Shell's new premium gasoline carries a name, V-power, that recalls a memorable moment in Mr. Pynchon's best-known novel.

Gravity's Rainbow, p. 241:

"I mean," Slothrop now working himself into a fuss over something that only disturbs him, dimly, nothing to kick up a row over, is it? "doesn't it strike you as just a bit odd, you Shell chaps working on your liquid engine your side of the Channel you know, and their chaps firing their bloody things at you with your own . . . blasted . . . Shell transmitter tower, you see."