Old Filling Stations

When I was little, my dad had a 1960 Ford Falcon he bought brand new. It had a small 4 cylinder engine, and would run on "low grade" fuel. At that time, Sunoco had a dial on the side of the pumps where you could select your grade of fuel. The lowest grade was 190, and the highest, as I recall was 260.

Gas was right around 25 cents a gallon - the cheapest I remember was 27.9. He always bought $2 worth of 190, which was about 8 gallons.

One of the first "sentences" I ever spoke was "So-co sign, two dollars one ninety."
 
wsuffa said:
.... not going there, not at all....
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:rofl::lol::nono:..

I believe minimum wage in Texas is 1.34 an hour, in cash, paid at night, in a dark alley....... And......... All the Taco's they can eat..:eek:
 
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Jay Honeck said:
Whoa, flashback! My bike, circa 1966, had Esso tiger tail hand grips. These were some sort of promotional giveaway, I suspect.

I remember cutting them off when we moved to the "big city" the following year, cuz the neighborhood kids made fun of them. lol!
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Esso (now Exxon, for the young guys) had a "Put A Tiger In Your Tank" promotion, They wanted us to believe that their gasoline was more powerful than anyone else's. And that was around 1965/66 or so.

One of the posters:
zeyhi7fb6yofz4.jpg


The promo tiger tail:



You were supposed to fasten it to the gas filler to give the impression of a tiger inside the tank.

rk54jt.jpg


Dan
 
Dan Thomas said:
Esso (now Exxon, for the young guys) had a "Put A Tiger In Your Tank" promotion, They wanted us to believe that their gasoline was more powerful than anyone else's. And that was around 1965/66 or so.

The promo tiger tail:



You were supposed to fasten it to the gas filler to give the impression of a tiger inside the tank.

rk54jt.jpg


Dan
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Yep, that's it. Gotta find mine somewhere.
 
I had one of those tails.

I don't have any clue what gas cost back then, though, since I wasn't buying it.
 
wsuffa said:
I may still have a "tiger tail" (Esso) from the '60's in a box somewhere.
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In my parents attic is an Esso tanker truck. It was a toy then. Probably a collectors item now like most of the stuff up there.
 
slacktide said:
I don't believe you. Gas could not be bought for .199 a gallon in the '70s, unless you were buying untaxed farm fuel or something. You'd have to go back to the '50s for that. National average gas price in 1970 was .36 a gallon an it went up from there throughout the decade...
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Anybody remember gas wars? The last one I remember was in the summer of 1972 in Los Angeles. You could buy gas for 25 cents a gallon at times. That all stopped with the customary holiday price hike (Labor Day)- and never happened again in my experience. The cheapest price I ever saw was 19 cents a gallon in Phoenix AZ in the '60s (another gas war).

Dave
 
Pilawt said:
New 1973 Chevy Nova 6, automatic, WSW, no carpet, no radio, $2,888 off the showroom floor.

new_nova.jpg
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My first car was a 77 Nova 350 4 barrel that I got from my grandparents when I turned 16 in 1994. It had 30K orig. miles on it. And, of course, I sold it not all that long later :mad2:

Ah youth :sigh:
 
Jay Honeck said:
I thought something smelled funny about those prices, so I did a little Google searching. The 1970 Plymouth Duster could be had for $2547 -- 20% less than stated. Thus, you could buy one for 1725 minimum wage hours, using your (unverified) numbers.
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I apologize for usings Tony's $3100 Duster price without indepentantly verifying it. His memory is untrustworthy, and any figure he quotes should be questioned.
 
slacktide said:
I don't believe you. Gas could not be bought for .199 a gallon in the '70s, unless you were buying untaxed farm fuel or something. You'd have to go back to the '50s for that. National average gas price in 1970 was .36 a gallon an it went up from there throughout the decade. So 12 gallons would cost you 2.6 hours of labor at minimum wage. Locally, my gas is 3.15 a gallon for regular, and minimum wage is 9.19 an hour, so 12 gallons of gas would cost you 4.1 hours of labor. In labor-hour cost, gas is 57.5% more expensive than 1970, not 400% more expensive.

But wait, there's more. The above is all pre-tax. Income taxes are lower now than they were in 1970. If you do all the math, you'll find that in post-tax labor-hour cost, gas is actually 52.5% more expensive for minumum wage workers than 1970, not 400% more expensive.
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Gas wars would cause the prices to drop dramatically as dealers would lover the prices to where they were losing money just to drive the competition across the street out of business. Maybe we should have remembered that lesson when they Chineese flooded our markets with cheap goods. ;)

cessna182b said:
Anybody remember gas wars? The last one I remember was in the summer of 1972 in Los Angeles. You could buy gas for 25 cents a gallon at times. That all stopped with the customary holiday price hike (Labor Day)- and never happened again in my experience. The cheapest price I ever saw was 19 cents a gallon in Phoenix AZ in the '60s (another gas war).

Dave
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Yes, I do! My dad convered an old fuel oil barrel into a gas storage tank on our "acreage". He would drive to the gas station fill it up and drive home to syphon the gas out and dump it into the above ground tank. I guess he thought he was saving money. :rolleyes:
 
Geico266 said:
Gas wars would cause the prices to drop dramatically as dealers would lover the prices to where they were losing money just to drive the competition across the street out of business.
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And today the two companies who are in competition against each other across the street raise/lower their prices to the same exact amount within seconds of each other.
They're not in competition, they're in cahoots with each other.
 
EppyGA said:
Also remember putting $5 in the car and having it damn near filled up.
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Remember when we used to ask for a "dollar's worth" when short on spending cash and it got us enough gas to last a few days?
 
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There is quite a story about Art Lacey going to AZ. and bringing this B17 bomber to Portland, OR. to put up above his gas station in Milwaukee, Or. The station is no longer open but you can go to the Bomber Restaurant. Art's Daughter now runs the place. I have eaten there many times.
 
slacktide said:
Here's another tidbit. Your $3100 Duster in 1970 required 2100 minumum wage hours to purchase. You can get a 2013 Dart for $16,000, or 1900 minimum wage hours. The 1970 Duster got 17 MPG city, and 20 MPG highway (per Popular Mechanics, March 1970. Not bad for the day.) The 2013 Dart gets 27 MPG city, and 39 MPG highway. So a 1000 mile road trip would cost you 12.25 hrs of labor in 1970, or 9.58 hrs of labor today.

Truly, these ARE the good old days we'll reminisce over.
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How much did insurance, maintenance parts, taxes/fees, and all the other operating costs compare?

Purchase price isn't the main cost of vehicles, usually. And I believe the thread was about fuel.

Additionally, how many cents on the dollar in fuel costs were tax vs today? Did asphalt become more expensive? Stop lights? ;)
 
The cheapest gas I paid for was at a circle K in Austin in 1990. $.699 and it was a gas war. It was the first week of June.

Then we went into Dessert Shield and gas went to $1.209 (I think) and I thought that I could not afford to drive anymore.

I adjusted like we all did.
 
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