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I filled up the gas tank this morning and the total was over $81. I drive a 4-Cylinder Chevy Camaro. Chevy recommends premium fuel – I use the mid-grade.
Still, that’s a record for me. So, I started to reflect…
When I turned 16 in 1973 I applied for a job at a gas station/car wash. It was owned by my best friend’s dad. I hired in at $1.25 an hour. which bumped up to $1.40 after the first 40 hours. Life was good.
I worked afternoons after school and weekends. I learned how to check oil levels, pump gas. run a cash register, give out correct change and deal with people. I also learned about economics.
During my first couple weeks, business was slow to moderate. Then the owner decided to drop the price of regular (too early for unleaded) gas to $0.359 a gallon. Suddenly, cars were lined up to Central Avenue. Customers didn’t mind waiting 30 minutes for a fill-up. The Holy Grail was a fill-up over $10, when the pump numbers turned over, It took a large Cadillac with an empty tank to turn the pump over. I was on my feet the whole shift.
That lasted for 6 or 7 months until a geopolitical storm blew in. The papers called it the Arab Oil Embargo, when OPEC cut oil production and banned exports to countries which supported Israel.
We could no longer fill tanks, limiting patrons to 8 gallons. The per-gallon price increased substantially. My hours were cut. Things were getting personal.
With higher gasoline prices throughout the 1970s, behaviors changed, vehicles shrunk and laws were passed to reduce our reliance on foreign oil (i.e. 55 mph speed limit).
That trend continued until, slowly, gas prices went down (never back to $0.35), speed limits increased and small cars largely disappeared, having been replaced by trucks and SUVs.
Now, the geopolitical winds are blowing again. I no longer pump gas for others. I wonder if we have learned fully from the past or are we doomed to repeat it. If we are reliving 1973, just know that it will be a real struggle surviving on a buck and a quarter an hour.
Great perspective, Michael.
In the aftermath of the Oil Embargo, gasoline prices in the US peaked at $1.38 in 1981. According to bls.gov, that would be $5.28 in today’s dollars. That same year, average 30-year fixed home mortgages topped out at just over 18% and unemployment was climbing to 11%. Coupled with the high inflation of the period, scary financial times indeed! (And many of us here somehow got through them.)
During the embargo for a while you could only buy gas on odd or even numbered days based on the last number on your license plate. On the weekend most gas stations were closed.
I was playing youth hockey in those days and when we had road games on the weekends the hosting team had to arrange for a gas station to be open so we could buy gasoline to get home.
Also came of age in the mid 70s. I worked at an ice cream shop for $2.10 an hour after school. I thought I was getting ahead by earning tips on top of that!
We do have other arrows in our quiver when it comes to driving options now versus then though. New and used EV’s are widely available, and in spite of fear mongering by some about their drawbacks, they work pretty darn well, with a much better driving experience. My cost to fill up with electricity is much less on a per mile basis than with gas. One also has the option to install solar if they wish to further offset that cost. Small cars are still widely available as well as hybrids of various types. One just has to choose to buy one instead of the gas guzzler‘s. Never understood why people buy huge trucks and SUVs and never utilize them for the size that they are when something much smaller would work just fine. I guess many of those owners didn’t grow up in the 70s and and/or have short memories of what could happen with gas prices.
On a recent trip back from Boston our Toyota hybrid got almost 40 miles to a gallon thanks to a fair amount of stop and go traffic.
Michael, imagine the sting if our cars still got only 10-12 MPG. We do have short memories, if the price gets back down near 2 bucks, I’m gittin’ me a new Suburban!
Michael, you would have a fit if you lived on the other side of the pond. My last fill-up was $7.50 a gallon.
When I was a kid I lived in France. The gas price on the USArmy military base was 5 cents / gallon.
Yup, we are spoiled over here. I gassed up today at $5.79 a gallon (premium grade). Highest ever paid in my 66 years of driving. When I started driving in 1960, it was about $0.25 a gallon.
$5.29 a gallon in the Western Suburbs of Chicago.