A throwback to the high-octane days of modernist gas station design

The mostly scrubbed-off window signage revealed the vacant west suburban building was a small florist's shop in a recent life.

But for anyone old enough to drive in the 1960s and 1970s--or able to peek out the back window of his father's 1970 Buick Electra 225 ragtop--the rakish inward tilt of the building's glass front wall and the angle of its roof could only mean one thing: Before it was a little shop of flowers it was a Clark Super 100 gas station.

Looking back at the old Clark stations now--and they do turn up here and there--they were clever, efficient little buildings. The tilted glass and angular roof suggested modernity, just as the tailfins and billet-like window schemes of many of the cars of the day. The design was also a perfect way to reinforce the element of speed, given Clark's product was 100 octane premium gasoline--the only kind of gas the stations sold until the 1970s.

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