Texaco Big Friend

Oakwood Village, Ohio

A rare Texaco "Big Friend" stands at Oakwood Village. The previous giant at this location was a Muffler Man, which moved to the Western Reserve Museum in Cleveland in ~2000. By 2003, a new sentinel had arrived in Oakwood Village. Not a Muffler Man (though made by the same California fiberglass statue company), this man is taller, with his right arm raised to wave and his left arm down at his side (the standard configuration for a Big Friend was for the left arm to be bent with palm up). This figure's head also differs from the few baseline Texaco giants we've seen. But the legs, torso and large puffy hands appear to be correct.

The statues were made in the 1960s in tandem with a nationwide gas station ad campaign by Texaco, then ordered destroyed when the campaign ended.

This giant had last been seen promoting the Raff Road Raceway, a Canton, Ohio go cart track, in the early 1990s.