The Last Of The “Real” Gas Stations

Elliott and Wiley Jr. flank their father, Wiley Sifford, at their service station on U.S. 1 in Vero Beach.

When Wiley Sifford began in the automotive business 55 years ago, it was taken for granted that whenever you drove into a service station you would get a lot more than a tankful of gas. “For the 26 cents you paid per gallon, you’d get your windows cleaned, tire pressures checked and an inspection under the hood,” he says.

Those days are long gone, of course, except for a handful of stations around the country that still display the “Full Service” sign. Sifford’s Exxon station in the 1500 block of U.S. 1 in Vero Beach is one of them. “When I opened here in 1986 there were 11 full-service stations in Indian River County,” he says. “Now there are two.”

Wiley also offers a self-service lane, but more than 40 percent of his business is full-service. “I’m not sure we’d be so successful in a bigger city,” he says. “But in Vero Beach there are a lot of well-to-do retirees who appreciate the kind of gas station they grew up with.”

Read the entire article in the Summer 2008 issue