So I filled up today, $3.39 for 87 octane. Just wanted to see if anyone else remembers the good old days, when I turned 16 I was paying 0.86 a gallon. Ah, when there is nothing else to talk about...there will always be gas prices

heh, makes me remember not so long ago when I'd avoid a local gas station because it's prices were always above $1.50 a gallon... in San Francisco!

Now I feel like strangling someone. The entire Bush administration, for example.

As a senator recently said, the refining industry is the only manufacturing sector in the U.S. that actually makes higher profits when it has production problems, like now. So where's the incentive to fix the problems? Yeah, right. There ain't none.

I paid on average 22.9 throughout college and filled up my VW Bug for under three bucks.

That was in the early 70's.

When I turned 16, regular gas was 15-to-20 cents per gallon. Then, in 1970 when I used Chevron's Super-Premium (or was it Ultra-Premium, I forget) I was totally PO'ed when it hit 32 cents per gallon. That Chevron stuff was over 100 octane, and your car could be tuned to run REALLY good on it, and then run crappy on the standard type of premium, and barely run at all on regular.

Now, THOSE were the days. Gas prices? Miles Per Gallon? Lead in the gas? Nobody ever noticed...

Gas has always been over a buck for me. I guess I'm too young.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18697032/

Not technologically feasible? Not "cost effective"? Are you kidding me? Is ethanol "cost effective"? Are hybrids "cost effective"?
Yet another example of a case where the political process should leave the energy situation to the scientists and engineers to figure out. I see this crap all the time and I'm sick of it!

When I started driving it cost me 17 bucks to fill up the Delta Dipper (what I called my Delta 88 in high school). Now it costs 75 bucks to fill up my Runner, and the gov't still subsidizes (sp?) the oil industry, and heavily subsidizes the ethanol industry, which both continue to profit.
OK, no more rants, I've got travelling to do in the next few weeks, as do most of you.
Be safe this weekend and remember to honor the very young men and women who are and were fighting overseas, even when spending $80 on your gas for every fill up.

Does anyone remember when there were Gas Wars??

Gas wars? Yeah, I remember during the summer of 1986 when we had a huge oil glut. You could get unleaded regular for 69 cents a gallon in Virginia.


Since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, gasoline has slowly gone upward over the long-term - with some glut periods in late 1990s (it went under $1 per gallon in 1998) and then another spike since then. When Katrina hit, so many gas stations had to make more "3" signs because they ran out of them, since they never thought a "3" would be the first number of the price. I was in Michigan during that fiasco and fuel went from $2.59 to $3.29 in about 24 hours. Yikes! I feared that I would not be able to afford the drive back to Virginia. Sheesh!


With India, China and many other developing nations needing more gasoline, there will only be more competition for available oil on the world market. Combine a limited supply of crude with our lack of refining capacity, and there will be some bumps in the road.

Regarding nostalgic thoughts, I remember my first car well. It was a light blue 1964 Cadillac Sedan deVille. That beast had a huge 429-inch V8 engine (7 liters of displacement for you youngsters), weighed well over 4000 pounds and got about 8 miles per gallon around town.

I owned it from '81 to '83 and had a hard time finding good pump gas for it. It only ran properly on Sunoco leaded premium (that actually had a greenish tint to it), which was hard to find in Pennsylvania at the time. The owner's guide called for 96 octane to feed the 10.5:1 pistons. Nevertheless, she would still scoot.

My friends called it the "Batmobile" or the "Lead Sled" because it was a lot faster than it appeared to be. On cold mornings, it shuddered when first started and earned the name "Rattlecar Cadillactica."


I am old enough to remember the "gas lines" of the 1970s and I hope that we never, ever, ever go back to that crap again. Since we are far more dependent on our cars than we were thirty years ago, I could see major trouble if another shortage (real or perceived) occurs. Let's hope it does not.

I remember yesterday when it was .20 per gallon cheaper.

Yes, I remember gas wars with full service going for $0.199/gallon -- that's right, under 20 cents! You didn't even have to leave the car -- the attendant came out, pumped the gas, cleaned the windshield, checked the oil, took your money, and brought the change. All with a smile, too.

I remember when people were freaking out when gas went over $2 a gallon.

Actually, the oil we use doesn't come from Iraq. Only a small portion.

I remember those days, except I was using Sunoco 260. It was kind of like turning the volume knob up to 11 in the "This is Spinal Tap" movie. Not sure of the octane rating but my GTO and Mach 1 sure ran great on that stuff.

Who cared if they only got 8 miles to the gallon, you could fill the tank for $12 dollars or so and drive like a mad man all night.

I remember working a summer job at a gas station during a "Gas Crisis" in the late 1970s.

- LONG, LONG lines for gas
- odd/even day restrictions
- working 12+ hour days, pumping 4 cars at once
- pumping $2-3,000 worth of gas and only being allowed to be +/- $1 off a day or be fired
- closing early because the gas ran out then waiting around sometimes until after dark for a tanker to show up
- listening to tanker drivers tell me how they got shot at on the way to our station then showing me the holes in their rigs
- walking home after work and smelling like gas until a got a shower

One of the only things I do not remember is the price of gas back then. People were too busy worrying about being able to get gas and not caring all that much about what it cost.

I don't know if it was this way when you were younger, but I will always remember those "half-gallon" prices on the pumps. This was done because most gas pumps were not calibrated to sell gasoline for more than one dollar per gallon......so they sold it for 55 cents (or whatever the price was) for a half gallon.

Now that was just about as archaic as the analog digits & dials that actually rolled from one number to another. None of the LCD displays on gas pumps in those days!

While I am waxing nostalgic, I also remember the state passing a law that cigarette prices could not be posted within 10 feet of a gas pump because it might mislead people. Oh well, a pack of cigarettes used to be less than a gallon of unleaded!

I must be getting old, though, since I remember when sex was safe and motorcycles were dangerous.