Since only a small percentage here were around and driving then I thought I might mention the parallels of today's fuel crunch and that which led to the first near extinction of our muscle cars and this hobby. In the early 70s the Arab oil embargo, the resulting rapid increase in prices at the pump and lowering of octane by the removal of TEL led to speed shops closings and the muscle cars being parked or junked. It almost seemed like the cars went away overnight. The conditions are as close today as I have seem them since the early 70s. Perhaps one major difference is muscle cars are not so often used today as a primary means of transportation. Nevertheless, the gas pump sticker shock may take some toll if history is an indicator.
Funny, having been born in 1969 I don't remember the first one, but I had just been thinking about this myself based on everything I'd heard.
Those were not fun times, especially when around here when you had to wait in line for your 5 gallon limit of gas. And yes, the cars all went away fast. You could buy most mint muscle cars for under $1000.
I will say that at least here in the early 70s gas stations had lines for hours and only opened for a few hours per day. There oftentimes was a gallon limit on how much you could purchase. Just to give you an example I was in law school at the time. I parked a 63 Vette and operated a beat up VW with a sun coupe style fold back roof. You could not get enough fuel to operate the Vette nor was it affordable. The price/shortage modified my MO and I was hardcore.
Asuming you could find a buyer. There were so many cars out there on the market that the few buyers were very selective.
Well I think it depends, if we we're to hit a crunch like that again it could cause problems, but milegae has increased quite a bit for new "muscle cars" it is hard on those with old cars though. unforunatly I think everything is going to rice without regard to the price of gas
I guess some of us should be thankful that we don't have to use these cars as everyday transportation. I, for one, know if I had to use mine as a regular means of transportation, I'd be in trouble. It's bad enough my V6, with a 13 (or so) gallon tank cost me $25.00 to fill up last week. :ball: When does this end??
Everyone I know that owns an old musclecar uses it for fun only, daily drivers are almost all newer vehicles. I'm in the same boat so price doens't bother me much, I drive about 4-500 miles per year. perhaps that is partly due to our climate, you gonna drive your 450hp restored car in the winter??LOL The new musclecars get much better mileage and are much more efficient overall so it won't have a huge impact, but it will have an impact of some sort. The GTO is destined for 400hp in 05, its really too bad that all these great cars are just getting awesome power and will probably now stagnate there as people buy econobox POS's. Up here I am currently paying 88 cents a liter, or roughly $3.52 per US gallon, and that is regular!! Forecast to go up.... I'm starting to really, really hate the middle east. later Tim
I don't think it's the high HP cars that need to worry right now. Maybe the 5000+ lbs, $100 per fillup, large tired, aerobrick, insurance nightmare/deathtraps that are SUV's will start to drop off. EASILY the largest fuel drain and isnrance cost right now. A man can dream.
No repeat---that was the musclecar owners (and everyone else's) first experience with a gas crunch---caught everyone off guard and remember--these were just "cars" back in the 70's--everyday drivers, in a large part, with low mileage. Don't think it's a problem for our hobby. If anything, we should praise the original gas crunch/oil embargo as it helped "create" the hobby. I know this sounds twisted but bear with me here....... a long, long time ago, in a land far, far away... Think of it this way---generally, no one cared about collectibility, restoration, etc of these 5-10 year old cars (back in the 70's). Joe Blow went out and jumped in his GS, 442, etc and drove it to work everyday. Then, out of left field....WHAMMM!.....gas goes through the roof, gas lines, pollution concerns etc all converge to force A LOT OF THESE CARS TO BE SOLD, PARKED IN BARNS, GARAGED or generally BE TAKEN OUT OF COMMISSION. Net result--they became available for sale again or were "put up" or driven infrequently. So....a lot of them stopped being driven regularly and that means less exposure to salt, sand, etc in the harsher climate areas. Had they continued to be driven every day then the attrition rate, in my opinion, would have been much higher--consider: -More salt, sand exposure the more miles driven -More WRECKED musclecars.....a parked car doesn't get totalled as frequently as a driven car -More of them would have been worn out and ended up in salvage yards or crushed earlier possibly..the more they were driven the more likely these factory original motors would have been blown up, thrown out and replaced...less original motor car might have been the result! I think the "unintended" consequence of the oil embargo etc actually benefitted all of us in the long run as more cars survived than would have if gas prices had remained low. However, there is ONE CATCH to this whole scenario...all musclecar owners owe a debt of gratitude to the Mid East shieks that pulled off the embargo...and to pay back that debt you are now required to CONVERT TO ISLAM to thank them. You can thank me and when you see me you can buy one of my new rugs that I am having produced in the middle east--this will be a finely woven rug, small enough to roll up and fit in the trunk---I am going to have them weave a TRI SHIELD PATTERN into it---so 3 times a day ( or whatever they require) you will be able to pull over, unroll the rug and pray to allah!! Ask yourself......what would allah drive? Really, the whole mid east problem is that they are all pissed off because we have all the cool musclecars! My $.02. Patton:laugh: :laugh:
Patton I hope your point of view is correct. I have not heard so much vocal grousing around the fuel pumps as the early 70s and today. Generally people quietly pump and say little but that has suddenly reverted back to the angry chatter I have not heard since the early 70s.
Well Jim---this latest gas price rise (actually in "real dollar" terms it is nowhere near as bad as back in the 70's...to get that bad oil prices would have to be $75-80/bbl) may mean that 15-20 years from now everyone will be collecting SUVs!!!! I hear sales of the higher end SUVs are falling off ...Hummers etc. For sale----NOS 2001 Suburban Grille.......$3000!!! Do these SUVs have a one year only hood chrome????
An opportunist will buy up used SUVs right now as buyers flock out to purchase econoboxes, and hold on to them for a year or two... -Bob Cunningham
C'mon David!!!!!---I was already working on a repro for those water jugs......dang it!!!.......hmmmmm....maybe tailight lenses then. Patton:Brow:
Jim I remember those days, had a Sunbeam Tiger , and worked at a Honda M/C Dealership. Sold more Bikes than the local car Dealerships. If youhad a Lincoln or a Caddy, you KNEW you were going to take a BATH to trade it on the Vega you were looking at,and I am SERIOUS. Big Cars, & Performance, were OUT! IF you were in wholesaling, and checking the back lots of New Dealerships, they wanted to package some of those cars. "you want that 71 Duster, you have to take that 69 427 Vette,for the $1400 I'm in it for." 79 was BAD Also. I remember our 79 F-150, 302, Auto. 3,08:1 gear. Coming down Mt Ranier, there was a Station, "GAS $5" If you needed gas That was the limit. I pulled in, and the guy ahead had just topped his Honda Goldwing for $3, I paid him the other 2, and the $5 to the attendent, to get back to West Seattle. The guy behind me in line was PO'd, because I ended up with the Biker's excess, and he was sweating it getting home. Tough times. Patton, IF that is Hemp you are using for your Rugs, QUIT SMOKING the Inventory!!!!!!! JR
This is one of the reasons why I got rid of my 454 3/4 ton 4x4 GMC. I got tired of getting 10 mpg and bought a new 2wd S-10. If you were going to buy a tow rig, now's the time. Soon they'll be selling like the musclecars of the 70's, cheap! I traded my fullsize in March and I would hate to see the trade-in value now. The one good thing is our oil reserves are the highest yet, so hopefully the government will overflow the market with oil in order to bring the price down. With bringing the price of oil down and the arabs producing limited amounts of barrels, hopefully they'll turn around and increase the production to keep the price back down.
Duuuuuuuude! No hemp----just getting worked up sitting here thinking it sure is quiet at work....and a few folks from Austin headed to BG tomorrow with room to spare in the vehicles....mind starts to wander. What may be needed is a massive dose of V8(and V6) Buick noise and power. Had dinner with Jim Burek last night (on his way to BG) and that sure as heck didn't help! Jim--you have to admit we sort of got "caught with our pants down" again as everyone is driving trucks and SUVs now and sure enough...just when everyone has the driveway loaded with not-so-great-mileage vehicles....the gas price goes up again. Makes you wonder if those dudes over in S. Arabia keep a close eye on SUV/Truck sales and just when they see us over here at "maximum SUV" owerhship (meaning everyone has at least one) they tighten the spigots and let the prices climb! People need to realize that when you don't control the oil, then you are at the mercy of those that do....China is not helping either as they are buying every resource in sight to fuel their boom right now. Let's see...China takes 40% of worlds cement supply right now, something like 20-25% of the steel and some oil(reason being is they are using a lot of diesel powered generators for power because that's the fastest way to generate power over there...building other type plants takes too long). They haven't even started buying cars in a big way yet--income of avg. person still too low....so wait til the income starts to flow to the "regular" people and they start really buying cars...then you will see a sustained increase in oil demand! China is one of the biggest factors that didn't exist in the prior crunches. Let's hope those folks in the government are able to cool things off over there. They are trying, as we speak, to cool off their overheated economy....ratcheting up interest rates, tightening lending standards(already the banks over there have something like a 25-35% NON PERFORMING LOAN rate---and this is in a hot economy or good times!!!!---ugggh). Problem is this, we may get what we want---lower oil prices---but it may be caused by a "bursting of the Chinese economic bubble----which will then hammer Japan, Korea, etc which are all pretty much booming based on their exports to China right now. Remember the "Asian Contagion" back in 1997?----when Korea, Taiwan, etc all blew up financially--and it spread to Russia and caused somewhat of a recession here? There is a massive amount of "hot money" invested in China right now----these are not long term type investors---first sign of trouble and they YANK their $$$ out of whatever economy they happen to be invested in. This time it's in China--and the problem with China is that they have no way of controlling the outflow of this "hot money" because of the structure (or lack thereof) of their capital markets---basically they don't have a valid capital market (ie--government bond market with real customers that will buy bonds)---so when people want their money back, in a regularly structured economy, the government needs to raise money---to do that the government sells bonds (raises cash). In China this market mechanism basically doesn't exist. Watch what happens in China-----if that place "busts" it will not be pretty. Sorry about the long thread but it's quiet today. Patton
then and now i lived thru the arab embargo , before . in canada , we paid far less for our gas because we could refine our own crude , in sufficient quantities. i did not worry about the extra fuel cost then . it was not that great here . and i was using #1 gas in my chevelle . as for the current situation , i think in this day and age that if u are able to afford a thirsty suv , then u can afford to pay for the fuel . how many drivers of high fuel usage will actually be unloading that vehicle for a 4 banger subcompact ? i will continue to drive my 72 gs & my 98 gs supercharged , both running on #1 gas . i did not buy them for the gas mileage . i do have a 99 saturn as my drive to work car .
Pick ups and vans are both OK by me. But Im HATE suv's! If one thing that's good comes of this expensive gas, it will be the total obliteration of those ugly boheemuth things! They have killed more people who have been so unfortunate as to be in a smaller vehicle involved in a colission with one of them than I care to know. They are also the reason insurance rates are skyrocketing. Everytime I fill up I feel better when I think that with each passing day, these boat anchors are becoming more extinct. Perhaps with the passage of time, I will actually be able to see past the thing parked next to me because it is no longer an SUV.:af: Furd excursion <-------:moonu:
