usage.
My college English professor (who was one of my best teachers through my zillion years of school) used to rail against puff words such as “utilize” – and in fact, I thought of him as I was reading the assistant postmaster general’s guidance on jargon. In fact, that’s why I looked up what Mr. Kelleher’s background was… because I just had a feeling it was in English, or something related.
Most interesting. As technology advances, in some cases, words coined to describe something new fade from use as whatever was being referenced becomes obsolete or no longer commercially viable. At some lubritoriums, “Simonizing” was also a thing (indicating the exclusive use of genuine Simoniz brand waxes and other cleaning products). Surprisingly, despite the obvious possibilities, there’s no entry for “lubritorium” on Urban Dictionary.
Alemiting was another corporate name that became a word, like Simonizing – lots of lubritoriums advertised Alemiting services.
My father would always comment the “it was time to Simonize” the car, referring to his 1953 Pontiac Chieftain Deluxe.
I have had some interesting experiences with Jiffy Lube. At one time I had a 1955 Packard Patrician. This car had an automatic leveling torsion bar suspension (4 bars total). Since this was near Packard’s end, most of the front suspension was carried over from the 1954 models, ie King pins, all metal bearing surfaces. I took the lurication chart page out of my Packard 55th and 56th series service manual and copied it for them. The manager wasn’t real happy as it took over an hour to grease everything.
I later took a 1981 Horizon in for a lube service, when it was finished the tech told me they had done the oil change, greased the “upper” and lower ball joints (this on a Macpherson Strut font suspension) and inspected my air filter, during which, they roke the vacuum tee on the air filter, then denied doing it (at whick point I asked the manager, which was the truth, either they didn’t check the air filter, or they did, and broke the tee).
The last time I went there I took my 1986 F350 in for the full service (includes automatic transmission fluid change). The tech, and mamnger tried to tell me it only needed the pan dropped and refilled, I asked “what about the torque converter” answer was “they don’t have drain plugs”. As this point I told the manager, if he was right, I would pay double the cost of the service, if I was right, he would do it free. He didn’t bite. I did make sure they did the king pins though.
Love your story about the Packard. That gave them something to talk about for a few days, I suspect.
Great read Eric! Interesting how Mr Coryell used hot compressed air to clean out debris from gear boxes. Working the “lube rack” can still be a dirty job with hard to access filters that drip hot oil during the swap. Too bad about this Mobil station – old under ground storage tank issues put many out of business.
I wouldn’t have JiffyLube change the oil in my lawn mower! Too much up-sell. I think the NetFlix show “Tires” is an accurate depiction…..
Lubritorium makes me think of crematory or crematorium, another fun word for a not-so-fun process.
Or a natatorium, and old-fashioned term for a public swimming pool.
Correct. The small upstate NY city I attended college in back in the ’80s had an old public building labeled as a “natatorium”
Had I not been a French language major I probably wouldn’t have figured out what the heck that meant. But <> is the French term for the act of swimming. Presumably from some Latin root.
Thanks for this, Eric. I have seen these words in old magazines and such, but hadn’t really thought about their origins (and demise).
I worked at two little two-bay gas stations in high school and learned the fine art of lubrication. I suspect I may have missed a few nipples in my time. I still grease my ’66 F100 myself every summer; an annual rite of passage.
Lubricious !
I had a couple brief stints in the Fast Lube business around 1988-89. Even though vehicles were beginning to have “sealed for life” steering and suspension parts, I serviced plenty of older vehicles that needed a dance with the grease gun. Down in the pit, there were thick, grease-stained books full of drawings like the one of the Model A in this post.
There was a ‘Fast Lube’ (I forgot it`s name) near me about 20 years ago when I lived in Brooklyn, NY. The shop would do anything they could to try to upsell you on anything. I took my 1992 Grand Marquis in for an oil change and when I was done the guy said I needed front brakes. I called his bluff and said ‘bulls*it I just had them done two weeks ago! The place got so many consumer complaints it closed about two moths later.
Over 50 years ago I briefly worked for a company that sold and serviced Lincoln Engineering lube pumps, hose reels and the like. I remember that Lincoln had a catalog that featured photos of their products used in “Lubritoriums.” Had not seen or heard the term since then.
I want a new cartoon.
Dexter’s Lubritory.
My dad operated a Phillip’s 66 station in the 1960s and early 70s. It was a playground for my brother and I. Our house was on the street behind the station so it was easy to walk across the alley to the station. Wish I had known these words back then. “Mom, we’re going to the Lubritory.”
Nice .
Grease pits were dangerous places, filling up with flammable fumes or exhaust gases that killed more than a few Mechanics or the inevitable boob who managed to drop one wheel into the open grease pit .
I too worked in a 1920’s built filling station , only three pumps but many service bays, it was a busy shop to be sure .
-Nate