How bad was the oil embargo?

[daves87rs]

Originally Posted By: Cristobal
The 1973 oil embargo did not affect me too much. I was in college in San Francisco and took my bicycle or public transportation to get anywhere. In those days in that town, you could park your car and let it just sit for six weeks or more. Park it today in that town for a few hours, at the wrong spot, and it will be ticketed or towed.

There were gas lines in Orange County when I visited my folks though in 1973-1974. This gas station and car wash at Harbor Blvd. and Bastanchury in Fullerton would make you buy a car wash to get five gallons of gas.

The 1979 gas crunch was present in Los Angeles and Orange Counties. There was plenty of gas and NO lines in the Inland Empire. I worked in an office at Brookhurst and Crescent in Anaheim. There was this gas station there owned and run by these Iranian guys. This was during the hostage crisis. Every Monday they were taking broken porcelain out of the restrooms to the dumpster, as someone would sledgehammer the toilets, sinks, and urinals after they closed early in the wee hours. Then the plumber would be there the next day. By Thursday the restrooms would be hammered again. This went on for over a year. The Anaheim cops told the Iranian owners that they were watching the place all the time after closing and that somehow Sledgehammer Man kept slipping through for some reason. The station owners tried to hire private security and the security companies all said they would not do business with them.

There were huge gas lines, many blocks long, at the Iranian-owned station. A pedestrian got pinched between two cars and sued the station. This jury returned a gigantic verdict verdict against the station and its owners, so they had to sell out.



Wow..that was crazy....

 

[oldmaninsc]

Originally Posted By: Cristobal


The 1979 gas crunch was present in Los Angeles and Orange Counties. There was plenty of gas and NO lines in the Inland Empire.


Are you kidding me? I've lived in the Inland Empire since the early 60's. If there were no lines - what were all those lines for I distinctly remember sitting in for hours on end!
I'd love to know where you got that statement from. Either your memory is flawed or you've been smoking something crazy. The gas crunch affected all areas of Ca.!

 

[Cristobal]

Maybe it was so in your particular spot of the Inland Empire. But when I was out in, say, Yucca Valley or Sunnymead, I could get gasoline. About as soon as I was west of Corona, the gas lines would be there. Once or twice I drove out there to get gas.

 

[oldmaninsc]

Originally Posted By: Cristobal
Maybe it was so in your particular spot of the Inland Empire. But when I was out in, say, Yucca Valley or Sunnymead, I could get gasoline. About as soon as I was west of Corona, the gas lines would be there. Once or twice I drove out there to get gas.

No "maybe it was so" IT WAS SO! I have very distinct memories of getting up early in the morning only to sit in line for about 2 hours, while praying I didn't run out of gas. I lived and worked in the Riverside area and had family that lived in many of the small surrounding cities including Sunnymead which is now part of the Moreno Valley.

To characterize an entire area by two very small cities is just not correct. Wikipedia describes the "Inland Empire" as:
" . . . Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area, which covers more than 27,000 square miles (70,000 km2) and is part of the Greater Los Angeles area. Home to over 4 million people, the metropolitan area consists of Riverside County and San Bernardino County and is the 13th most populous metropolitan area in the United States, and the third largest in the state of California.[2] With a population of 1,506,816, it is the fourth largest urban area in the state."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_Empire_%28California%29

Granted those are somewhat current numbers, but the point is the "Inland Empire" covers more than 2 small cities you mentioned.

I can see maybe driving to Sunnymead for gasoline (50 miles or so from Orange County) but Yucca Valley? That's over 100 miles each way!

 

[Chris142]

I remember a gas crunch in the late 70's or early 80's. My mom had a friend that worked @ the little Hesperia airport. Used to fill up her Subaru there with 100Low Lead instead of waiting in lines at the gas stations in town.

Fortunatly her 1978 Subaru was the last year that Subaru's did not have cat converters.

 

[Cristobal]

Maybe I was just lucky. The Inland Empire is has several definitions. I think of it, in a nutshell, as all of Riverside and San Bernardino County, also certain parts of Los Angeles County as far west, as, say, San Dimas. Back then I had a 1978 Toyota Corolla 2 door sedan. I am a desert fan so was out there a lot in those days, and still go there. Sadly, the region is getting very over built in places, and some great places, like the San Gorgonio Inn and Lloyd's in Running Springs, are no longer around.

 

[Cristobal]

By the way, on the subject of the Inland Empire and the good old days: Anyone remember Santa's Village, Enchanted Forest near Running Springs, and the old Blue Jay Ice Rink (the site is now a parking structure)? I also climbed San Gorgonio Mountain from the parking lot they once had at Poopout Hill---now that is a blast from the past.

 

[Cristobal]

I remember people would do that and coat the inside of the "cats" so they would not work any more. Some hardware stores sold a plastic fitting that you would put on the larger leaded gas nozzle so you could put leaded gas in your "unleaded" vehicle.

 

[Cristobal]

I am dating myself here, I know. But the Inland Empire experience I regret was right when I got my driver's license. I drove out to Barstow to see Calico with a visitor from France. This was when gas was about 36 cents per gallon.

We stopped at a place called Possum Trot, not far from Calico, run by a guy named Calvin Black and his wife, Ruby. They had this outrageous collection of folk art that Calvin had made, regular dolls, talking dolls, and really strange stuff. I was freaked out by all this; the art and dolls gave the the creeps. These people were really poor and I could have bought a bunch of the dolls had I offered even paltry money,

Calvin and Ruby are now gone. The dolls are worth HUGE money now; I looked them up on the Internet. I could probably have bought a trunkload...

 

[Kestas]

I started driving in 1972. I don't remember long lines being prevalent around here. I do remember the price of gas shot up. Our family even went on a driving trip out West in the summer of 73.

I remember fuel economy was on everybody's minds back then. Together with emissions requirements, it ushered in the end of the muscle car era, and brought on demand for thrifty 4-cyl vehicles.

 

[Cristobal]

I remember the 1973 hike in gas prices wrecked the market for many Mazda cars, with the rotary, Wankel engine. I also remember some American car bigwigs (I think from G.M.) getting on the television news to say it was just not possible to make any cars that could reliably give more than 16 miles per gallon or so.

Richard Nixon ordered a 55 m.p.h. speed limit.

 

[oldmaninsc]

Originally Posted By: Cristobal
Maybe I was just lucky. The Inland Empire is has several definitions. I think of it, in a nutshell, as all of Riverside and San Bernardino County, also certain parts of Los Angeles County as far west, as, say, San Dimas. Back then I had a 1978 Toyota Corolla 2 door sedan. I am a desert fan so was out there a lot in those days, and still go there. Sadly, the region is getting very over built in places, and some great places, like the San Gorgonio Inn and Lloyd's in Running Springs, are no longer around.


I agree with your definitions. I don't mean to belabor this point, it's just that I took offense to your bold statement that: " There was plenty of gas and NO lines in the Inland Empire." Perhaps you could have worded that differently!

Anyhow enough of that dead horse - another thing I haven't seen people mention. In those days the gas pumps were "mechanical." Most of the pumps were not capable of computing gasoline with 3 digits - i.e. 1.00 a gallon or above. So for a while many stations started selling gasoline in liters. It was a real pain - if you pumped say 20 liters you had to look on a chart that most stations had posted to see how many gallons you just bought. Some stations tried selling gasoline by the half gallon. That really didn't work that well.

http://www.vintagevending.com/vintage-gas-pumps-and-gas-prices

Eventually most of the stations had their pumps converted or replaced so they could read 1.00 and above. A couple of the stations close to where I lived just ended up NOT pumping gas any more. One had a self serve car wash on the premises, the other had a small grocery store. I became friends with the owner of the car wash - he said he just wasn't making enough money off selling the gas and decided it wasn't worth all the hassle and retired. The car wash in still in business to this day though I believe it's his grandson who owns it.

 

[VNTS]

Actually they just doubled the price.

My parents bought all their gas and had repairs done at a gas station owned by one of my pals father owned. We were in high school

what he did was have my pal and his brother, go pick up customers cars and fill them all up at night, he would shut down early and save the gas for his customers.

I think they did the odd even gimmick.

Only sad part is my folks caved and ordered a 77 Accord, what a POS that thing turned out to be, was car of the year to LOL

 

[Al]

It was uglygly. The good thing is that we learned from it.

 

[Rick in PA]

Originally Posted By: Al
It was uglygly. The good thing is that we learned from it.

Very funny.

I thought of a topical cartoon for that era. "Detroit" would be sleeping and "1973" would be on the digital alarm clock, with the alarm going off. Then "Detroit" would hit the snooze button. Then "1979" would be on the alarm clock with the alarm going off, and once again "Detroit" would hit the snooze button....

 

[Al]

Originally Posted By: Rick in PA
Then "Detroit" would hit the snooze button. Then "1979" would be on the alarm clock with the alarm going off, and once again "Detroit" would hit the snooze button....

Well, I don't blame Detroit as much as people. They make what sells. Small cars don't sell well enough, even now.

 

[addyguy]

I don't remeber either of the gas crisis's - born in 1975. So I don't know if this has ANYTHING to do with it, but....

We had neighbours two doors down in the early 1980's, the 'wife's car' was a mid-70's Buick Century wagon. Great big thing. The husband's 'work car' was a 1979/80 Pontiac Sunbird 4-cylinder/5-speed. Tiny little thing compared to the Buick that NEVER ran right - always stalled out all the time.

I used to watch him trying to get it going, and wonder he never drove the Century - it just sat there, hardly ever getting driven. When it was driven, it ran fine - never seemed to have any issues. But it just sat most of the time......

 

[jcwit]

Originally Posted By: Al
Originally Posted By: Rick in PA
Then "Detroit" would hit the snooze button. Then "1979" would be on the alarm clock with the alarm going off, and once again "Detroit" would hit the snooze button....

Well, I don't blame Detroit as much as people. They make what sells. Small cars don't sell well enough, even now.


Thats because of the advertizing by the auto mfg. telling us how great the big SUV is, and every winter what do you see in the snow bank or ditch? An SUV or P/U truck. People as a whole are followers, don't believe me, check out what the tobaco companies were able to accompolish a number of years ago.

 

[Pop_Rivit]

I vividly remember the gas lines, although they weren't as bad here as in other areas. There were a number of times that someone would run out of gas while waiting in line, and those of us behind would get out of our cars and help push other cars up to the pump.

I also remember how quickly American automobile manufacturers were caught off guard, and how fast the Toyotas and Datsuns were selling. For a time it seemed like every other car on the road was a Datsun B210 or Toyota Corolla, all the while American car manufacturing was either crying foul or trying to play catch up with garbage like the Vega.

 

[Al]

Originally Posted By: jcwit

Thats because of the advertizing by the auto mfg. telling us how great the big SUV is, and every winter what do you see in the snow bank or ditch? An SUV or P/U truck. People as a whole are followers, don't believe me, check out what the tobaco companies were able to accompolish a number of years ago.

Oh I understand. But it shows, the mass intelligence level (low). the PT Barnums of the world are alive and well.