Smithfield company unveils giant oil bottle

Smithfield already boasts the world’s oldest cured ham and the world’s oldest peanut — and 10 years ago, town officials learned their World’s Largest Ham Biscuit had been recognized by the folks at Guinness World Records.

On Saturday, a couple of brothers unveiled what they hope will be the town’s next record-setting effort: a 200-gallon oil bottle.

Glen and Mike Schlickenmeyer, owners of Smithfield Fast Lube, hosted a party in the parking lot of their Canteberry Lane shop on Saturday, with a group of excited visitors and customers on hand to see the results of a dream two and a half years in the making.

When the brothers snatched the blue tarp off the bottle, there was plenty of applause, along with exclamations of appreciation appropriate to the scale of the event.

Capable of holding 800 quarts of oil — more than 100 oil changes — the bottle is 90 inches high, 40 inches wide and 23 inches deep, according to Betty Thomas, who worked with the Schlickenmeyers to organize the record attempt and its documentation.

“The thing about Smithfield is everybody gets involved,” Mike Schlickenmeyer said.

Mobil 1 supplied the oil to fill the bottle, which was fabricated from steel by Roy Smith Jr. and Marty Schriebl of Circle M Contracting Inc. in Portsmouth. Schriebl is a resident of Smithfield and a customer at the lube shop. When he heard of Glen Schlickenmeyer’s desire to create a record-setting oil bottle, he immediately wanted to be a part of the effort, he said Saturday

“We’re not afraid to bite into unique items,” he said.

Smith said it was a tough project, because the bottle had to be perfectly scaled up from the single-quart bottle that a consumer can buy off the shelf. The finished bottle has grip ridges along the side, just like the original, and its graphics precisely match the label of its smaller counterpart. Even the cap unscrews.

The only difference between the bottles, Glen Schlickenmeyer said, is that there’s a small tap at the bottom of the larger one that allows crew members to remove oil and use it for oil changes. Inside was the same Mobil 1 synthetic 5W30 motor oil that comes in the bottles used as models, he said.

The point of the whole project, Schlickenmeyer said, was to improve public awareness of the safety aspects of regular oil changes.

“People are going so far on oil changes now that it’s doing detriment to their engines,” he said. “Cars need more TLC than ever.”

After collecting all of the notarized documentation and photos associated with Saturday’s unveiling, Thomas — who is also a Smithfield resident and worked on the world-record ham biscuit project — plans to submit everything to Guinness for final world-record determination.