As late as the early 70s, the gas around my home was averaging 25 cents per gallon. I remember, when I was a teenage driver in 1972, the local gas wars brought it down to 17 cents per. Somewhere in my head, i remember it being 11-14 cents, gas war-wise, around 1969.
There is a reason the Allman Brothers titled an LP “Wipe the Windows, Check the Oil, Dollar Gas.”
Today, 8 years after the OP, gas is $3.99/gal at the cheapest station in town.
I graduated from high school in 1973. In 1983, at a ten year reunion, I had my yearbook with me and pointed out an ad in the back, for a local gas station. It showed the station sign, with a gas price of 23.9. It was that summer after graduation that the “energy crisis” started, and people were gasping at gas prices of almost seventy cents a gallon.
Oh, the good old days of zombie gas prices.
I believe that’s a lyric from a Chuck Berry song, “Too Much Monkey Business.”
I got my first car in 1976 not long after I turned 16. It was a VW and had a 10 gallon tank. If I ever had to put over 4.00 worth of gas in it I knew I had come uncomfortably close to running out of gas. I still remember my shock when overnight the price jumped from around .509 to $.759
Sorry. Only old enough to remember “rock wars”.
(But I used to buy gas around .49, so not too long off)
I wasn’t driving until 1974, so I do remember gas costing between .60 and .70 per gallon. That was after the first oil crisis and everyone considered that expensive by comparison. But for nearly everyone, it wasn’t enough to stop you from driving where you wanted to go.
I don’t remember where I read it, but I really like this–
“Nostalgia is the ability to remember yesterday’s prices while forgetting yesterday’s wages.”
Here’s a chart that shows the price of gas since WWI in today’s dollars.
The young-uns probably also aren’t aware of this: The gas pumps in those days had mechanical wheels (like a mechanical odometer) that toted up the number of gallons pumped and the total price, and there was a separate mechanical setting to set the price per gallon.
Those pumps were physically, mechanically only able to sell gas up to $0.999 per gallon – they literally didn’t have a $1 digit position to set the price per gallon. When prices exceeded 0.999/gal, all those pumps became obsolete. It took a while for pumps everywhere to get upgraded (actually, replaced), and gas stations all had to somehow “wing it” in totalling up the price of a sale.
I had a VW in 76, but I was 17. Worked overnight weekends at a self serve gas station. After each sale I drained the hose into my gas can. Drove home with a full tank after most shifts. I remember customers bitching about our $.559 price for self serve!
This squares with my memory, down to the numbers. My dad would drive 30 miles to save 2c a gallon. And when the guy was filling the tank (Oh, Yes, this was way before you got to pump your own) he would lean against the side of the car and rock it back and forth to get that last spoonful into the tank.
And it wasn’t just gas. You could eat out, go to a movie, hit the concession stand at least twice and fill up your tank and have spending money left over out of a $20. I remember writing checks for $5 to fund a weekend’s fun and games.
Earlier on, mid 50’s maybe, movies cost 11c.
ETA: Damn! I didn’t see this was a zombie until I saw I had already posted in it years ago! Now I’ll check to see if I lied!
Stations would set the pump to 1/2 of the real price and double the number that came up on the dials, as I recall.
Yep.
And I remember the first time I filled the tank of my rental car in the Caribbean. I thought the gas was super cheap, only to realize it was in liters.:smack:
I remember price wars getting downright odd sometimes. .27.4 vs .28.1 Since all three gas stations for our area were within sight of each other it could get interesting.
Esso though had my loyalty — I could get all the cool free stuff even though I rode a motorcycle. The other 2 (Texaco and Sinclair) required at least a 8 gallon purchase at that visit and the dude who owned the Esso would slap me the gift every other fill-up. (Big Harley – took about 4 gallons or better if I ran it to reserve.) I’m still using some of it; the coffee cup next to me has a tiger looking me down.
I worked at a gas station in the early 80’s while I was in high school and one of our jobs was to drive around town and get the prices from the other stations and update ours.
We regularly had sub .10/l prices during one of the "wars" and then things jumped back up to .60/l range. In a moment of high school drama during one of the major rises in price I was heard to declare “I’ll quit driving if gas ever goes over $1/l” Clearly I have gotten over my high school dramatics 
I remember paying $0.279 per gallon, but that’s not much less than today in constant dollars. But I think my 2002 Toyota Corolla gets better mileage than my dad’s station wagon did, so I am probably coming out ahead.
Regards,
Shodan
I remember in the early 70s when gas was usually around .27 to .29. During one particular gas war the SelLo station dropped to 19.9. That’s the lowest I can remember. Friday nights we’d chip in $2 and cruise until midnight.
Gas lines weren’t uncommon in '73 when OPEC cut production. That was a royal pita.
A lot of H.S. friends drove muscle cars and there were two in particular, a Hurst Olds and a GTO Judge, that both sold their beloved cars because they could no longer afford it when gas got up to .69.
It was a big deal when gas finally hit $1.00 because most of the pumps to that time could only display .00. In fact a lot of small independent stations closed rather than purchase new pumps, in part I suspect also out of uncertainity since prices were climbing so quickly.
I keep hearing this claimed, but it sure doesn’t match my experience. From the time I started driving in the mid 70s until at least the late 90s a gallon of gas nearly always cost roughly double the cost of a candy bar and roughly half the cost of a gallon of milk. Right now candy bars cost around $1.10 in convenience stores, less in most grocery stores, and a gallon of milk is around five bucks. To be the same in constant dollars gas would need to be around $2.50 now.
The gas war is over. Gas won.
Where are you buying your milk? In Tucson I can buy the cheap milk for $2.74. Even the premium milk is no more than about $3.39 a gallon. Gas prices here range from $3.23 to about $3.33, so milk and gas are roughly the same price per gallon.