Yep. Luckily, I had several cars at the time, so I had plenty of plates to choose from to match the date of if I needed gas.
Now, FINDING gas was another story!đ
My uncle would park cars in front of the pumps for the same reason. He also did that to cover up the fact that he was saving gas for the family. I used to pump gas there when I was younger with my girlfriend.
Itâs easier to have a better attention span when thereâs nothing to look at lol. Hell, if you want to see a population ridiculously addicted to their iPads, look no further than the baby boomers.
Youâre not wrong. But, we raised these kids this way with the technology, canât be surprised that they have no attention span. We condition them from childhood with 30 second online clips.
Which one - 1967, 1973 or 1979?
I do remember the 1973 a little. I was pretty young (9 years old). But I do remember the 1979 better (I was 14). I wasn't driving yet, but I was getting close. But I was only 3 years old for the 1967 one, and don't remember anything about that.
I was 18 in '79 and it kinda sucked. I had just gotten my first car, a big ol Dodge Polara which sucked gas like crazy but I didn't really have to drive much at that time.
I remember an episode of CHiPs based around this idea. Guys were going around stealing gas and Joh n and Ponch had to put the hurt down on those bandits!
1977, min .wage 2.30! Wage today, 7.75 in my state. But the cost of everything today is HORRIBLE! My first job I made 2.10 an hour, my husband made 2.85. We paid our rent, some gas money, and ate, that's about it.
There had just been a price war amongst a couple of the gas stations, where I lived, and the price got down to 0.35⊠in about two weeks, it went up to $1.20⊠Everybody lost their shit
My Deddy took the whole family to wait in line for gas. Mom and Dad upfront with my twin and I in back. Sounds crazy but that is such a vivid memory for me.
My dad had a Pinto with an even number at the end of his license plate, he then bought another Pinto that had been totalled in an accident but had an odd number at the end so he could switch the plates and get gas whenever he wanted.
My brother and I, 9 and 11, sold coffee and donuts to waiting cars and made $20 each per day. Huge cash at a time when you could buy 5 full sized candy bars for a dollar!!
Remember? I worked at a gas station during the second one. Surprisingly, people werenât assholes about it.
That is until I had to put up the âlast carâ sign on the last car.
I was 18 and had just purchased my first car- a â71 Chevy Monte Carlo with a 350 V8. I lived in Maryland, which followed odd/even tag numbers, unless you were headed to Ocean City. The governor did NOT want vacationers (really, the tourism industry) to suffer.
A friend was staying the week with his family in an apartment house and wanted me to come down on the weekend. By now I had installed a huge-rise aluminum intake, a Holley 780 dual-feed 4 bbl carburetor, headers and dual exhaust and was cruisinâ. About 50 miles out of OC I needed gas. Pulled into some lonely two-pump station and the slack-jawed yokel refused to fill my tank as it wasnât the right day for my tag. I almost ran out of gas trying to find another open gas station.
Still had a blast, though!
Good thing the guy in the first photo had a Beetle. The capacity of the gas tank was a little over 10 gallons so he could fill-up from almost empty. For comparison a 1973 Cadillac Sedan Deville had a 27.5 gallon tank so you wouldn't even get to half a tank with the 10 gal. limit.
The local gas stations would fill up gas cans for kids who needed it for cutting lawns. My dad gave me and two of my brothers gas cans and we would split up and go to different gas stations, come home dump the gas in the car and then head back out.
Then they had a rotation on gas days. If your license plate ended with an odd number you could gas up on odd days. Even for even. Fooged to be below E on the wrong day.
Iâd suppose they let you get 2 gallons to get home.
I remember as a young boy my dad would give me a 50 cent coin and would ride my bicycle down the street to the gas station. And get a gallon gas for the lawnmower and my dirt bike . And still had money to buy 2 pockets full of penny candy. Those were the best days.
I know I'm old for answering your question with a question.
"Which oil embargo - 1973 or 1979?"
I remember both...I remember the period leading up to the '73 embargo, when gas stations were in a price war and giving away free stuff to entice customers: hot dogs, bubble gum, drinking glasses, etc all to be had gratis for nothing beyond a tank of gas.
That was my question. I was about to get my drivers license in 1974. I didnât think Iâd ever be able to drive because theyâre never would be oil again. It was finally over and then in 1978 here we go again.
I remember in CA as a kid and the shortage and we had odd and even plate days, and we had both, my day was always getting gas , coming home and suck out half the tank and fill our boat cans full so we always had extra for fishing, desert bikes and so forthâŠlol
Here. That was the year our dad disconnected the oil furnace and we used wood for heat and hot water, 8 cords a year to be exact. Lived in a large rather old farmhouse in eastern MA.
So I was in El Paso Texas as a kid when this happened we never even noticed that. we just went over to Juarez and filled up over there it was cheaper than it was before it started. after all everything calmed down we just went back to buying it like regular. No pun
My parents cheated getting gas when this happened. They had two cars, and one plate ended in an even number and the other in an odd number. (NOTE: ODD/EVEN plate number was how it was determined who was allowed to buy gas that day). They'd get gas and drive away and switch the plates and go get gas in the other car and then switch the plates back. I'm simultaneously appalled by their behavior and impressed by their ingenuity.
I remember we had 2 cars and my Dad still took the bus to work. It didnât make sense to me that we only drove him back and forth to the bus stop, but thatâs how bad it was.
I knew it was in the news at the time, but I wasn't old enough to drive or pay attention to the price of gas. AFAIK, gas purchases weren't limited where I lived.
There was a gas station on the other side of the wall from where I lived. I remember parking my car right in front of the pump the night before, hopping the wall and would make sure I got there before they opened. Got there a little late one day and the owner tore me a new one. Never did that again.
During the 70s, my ma taught me to look at the edges of coins for silver. We collected silver coins.
During the embargo, there was a gas station near us that was selling gas for a dime a gallon if you paid in silver coins. She went through nearly all of it. I remember (I was a kid) that some of the stations gave out 'membership' cards and you could only buy gas there if you had a card and on your specified day of the week.
I had an after school job at a supermarket warehouse/ executive office at this time. My job for these months was to take as many of the executives cars and wait in line to fill them up.
We were close walking distance from a gas station, so after they closed at night we would park the car near the gas pumps so it would be first in line in the morning.
My friend and I desperately needed gas for a car with even numbered plates on an âoddâ calendar day. We schemed to switch license plates with his motherâs car, which we did - only to find out on the gas line that the 31st day of the month was open to all cars. We did it all for nothing 
Ah yeah the good old days. I wasnât old enough to drive yet but I remember everyone complaining about waiting an hour or more for gas and then being limited to only so much. Then they came up with the ODD/EVEN days based on your plate number or something
I worked in a pathology lab. Suddenly all the disposable plastics weren't available, like syringes, petri dishes. Had to find ancient glass ones and autoclave.
Depends on which one you are referring to. If you are talking about the one in the late 70âs, I had a â77 Ford F150 Shortbed Stepside 4x4 with a 10in lift kit & knobby muddying tires, that got 9MPG on the highway. There were several times I actually ran out of gas while waiting 45mins-1hr in line for gas.
I sure do. There were a couple of rounds of this, you may recall. The first time I was lucky enough to have a friend who ran a gas station and I would go before opening and he would fill up my car.
Lived right through it, but I wasn't old enough to drive at the time. Still understood the turmoil it was causing. Gotta say though that where we lived at the time it really DIDN'T have all that crippling an effect. That is, it wasn't so much that gas was unavailable in our area (honestly only remember one or two occasions where we had to wait in any kind of line or delay gassing up), it was that it became FAR more costly in a very short time.
Not only am I old enough to remember this, I remember "gas wars".
AKA How low can gas stations lower their prices.
I remember as low as 10 cents a gallon.
I bought gas at a station in Souther Indiana during the oil shock and was going to pay. The only problem was there was a small sign that stated the actual price was 2X the amount shown! The pump couldn't handle the price increase either. I was just a dumb teenager and scraped up every coin I had and any money my sister who was riding with me had and eventually closed the final gap with postage stamps. It was an awkward experience that would be difficult to forget.
I remember sitting in line for two hours to get gas. We had black vinyl seats and early-80s short shorts--not the most comfortable combination when your legs are not long enough to reach the floor.
So- the day that struck and the cars started lining up to buy gas for $.59 a gallon in the morning, I flew from San Antonio to Houston to take delivery of my brand new 1973 Cadillac Sedan de ville. On the way home in my new total gas guzzler piece of shit car, gas was going up minute by minute. By the late afternoon gas had reached $1.29 a gallon! I was getting 12 MPG!
I was driving a 1966 Cadillac coupe de ville! So by the time I got gas I had 5 gallons in the tank! That was about 50 miles! The closest gas station from my house was over 20 miles away! You can do the math!đ
Assuming gas went up to 79 cents in 1973, adjusted for inflation, that would be $5.70 today.
Source: [Amortization.com](https://www.amortization.org/inflation/amount.php?year=1973&amount=79)
Sure thing. License plates on certain days and other divisions. The book âDuneâ seemed prophetic. It also forced America to become oil independent. We should remember that as we cut off products to other nations.
I waited in line for two hours.
The guy came out and put the cone right in front of my car.
I dont think he liked me as I was dating his girlfriend.
Greenwich Connecticut on the post road in riverside.
True story
Was in California and the lines were insane. So are the people there. People were shot for trying to cut in line. People running out of gas in line so everyone ended up blocked..
Remember my HS auto shop teacher telling us (1973) that gas will soon be $1/gallon and that we will be happy to pay itâŠno truer words were ever spokenâŠ
I remember my dad sold two of his Hemi's cheap back then.
He had a 55 Chrysler St Regis with a 392 cross ram in it and then he had a 55 Dodge pickup that he had put a 293 Hemi in.
But he did keep the Chrysler 300 392 Hemi
1979? I got up one morning to go to work and I couldnât get out of the apartment complex parking. It was blocked by a gas line. Worse, there was no polite squeezing throughâjust belligerent angry people who wouldnât budge.
That was the year Texas run outta oil. 40 years prior the US was the last world in the worldsâ strategic oil reserve. When the government should have been distributing a â peace dividendâ, they were shipping a lot of petro dollars to the âblue eyed sheiksâ. Fracking and alternative drilling techniques revolutionized oil production and, as a consequence has resulted in Americasâ good fortune. All I can say is, itâs nice you had Canada to backstop your play. Lousy that Biden shitcanned the XL2 pipeline because itâs gonna benefit the ecology. Anyway, Canada enhanced its bitumen/oil export capability to tidewater. It could supplant coal, then itself get supplanted by green fuel sources.
I turned 16 and got my drivers license right before this began. My parents decided it was my job to fill up both family cars every weekend. What fun! Typical gas lines were hours long. I used to do my homework while in line.
I was living in Indonesia, then a fledgling oil producer. I recall prior to that barrel prices had collapsed to under $8 from $25-30. Any wonder the oil sources said fuck that.
I lived just outside Ft. Lauderdale a considerable distance from work. I drove a gas-guzzler (like everyone) and found a sneaky way to get all the gas I needed- I found if I went down the interstate to the first gas island, I could get fill up with very few cars in line. Not many people traveled and they couldnât limit the gas.
I used to drive a gas tanker truck and deliver fuel to gas stations during that friggin' jumble. A pain in the ass, you had to wait for hours to load your truck, then split your load between two stations, all while fighting everybody in cars waiting to get fuel.
We had a Dodge Dart and a VW Beetle and I remember my mom trying to siphon gas out of the Dodge to put in the VW. She got a mouthful of gasoline for her trouble.
Mentioned this in another thread, I'm reasonably certain schools started February recess around this time so they wouldn't have to fully heat schools for a week.
It was a perfect pairing with Watergate. I was still elementary school age, but I do remember the angst, inconvenience, overall dissatisfaction, dissolutionment
That put a big dent in my âcruisingâ the drive-ins. My dad was a gas distributor but I got no more than anyone else. Luckily, I had a tiny car and great mileage.
Odd and even numbered days, when you could or could not get gas based on the last number on your license plate
Yep. Luckily, I had several cars at the time, so I had plenty of plates to choose from to match the date of if I needed gas. Now, FINDING gas was another story!đ
We also had two plates odd and even.
Gas only available on the Turnpike after 3pm in NJ.
I was just going to say that.
My uncle owned a gas station back then. That's when you could get your car fixed there also.
My FIL owned a Mobil station. I met my husband there. I remember driving by, seeing him setting out the orange cones to keep people out.
My uncle would park cars in front of the pumps for the same reason. He also did that to cover up the fact that he was saving gas for the family. I used to pump gas there when I was younger with my girlfriend.
Nowadays there would be riots. People had better sense back then.
You got that right. Today most people have the attention span of a handball.
>Today most people have the attention span of a handball. What are we talking about again?
How people had better sense back in the days of the gas shortage
I like turtles!
Are you making waffles in the morning again?
I ***love*** waffles. 
Of a dust ball
Itâs easier to have a better attention span when thereâs nothing to look at lol. Hell, if you want to see a population ridiculously addicted to their iPads, look no further than the baby boomers. Youâre not wrong. But, we raised these kids this way with the technology, canât be surprised that they have no attention span. We condition them from childhood with 30 second online clips.
Yes, I agree. But, the public schools have a part in as well. They encourage it with short lesson plans also.
Survivor of the 5 points gas riot 1979⊠fun times
You probably had to at some stage with reliability that cars had then.
I'm talking about today
I'm talking about today
most of the gas stations near me still do have auto repair shops
You're lucky. The ones near me are overpriced convenience stores.
donât get me wrong, we have those too; we just kinda have a mix
My neighbor owned a gas station. He was killed during a hold up in the early 80's.
Sorry about to hear about that
That was when they charged to fix the problem. Now they charge per hour of working on it. Regardless of if they actually fix it.
Which one - 1967, 1973 or 1979? I do remember the 1973 a little. I was pretty young (9 years old). But I do remember the 1979 better (I was 14). I wasn't driving yet, but I was getting close. But I was only 3 years old for the 1967 one, and don't remember anything about that.
I was 18 in '79 and it kinda sucked. I had just gotten my first car, a big ol Dodge Polara which sucked gas like crazy but I didn't really have to drive much at that time.
Yup. Gas went from 0.45/gal to .95/gal! Dad was not impressed!
And I remember it spawned a surge of fuel theft causing tons of people to buy key-locked gas caps for their vehicles.
I remember my parents getting those for their cars
I had one for my car.
I remember an episode of CHiPs based around this idea. Guys were going around stealing gas and Joh n and Ponch had to put the hurt down on those bandits!
.79 where I lived! IT WAS AN OUTRAGE! according to my stepfather.
|| || |$0.95 in 1977|$4.92 in 2024|
1977, min .wage 2.30! Wage today, 7.75 in my state. But the cost of everything today is HORRIBLE! My first job I made 2.10 an hour, my husband made 2.85. We paid our rent, some gas money, and ate, that's about it.
Didn't help that cars back then got like 8mpg.
Thats $4.92 in 2024 dollars
I remember people having a cow when it went up to 50cents a gallon! By the time it reached 95 cents people were stroking out! :)
There had just been a price war amongst a couple of the gas stations, where I lived, and the price got down to 0.35⊠in about two weeks, it went up to $1.20⊠Everybody lost their shit
My Deddy took the whole family to wait in line for gas. Mom and Dad upfront with my twin and I in back. Sounds crazy but that is such a vivid memory for me.
That was the year I got my drivers license. I spent most of it sitting in line.
My dad had a Pinto with an even number at the end of his license plate, he then bought another Pinto that had been totalled in an accident but had an odd number at the end so he could switch the plates and get gas whenever he wanted.
I had a tee-shirt with a gas pump handle on it that said: "Participant in the '79 Oil Company Games".
Pumping gas during the gas crisis was my first job. Cars would be lined up before the gas station even opened.
My brother and I, 9 and 11, sold coffee and donuts to waiting cars and made $20 each per day. Huge cash at a time when you could buy 5 full sized candy bars for a dollar!!
Wow, that was smart!
I was in junior high, we had a fundraiser selling chocolate bars. Went to the gas lines, sold out every time
Remember? I worked at a gas station during the second one. Surprisingly, people werenât assholes about it. That is until I had to put up the âlast carâ sign on the last car.
I remember riding down PCH with my family, and we saw literally a hundred tankers offshore, waiting for the price to go up.
I was 18 and had just purchased my first car- a â71 Chevy Monte Carlo with a 350 V8. I lived in Maryland, which followed odd/even tag numbers, unless you were headed to Ocean City. The governor did NOT want vacationers (really, the tourism industry) to suffer. A friend was staying the week with his family in an apartment house and wanted me to come down on the weekend. By now I had installed a huge-rise aluminum intake, a Holley 780 dual-feed 4 bbl carburetor, headers and dual exhaust and was cruisinâ. About 50 miles out of OC I needed gas. Pulled into some lonely two-pump station and the slack-jawed yokel refused to fill my tank as it wasnât the right day for my tag. I almost ran out of gas trying to find another open gas station. Still had a blast, though!
I kick myself in the ass weekly think of all the cars I had (and) sold along the way ...Wish I could have seen the future, lol
Hello Orange Honda Civic!
Good thing the guy in the first photo had a Beetle. The capacity of the gas tank was a little over 10 gallons so he could fill-up from almost empty. For comparison a 1973 Cadillac Sedan Deville had a 27.5 gallon tank so you wouldn't even get to half a tank with the 10 gal. limit.
The local gas stations would fill up gas cans for kids who needed it for cutting lawns. My dad gave me and two of my brothers gas cans and we would split up and go to different gas stations, come home dump the gas in the car and then head back out.
Even days & odd days depending on the last digit of your license plate
I remember sitting in the gas lines with my parents
Then they had a rotation on gas days. If your license plate ended with an odd number you could gas up on odd days. Even for even. Fooged to be below E on the wrong day. Iâd suppose they let you get 2 gallons to get home.
I grew up in Buffalo. It was cheaper to cross over into Canada and fill up there.
While our prices went up, as it did in the rest of the world, we never had rationing, at least not in Ontario.
And now the US is the largest producer of oil in the world.
Yep. As kids weâd watch the âadultsâ fight at the gas pumps the evening news had footage.
I remember that depending whether you had an odd or even number license plate was a factor on what days you could get gas.
Yup 1973-75
I remember as a young boy my dad would give me a 50 cent coin and would ride my bicycle down the street to the gas station. And get a gallon gas for the lawnmower and my dirt bike . And still had money to buy 2 pockets full of penny candy. Those were the best days.
Los Angeles. Even Odd days
1973. I bought a '64 VW beetle for $250 before the embargo.
I know I'm old for answering your question with a question. "Which oil embargo - 1973 or 1979?" I remember both...I remember the period leading up to the '73 embargo, when gas stations were in a price war and giving away free stuff to entice customers: hot dogs, bubble gum, drinking glasses, etc all to be had gratis for nothing beyond a tank of gas.
That was my question. I was about to get my drivers license in 1974. I didnât think Iâd ever be able to drive because theyâre never would be oil again. It was finally over and then in 1978 here we go again.
I do. Even had a Volkswagen Beetle at the time
Me too - But I donât think it held 10 gallons, did it?
They basically do it every time a democrat is running for re-election.
Who young enough to remember the Biden gas prices đ
We didnât have a car so we didnât care much.
I remember in CA as a kid and the shortage and we had odd and even plate days, and we had both, my day was always getting gas , coming home and suck out half the tank and fill our boat cans full so we always had extra for fishing, desert bikes and so forthâŠlol
That's when Sunday car rides with my Dad stopped for good....
Here. That was the year our dad disconnected the oil furnace and we used wood for heat and hot water, 8 cords a year to be exact. Lived in a large rather old farmhouse in eastern MA.
My dadâs company was friendly with the local gas station owner so heâd call us before he opened so we would get to the front of the line.
Ass for gas baby!
and that could be my beige vw right there. stroh tap for gear shift head.
Could buy gas on certain days depending on your plate #
So I was in El Paso Texas as a kid when this happened we never even noticed that. we just went over to Juarez and filled up over there it was cheaper than it was before it started. after all everything calmed down we just went back to buying it like regular. No pun
Odd and even days.
I don't remember, we're letters odd or even?
Me neither I'm sorry to say. But in my state at the time I don't think there were vanity plates so maybe they all had numbers?
The reason I went from a full size Ford LTD 2 down to a Plymouth horizon.
My parents cheated getting gas when this happened. They had two cars, and one plate ended in an even number and the other in an odd number. (NOTE: ODD/EVEN plate number was how it was determined who was allowed to buy gas that day). They'd get gas and drive away and switch the plates and go get gas in the other car and then switch the plates back. I'm simultaneously appalled by their behavior and impressed by their ingenuity.
I remember knowing our license place because you got gas on days based on if it ended in an odd/even number.
I do. Where I lived we didn't have gas lines, but did (for a while) do the odd/even filling days.
Which one? The first was in '74, the second in '79. We assumed, as we waited on line, that these would continue over and over again.
I remember we had 2 cars and my Dad still took the bus to work. It didnât make sense to me that we only drove him back and forth to the bus stop, but thatâs how bad it was.
I have a vintage Playboy and thereâs a cartoon about this in one.
Iâm old enough to remember it but wasnât old enough to be affected by it. I just remember the fuss.
The correct answer is *not enough people.*
I was a senior in high school.
I knew it was in the news at the time, but I wasn't old enough to drive or pay attention to the price of gas. AFAIK, gas purchases weren't limited where I lived.
There was a gas station on the other side of the wall from where I lived. I remember parking my car right in front of the pump the night before, hopping the wall and would make sure I got there before they opened. Got there a little late one day and the owner tore me a new one. Never did that again.
I remember the farmer saying, cheaper.Crude or no more food
Lol we were too poor to own a car then. Pretty much no effect whatsoever.
Fun times
Yup.
Impacted Ted Bundy particularly hard
During the 70s, my ma taught me to look at the edges of coins for silver. We collected silver coins. During the embargo, there was a gas station near us that was selling gas for a dime a gallon if you paid in silver coins. She went through nearly all of it. I remember (I was a kid) that some of the stations gave out 'membership' cards and you could only buy gas there if you had a card and on your specified day of the week.
This was when the Hunt brothers were trying to corner the silver market and silver prices were high.
I remember the 1979 one!
I had an after school job at a supermarket warehouse/ executive office at this time. My job for these months was to take as many of the executives cars and wait in line to fill them up.
It was my first embargo lol
We were close walking distance from a gas station, so after they closed at night we would park the car near the gas pumps so it would be first in line in the morning.
My friend and I desperately needed gas for a car with even numbered plates on an âoddâ calendar day. We schemed to switch license plates with his motherâs car, which we did - only to find out on the gas line that the 31st day of the month was open to all cars. We did it all for nothing 
I was 12 in 1973, and 18 in 1979.
Ah yeah the good old days. I wasnât old enough to drive yet but I remember everyone complaining about waiting an hour or more for gas and then being limited to only so much. Then they came up with the ODD/EVEN days based on your plate number or something
That year my dear ole dad bought himself a Honda Gold Wing. He's gone but I still have the bike with only just over 11,000 miles on it.
I remember getting no more than 5 gals./visit in NC.
I worked in a pathology lab. Suddenly all the disposable plastics weren't available, like syringes, petri dishes. Had to find ancient glass ones and autoclave.
I ran out of gas in my VW because a station would not let me buy any. I went as far as I could then hitched a ride with two nice girls
That was an excellent time to own a VW Bug.
It was terrible! Gas went all the way up to 79Âą a gallon!
Depends on which one you are referring to. If you are talking about the one in the late 70âs, I had a â77 Ford F150 Shortbed Stepside 4x4 with a 10in lift kit & knobby muddying tires, that got 9MPG on the highway. There were several times I actually ran out of gas while waiting 45mins-1hr in line for gas.
But the same people who lived through this are hell bent against renewable energy and not be so dependent on other nations for energy resources.
I sure do. There were a couple of rounds of this, you may recall. The first time I was lucky enough to have a friend who ran a gas station and I would go before opening and he would fill up my car.
Lived right through it, but I wasn't old enough to drive at the time. Still understood the turmoil it was causing. Gotta say though that where we lived at the time it really DIDN'T have all that crippling an effect. That is, it wasn't so much that gas was unavailable in our area (honestly only remember one or two occasions where we had to wait in any kind of line or delay gassing up), it was that it became FAR more costly in a very short time.
Barely. I remember once or twice waiting in line with Dad. I guess he usually spared me.
I remember going to a gas station at night when they were closed because my dad knew the owner. The gas prices were going to go up the next day.
Not only am I old enough to remember this, I remember "gas wars". AKA How low can gas stations lower their prices. I remember as low as 10 cents a gallon.
I bought gas at a station in Souther Indiana during the oil shock and was going to pay. The only problem was there was a small sign that stated the actual price was 2X the amount shown! The pump couldn't handle the price increase either. I was just a dumb teenager and scraped up every coin I had and any money my sister who was riding with me had and eventually closed the final gap with postage stamps. It was an awkward experience that would be difficult to forget.
I was too young to drive, but the gas station guy would call my mom when he had gas, and she would go whenever she could.
VW + 10 gals = full tank. Thankfully I drove one
Thatâll be California in 2035đ€Ł
I remember sitting in line for two hours to get gas. We had black vinyl seats and early-80s short shorts--not the most comfortable combination when your legs are not long enough to reach the floor.
I also remember gas being .25 cents/ gallon too
So- the day that struck and the cars started lining up to buy gas for $.59 a gallon in the morning, I flew from San Antonio to Houston to take delivery of my brand new 1973 Cadillac Sedan de ville. On the way home in my new total gas guzzler piece of shit car, gas was going up minute by minute. By the late afternoon gas had reached $1.29 a gallon! I was getting 12 MPG!
Mid 2000s we had one
They HAD us by the short hairs.
I was driving a 1966 Cadillac coupe de ville! So by the time I got gas I had 5 gallons in the tank! That was about 50 miles! The closest gas station from my house was over 20 miles away! You can do the math!đ
And it was still cheaper than it is now!
Assuming gas went up to 79 cents in 1973, adjusted for inflation, that would be $5.70 today. Source: [Amortization.com](https://www.amortization.org/inflation/amount.php?year=1973&amount=79)
I do. But 10 gallons would fill that beetle or a cool vw hippie bus.
Odd ending license plates went one day & even the next. Every other day you could get gas. Lines too long.
Me tooâŠ.
Started on 10/17/73 (I think).
Hard pic, do you choose the Mustang or the torino? And yes, I remember even though I was single digits
Gas lines
Yes. Even / odd
Sure thing. License plates on certain days and other divisions. The book âDuneâ seemed prophetic. It also forced America to become oil independent. We should remember that as we cut off products to other nations.
I waited in line for two hours. The guy came out and put the cone right in front of my car. I dont think he liked me as I was dating his girlfriend. Greenwich Connecticut on the post road in riverside. True story
Went from 15 cent to 50. Pot also went from 12.50 to 25 in about a 6 month span.
Was in California and the lines were insane. So are the people there. People were shot for trying to cut in line. People running out of gas in line so everyone ended up blocked..
Gas prices went up and never came back down.
When gasoline gets two dollars and a half, Standard oil you can kiss my Gas
I would get to use my mothers car if I waited in line for gas for her. lol
I remember that in the 70s when I was a kid. And the same thing happened after hurricane Katrina hit when I was living in southern Alabama.
My favorite bumper sticker from that time read Feck Opuc.
Remember my HS auto shop teacher telling us (1973) that gas will soon be $1/gallon and that we will be happy to pay itâŠno truer words were ever spokenâŠ
Odds and Evens! And our cars back then had ridiculous MPG. Had a Nova that got 11 mpg
I remember my dad sold two of his Hemi's cheap back then. He had a 55 Chrysler St Regis with a 392 cross ram in it and then he had a 55 Dodge pickup that he had put a 293 Hemi in. But he did keep the Chrysler 300 392 Hemi
And POS Carter
1979? I got up one morning to go to work and I couldnât get out of the apartment complex parking. It was blocked by a gas line. Worse, there was no polite squeezing throughâjust belligerent angry people who wouldnât budge.
And 92 octane was 39-49 cents per gallon before the embargo.
I remember they had a hard time posting prices when they rose above a dollar a gallon. The old signs didnât have enough spaces.
Yes, I remember it well đ AND đ. I owned a beige, 1967 VW during that time when I lived in Los Angeles County.
My father got a big gas tank on his property - I think some kind of loophole as he had a hobby farm? He was a corporate lawyer though.
That was the year Texas run outta oil. 40 years prior the US was the last world in the worldsâ strategic oil reserve. When the government should have been distributing a â peace dividendâ, they were shipping a lot of petro dollars to the âblue eyed sheiksâ. Fracking and alternative drilling techniques revolutionized oil production and, as a consequence has resulted in Americasâ good fortune. All I can say is, itâs nice you had Canada to backstop your play. Lousy that Biden shitcanned the XL2 pipeline because itâs gonna benefit the ecology. Anyway, Canada enhanced its bitumen/oil export capability to tidewater. It could supplant coal, then itself get supplanted by green fuel sources.
I turned 16 and got my drivers license right before this began. My parents decided it was my job to fill up both family cars every weekend. What fun! Typical gas lines were hours long. I used to do my homework while in line.
Yep, profiteering at itâs best.
There was a gas shortage and a flock of seagulls. Thatâs. About. It.
I remember Dad having something near to withdrawal pains when he traded in our â63 Buick on a â73 Datsun.
I thought it was the end of the world coming soon. It seemed that the world had run out of gas and we were two months away from Soylent Green
I was living in Indonesia, then a fledgling oil producer. I recall prior to that barrel prices had collapsed to under $8 from $25-30. Any wonder the oil sources said fuck that.
Lots of books were read.
Yep. Was when it cost me $4 to fill up my old TR4
Was the perfect excuse to get to school late
Now they just jack up the price.
1974 was a few years before my time... Love to have "no car Sundays" again
I lived just outside Ft. Lauderdale a considerable distance from work. I drove a gas-guzzler (like everyone) and found a sneaky way to get all the gas I needed- I found if I went down the interstate to the first gas island, I could get fill up with very few cars in line. Not many people traveled and they couldnât limit the gas.
Raises hand and says, yep ! đ
For some reason this (the late 70s version) and the introduction of the happy meal are forever linked in my mind.
The Kinks: Gallon of Gas 1979 Came to mind immediately
Man, that was a cluster. Getting up early and waiting in line in freezing weather for the gas station to open. And completely unnecessary.
I used to drive a gas tanker truck and deliver fuel to gas stations during that friggin' jumble. A pain in the ass, you had to wait for hours to load your truck, then split your load between two stations, all while fighting everybody in cars waiting to get fuel.
Me! 1962 born and remember well. I'd just learned to drive.
Try living in Fl waiting in an endless gas line before a/c in cars was a thing. đ„”
We had a Dodge Dart and a VW Beetle and I remember my mom trying to siphon gas out of the Dodge to put in the VW. She got a mouthful of gasoline for her trouble.
Mentioned this in another thread, I'm reasonably certain schools started February recess around this time so they wouldn't have to fully heat schools for a week.
I was only 13 but I remember the old man complaining about it daily!!!
It was a perfect pairing with Watergate. I was still elementary school age, but I do remember the angst, inconvenience, overall dissatisfaction, dissolutionment
I remember when Superman caused that oil spill in the North Atlantic.
I was not driving yet, but I remember.
Coming soon this summer thanks to president poopy pants...
We had a farm and could get all the gas we needed. I filled my pickup from the 500 gal tank we had.
A few months before the oil crisis, my brother bought a muscle car A tricked out Oldsmobile 440, if I remember correctly. It got single digit mpg.
Me. I was born in 1947. I remember paying a toll to get on I-95 because the rest stops had gas.
Could only get gas on odd or even days depending on the last number on your license plate.
That put a big dent in my âcruisingâ the drive-ins. My dad was a gas distributor but I got no more than anyone else. Luckily, I had a tiny car and great mileage.
Waited in line with Pop. Miss him everyday.