Back in the late '50s and early '60s when I first started worrying about oil, the local speed shop sold 'D-A Speed Sport' oil in a yellow can. I bought it by the case and used it religiously. I recently realized I never saw it any more and looked them up on the 'net. It turns out that they not only still exist, they are the owner/producers of the kind of oil brands we're talking about.
I called and talked to their tech people. They are quite willing to be of service and happy to answer questions. I recommend it.
KS
These days most oil brands are just marketing labels and most of the oil is blended by a handful of companies. I think Chevron is the only one who makes ALL of their own oil. Chevron has their own base oil refineries that use Chevron catalysts (that are sold to other refinery brands). Chevron has their own additive company - Chevron Orinite, and their own blending and bottling operations.
Brad Penn is (or at least was last time I looked) a product of American Refinery Corp which I believe is the oldest refinery in the US that has been continuously in operation. If you trace it back far enough you can find that this is where Kendall started and got it's popularity from. Now Kendall is mostly a marketing label from ConocoPhillips.
DA Speed has some good stuff, they are a blender only I believe. They buy base oils and additives and blend to their spec. Most of their current business is private label stuff. If it's the same place I'm thinking of? They got their start around the early 1920's and sold a lot of their early lubes to weaving companies and then start-up Caterpillar.
Also, a large percentage of "synthetic" oil marketed in North America really isn't what most in the oil industry would consider synthetic. Although good oil, most of the NA synthetics are group III oils (or severely hydrocracked) rather than a PAO or POE/Ester base oil. There are others of course, but Chevron oil is quite good and colloquially a semi-synthetic on a lot of their oils and all the standard diesel oils because they use a POE base oil as a carrier for the additive package which typically makes up around 20-30% by volume.
