The “Crossroads” Gas Station

One  location that I was absolutely dying to stalk while visiting Palmdale last week was the supposed Texas-area gas station where Lucy Wagner (aka Miss Britney Spears) stole the keys to Ben’s (aka Anson Mount’s) Buick Skylark convertible in the 2002 movie Crossroads.  I had known from watching the flick’s DVD commentary with director Tamra Davis and writer Shonda Rhimes that the gas station scene was filmed somewhere in the Palmdale/Lancaster area, but unfortunately its exact location was not specified.  So, the night before my dad and I were set to head out that way, I got to work looking at aerial views of what I thought was every single gas station located within the Palmdale/Lancaster city limits.  Unfortunately though, I came up completely empty-handed.  So, imagine my surprise the following morning when I spotted what I was fairly certain was the Crossroads station while driving to the famed Four Aces movie set.  I just about had a heart attack, slammed on my brakes, did a U-turn in the middle of the street, and headed right on back to the station to get a closer look.

And, as it turns out, my instincts were right!  The Super Store 6, as it is called in real life, was in fact the gas station from Crossroads!  So, I immediately headed right on inside to speak with the owner who truly could NOT have been nicer.  She told me that Britney had been very friendly and down-to-earth during the filming and that it had been a fairly low-key shoot.  The owner also informed me that her station had appeared in both ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Lovin’” music video and the final scene from the original Terminator movie.  Unfortunately though, the gas station has been completely remodeled since that time and looks quite a bit different today than it did in the early 1980’s when those productions were filmed.

Thankfully though, Crossroads was filmed after the remodel took place, so it still looks very much the same in person as it did onscreen.  In what turned out to be one of my very favorite scenes from the movie, Lucy, Ben, and their friends Mimi (aka Taryn Manning) and Kit (aka Zoe Saldana), stop by the station to fill up their car with gas while making their way from Louisiana to California.  After grabbing a snack in the station’s mini-mart, Lucy, Mimi, and Kit discover that Ben has fallen asleep in the backseat of his car and, even though they have been warned that they are not allowed to touch the car under any circumstances, they decide to steal his keys and drive to their next destination themselves.

Mimi nominates Lucy to steal the car keys from Ben’s pocket because, as she says, “Well, Kit and I voted and you lost!” (LOVE IT!)  So, Lucy snatches the keys and the girls drive off into the sunset.

But not before snapping the above photograph of themselves which I think is just about the cutest thing ever.  I love, love, love that famous cross-eyed, tongue-out Britney face . . .

. . . which she later duplicated in her Super Bowl commercial for Pepsi Cola, but I digress.

In Crossroads, Ben’s Buick is parked at the station’s southeastern-most pump, in the spot where I am standing in the above photograph.  Because there was a large truck parked right near the pump,  though, my dad had to take the picture from the opposite direction from which the camera was facing in the movie.

In the very final scene of The Terminator, Sarah Connor (aka Linda Hamilton) stops by the Super Store 6 to fill her tank with gas and winds up having her photograph taken by a young boy.  I am fairly certain that the station was never actually colored pink and green in real life, but that producers had it painted solely for the filming of the movie and then painted it back to its original color when the production was wrapped.  Because the gas station is supposed to be located somewhere in the Mexican desert in the flick, producers also added quite a bit of set dressing, including Spanish signs, piñatas, and souvenirs, making the place look quite a bit different than it actually appeared at the time.

You can watch the “Gimme All Your Lovin’” music video by clicking above.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Super Store 6, aka the gas station from Crossroads, the final scene in the first Terminator movie, and ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Lovin’” music video, is located at  37202 90th Street East, at the corner of 90th Street East and Avenue S, in Palmdale.  Some maps also list the gas station as being located in the town of Littlerock.  In Crossroads, Ben’s car was parked at the pump located in the northeast corner of the station, in the area denoted with a pink “X” in the above aerial view.  At the end of The Terminator, Sarah Connor was parked in front of the station’s western-most pump, in the area denoted with a blue “X” in the above aerial view.  ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Lovin’” music video was filmed in the exact same spot that was used in The Terminator.

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