More than 100 years ago, when automobiles first began to be mass produced, you’d fill your gas tank via an exterior cap and filler tube. Over the decades, gas caps and filler tubes moved around to different locations on both the exterior and interior of a vehicle but, in the ’40s and ’50s, a handful of cars hid them from sight altogether.
The ’40s-era Cadillac used a flip-up taillight to hide the cap and filler, but soon Imperials, Oldsmobiles, Nashes, Continentals, and even a Peugeot would give the design a go.
Even Chevrolet’s fullsize passenger vehicle, the Bel Air, would use the feature on their ’56 model, but by the ’70s, when more stringent safety standards were enacted, the gas filler moved from behind the rear license plate or apron…