Gas price when you first drove

[obbop]

Ahhhhh!!!!!!!!!

Evil Ron made me recall the freebies!!!!!

The gas dude would wash the windows. Free road maps. Other freebies depending upon the marketing campaign going on.

Inflation is MORE than price increases.... it is the reduction in product size, service offerings, etc.

 

[ALS]

When I started driving I was buying Premium at ARCO for .649. If I wanted to splurge I could get Sunoco 260 for .729. I remember seeing .359 when Mom use to fill up her 69 LeMans in the early 1970's.

 

[H2GURU]

Yup, 29.9 cents @ your local Merit (now HESS)and had to get rid of that guzzling SUPER-SPORT and got a Beetle (without an oil filter imagine the "shame of it all") after the first Embargo sent price to a then economy killing 49 cents!

 

[obbop]

Used to get "stamps" with purchases at some stations... as well as grocery stores, etc.

Blue Chip, Gold Bond..... redeemed for cruddy merchandise from either a catalog the stamp firm distributed or at redemption centers.

Does ANY retailer still do the "stamp thing"? Last time I saw them was at a truck stop near Dallas, Texas. Filling up those big tanks in 1978 I watched an Army Reserve guy in uniform drive up in a BIG tank truck, an official AR truck, and commence filling it. And filling it.... it took 3 hours for him to finish. The fuel was for other vehicles for the maneuvers that weekend. He paid with a government credit card then.........

the handu dandy Gold Bond stamp machine was manipulated by the fuel desk clerk. The pile grew.... and grew.... and grew!!!! Thousands of stamps!!!!!!!!!! The trooper told me he redeemed them for cash.... If memory is correct it was a wee bit less than $3 per full book of stamps. Dude declared he brought in a couple thousand bucks yearly from those stamps!!!!!!

Fringe bennies!!!!!!!!

 

[Steve S]

quote:

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Originally posted by Pablo:
Anyone remember GAS WARS in California?

Sometimes BELOW 0.19$US/Gallon!!

Of course mid seventies made us start thinking about oil wars.

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See my above post,I once owned a 70 Dodge Challenger 340 headers cam high rise intake 4 speed posi. Every couple of years I have a dream I still have it.

 

[k1xv]

quote:

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Originally posted by pa04prius:
$.199 in 1967. Of course we had a 500 gallon tank on the farm and I got to fill up for 'free' for doing the chores and stuff.

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I hope the statute of limitations has passed on gas tax issues in Pennsylvania.

 

[Silk]

In New Zealand it was 35c and gal in the 60s,went up to 50c in the early 70s.I would pull into a gas station on my BSA Bantam,pour some SAE 30 from the tap at the pumps into the oil measure built into the gas cap,pour it into the tank,fill it and and give the bike a good shake,that would cost me 50cents.

In 1971 I had an International AS110 as a dirt bike hauler,did 4 mpg with a 17 yr old boot on the pedal.I took a mate away for a weekend of dirtbiking,with a couple of nurses for company....when we stopped to fill up I put in $10 of fuel - TEN DOLLARS!,TEN DOLLARS!,he was staggering around the forecourt in disbelief,he'd never seen a tank take $10,and he'd worked in a gas station.He didn't have enough to split the fuel costs,but I let him off because he supplied the beer,being big for a 17yr old he could get into the bottle store.

$1.40 per litre today,.94 cents per litre for diesel.

 

[haley10]

quote:

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Originally posted by Gary Allan:
When I started driving ..about $0.35+/-. The first embargo took care of that. I do remember about a decade of $0.2x gas as a younster. Hanging my head out the window (actually too short to get my head out the window) to get a whiff of the vapors spewing out of the tank. "Three bucks of hi-test!" ...little balls floating around in the gas pump little globe thingy.

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Gary you can still get the little ball thingy's. I put them on all of our spot-welders to get a visual indication of coolant flow. Cheap, but effective. Use the high tech solid state stuff also, but love to see those little balls twirling.

19 cents per gallon. Major gas wars in Georgia at that time before Arab oil embargo.

 

[Willy_G]

Started driving in the mid-80's...gas was about$1/gallon.

Then Saddam acted stupid in 1990, gas hit $1.40/gallon

1991, back to $1/gallon

Winter 1993, $0.84/gallon

1994, back up to $1/gallon

Spring 1999, $0.64/gallon

Fall 1999 $1.15/gallon

Spring 2001, $1.65/Gallon

2003, $1.30/gallon

2004, $1.60/gallon

2005, 2.499/gallon

SOMETHING ISN'T RIGHT!!!

 

[jason07-1zzfe]

about $1/gal

 

[gudmund]

In 1965 my dad was selling regular for 19.9 per gallon during some of the prices wars and when the gas powered 5ton Ford dump trucks came in that were being used to haul for the local dike rebuild they got a .02 per gal discount = 17.9 per gal. What a pain it was with 99.9gal/$9.99 pumps trying to keep track of how many times $9.99 flipped over when selling 100++gals at a time or when two or three trucks stopped at once buying 200to300++gals at a time. (This was before hand calculators-his adding machine was a mechanical lever cranked after each #### entered machine with at least 8to9 rows of ##'s for you had to punch each # out in relation to the 10's-100's-1000's and so on for each # entered-I also remembering him getting the more costly version that could divide and multiply later on- you could multiply with the cheaper model by adding over and over again-the later ones were electric and they were cool. this was all when I was 10 to 19 years old-1965 to 74)

 

[Crashbox]

I started driving about 1976 or so, if I recall correctly gas was about 65 to 75 cents per gallon, maybe a bit less.

Ah, the good ol' days!!!!

 

[rugerman1]

I'd post a price,but the dinosaurs wern't dead yet

 

[eljefino]

$1.15 to $1.25/gal consistently for me for most of the mid-90's. Then I got handed down my own car and gas hit $1.35 that same weekend. It made the evening news too!

 

[Audi Junkie]

I remember $.65c but was not driving then. Back in 1983 when I was driving, gas was about $1.25, the highest relative to inflation ever until the current "crisis". Generally, I paid around a buck since then. Overall, gas has been quite stable relative to inflation. I saw a good chart on the subject, I'll look for it.

 

[jason07-1zzfe]

Quite stable?? I've only been driving a little over 10yrs and gas has gone up 150%. Yeah that's stable. Thats about 10%/yr average.

That chart is a joke. Whatever makes you feel good. Would be interesting to see what thier inflation numbers are and where they got them.

 

[kenw]

Jason:

In 1978 a new Cutlass Supreme, moderately equipped with v8/ac/ps etc sold for $6500. The equivalent today is approx 20k.

A new 1200sf starter home in prime NW San Antonio sold for 30k. It's now about 100k.

Starting salary for a degreed Mech Engr was 13k. Today it's about 40-50k.

You will never see $1 or even $2 gasoline again. But you won't see new midsize cars for $6500 either. Nor even an developed empty lot in NW San Antonio for 30K.

 

[jason07-1zzfe]

You actually helped prove my point. All of those average well under 5%/yr.
Even if you go back to the 50's with gas prices it still average over 5%.

 

[kenw]

it just depends on which part and how much of the curve you choose to look at. The longer the curve, the more stable.

it's how statistics work. Larger sample (years) = less variation (price).

Your 10 year history just happens to be the most instable 10 years in the history of the refined petroleum business.

welcome to the world, grasshopper (oops! you aren't old enough to remember that show...)

 

[Studebaker]

17.9 cents. Fat guy would come out, pump it, and wash your windshield. Had a '57 Hawk with the heavy hood with the grill attached. We would wait till the dude was checking the oil and then blow the horn. He would jump and crack his head on the hood. Worked every time.