Since 1983, Robert Rosano has owned and operated the 76 gas station at 350 North El Camino Real. Last week, when he changed his brand to Chevron. The station had a complete makeover — signage, pumps, paint, and employee shirts.

It isn’t often that an independently owned station leaves one major brand for another. Changes in a station’s branding is usually because of a corporate buyout of an independent franchisee or the brand has merged with another oil company (as in Chevron’s 2000 acquisition of Texaco.)

Rosano points out that Chevron is a better deal for customers, as Chevron offers Vons Club members up to a 20-cent-per-gallon discount. Chevron, however, is the highest priced per gallon of all gasoline retailers. Rosano’s station, at $3.66 per gallon on September 26, reflected a much lower price of the other three Chevrons in the city and was below average for the 19 stations in Encinitas.

While there were once four 76 stations in Encinitas, only the one at Manchester Avenue at I-5 remains. There is also a vacant, available-for-lease, 76 station at the nearby Tamarack Avenue I-5 exit in Carlsbad.

Industry watchers say 76 — once a leading Southern California brand — is now owned by Conoco-Phillips 66, based in Texas. “They’re not here anymore,” said one who remembers 76’s “Minute Man” service, its orange, spinning-ball logo, and its well-known, fictional spokesperson, Murph the Mechanic.

Dennis Nuss, spokesperson for Conoco-Phillips 66, says Rosano, an independent dealer, was free to switch brands. But, he added, “76 is making an major effort to rebrand itself in the Southern California market.”

The company seems to have informally admitted that its 2006 effort to rid 76 stations of its orange-ball logo may have backfired. (The spinning 76 balls were taken down, cut up on site to prevent their ending up on eBay, and the stations' paint changed to red, to match the Conoco and Phillip 66 colors.) Spinning, orange 76 balls are now reappearing at 76 stations around the state.

Rosano said he had nothing but good things to say about the folks at 76. His family has operated several 76 stations around SoCal since 1967. “After 31 years, it’s time for a change,” said Rosano.

Historical footnotes: 1) A predecessor to the now Chevron oil company was the first to discover oil in Southern California in 1876. Chevron operates most of the oil rigs seen off the coast of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. 2) Along with Farmer John’s, 76 has been a decades-long sponsor of the L.A. Dodgers. 3) I worked at Butler’s 76 on Santa Fe Drive in Encinitas for three years in the 1970s, when we still pumped gas, washed windows, and checked the oil. It was the best job ever for a teenager.