The other day I was in downtown Sacramento and came across an auto repair shop that, I was told, used to be an Orbit Gas station. (Alert readers will recall I’ve developed a minor obsession over documenting the extant remains of the Orbit gas station empire.)

At first glance it does bear some resemblance to Orbit’s distinctive roofline, particularly the pointy projections of the star-shaped roof:

And yet upon closer inspection, this is but a pale imitation of an Orbit. As a point of reference, he’s the real thing:

Note that the genuine Orbit station has no need for those clunky girders that are holding up the ersatz building. They look clumsy and out of place, like the truss towers that hold the colored lights at a Black Sabbath concert.

Moreover, the middle part of the building–the actual interior space where Orbit stored quarts of oil and V-belts, and where they displayed an outdated calendar featuring bikini-clad women suggestively holding auto parts–is framed by a pleasant arch, while the copycat building just has a blocky, angular roofline. It’s the difference between Michelangelo and Picasso.

So we can officially put the kibosh on the rumor of another former Orbit station in downtown Sacramento. But do let me know if you stumble upon any other leads about extant Orbit infrastructure. We’ll do our best to give it the Snopes treatment.

URGENT UPDATE

Just as we were going to press, we reviewed an earlier post where we deemed Suzie Burger in Sacramento to be a former Orbit gas station. This claim is validated on various online sites. And yet, the building looks remarkably similar to the auto repair shop that I’ve deemed to not be an Orbit. Here’s my photo of Suzie Burger:

Notably, a 2019 article in the publication Inside Sacramento says Suzie Burger is “a former Orbit-style gas station” (emphasis added). Maybe there was a knockoff Orbit-style chain of gas stations?

So, here’s how things stand:

1. Orbit definitely had gas stations in Sacramento, and a few of them still stand today.
2. There are at least two buildings–Suzie Burger and A-1 Auto Repair–which look sort of like Orbit if you quint. One of these is dubbed a former Orbit, and the other isn’t.
3. Did Orbit have two styles of buildings? Did Suzie Burger undergo some kind of transformation from a “real” Orbit to an Orbit-“style” building?

You can rest assured we’ll get to the bottom of this.