Time warp home movie of the 1979 gas lines
 

Too cool not to watch, and I wasn't disappointed. Lots of random Pontiacs in the mix to go with all the old 70's wagons and other 'dinosaurs'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqP9Rk9kMGQ

I remember those days, wait in line for hours and only getting to buy 10 gallons of gas. Had sold my gas guzzler and bought a VW bug.

The season of $350 pontiacs, and $50 running parts cars.

My dad traded in a 69 roadrunner for a gremlin ! Could a 383 roadrunner with an afb , 4spd , 3.55’s be that much worse on gas compared to a 6 cyl gremlin ? He claimed it was , I’m not convinced .

I like the Photo Hut, and the Fancy Blue and White Maverick, its not a grabber I don't know what model it is, big bumpers so a 74 or 75 model?

Apparently it is a 74 Grabber Maverick, I found the same model and colors on line,

https://www.motoexotica.com/vehicles...-ford-maverick

There were zero gas lines around the S Central region of the US in 1979. I was a young one, but even so driving well into western OK, N & central TX, & even over into Arkansas, no lines. Thankfully this region had the supply, pipelines, & nearly 3 times as many refinerys as today. What I also remember is our family's crude checks going up, along with the price of Regular (minutely leaded) fuel going up from around 65 cents a gal to 1.20-1.30 gal. Leaded premium was already gone at the pump.

Nice Trans Am 3:52.

I leased a Pennzoil gas station from Aug 1977-April 1982, so I lived the gas shortages from the retailer point of view.

Orderering a load of fuel towards the end of the month, only to be told you were at your allotment for that month, so you couldn't get more fuel until after the first of the next month. So you just put barrels in front of the pumps, and signs that you're "OUT OF GAS", until the fuel company decides to send you another tanker load of fuel. Just because the first of the month finally rolls around didn't mean you're going to get a load of fuel either. They send it when it suits their schedule, but make damn sure you pay the rent on time, even though you have no product to sell, the rents stays the same.

The irony of the whole experience, was they closed the station I was leasing, and terminated my lease, because I wasn't selling enough product, unfortuneatly, a true story.............:noidea:

The real reason is they were convinced that self serve stations were the new wave of the future, 2 years after I moved out, the building sat vacant, then they finally tore the existing full serve station down, and replaced it with a self serve kiosk station. When they still weren't selling as much product as they wanted to, they sold the location off to a competitor company. The competitor now has 2 stations directly across the street from each other, ya can't make this ***** up.

Oil companies don't care if they strangle your wages, and living. Just an all around bad experience I had dealing with a major oil company. They about put me broke when they decided to close that location that I was leasing.

After signing a new lease in Aug, with of course a large increase in rent, ($500 per mo, to $800 per mo) no warning whatsoever that in September I would get a notice that they were terminating my lease. I held on until April 1st of the following year, after they ran me out of money, and I was forced to give in...........Good times, life's lessons.....:mad:

:focus:

Well he got rid of a 10 mpg car and got a 20 mpg car for the most part.

One of my cousins was married to a guy who had a 1967 427 4-speed Corvette. I was taken for a ride in it at around age 12 and I thought it was the greatest thing in world. :)

Not much later they traded it in for a Mazda rotary, this was probably 1973. :(

‘Twas a sad day when they pulled up in that Mazda, I really wanted another neck-snapping ride in that ‘Vette.

I got my driver's license in late July 1973. I had a weekend and after-school job and was driving a Falcon Sprint with a 260 V8 at the time. I had about two months of freedom, which I didn't really get to enjoy that much because I was working weekends and after school. Then the Arab Oil Embargo hit in October 1973, and gas prices went up drastically. My dad was running a garage and sold used cars at the time. I had a Honda CL125 that I rode around our property. My dad put a tag on it and I used it to make parts runs and grocery store runs, plus I rode it to school on days I had to work.

There was a good side to the gas rationing, used musclecars were cheap. My dad had a dealer's license, and went to the auto auction about every other week. I used all of my savings to buy a 1968 Torino GT convertible with a 390 4-spd with only about 60K miles. Price was about $250 plus a small auction fee. I remember trying to talk my dad into buying a nice Corvette, which was only $1000 at the time.

I hope those days never come back. My work hours were severely cut, and it was tough on everybody. I finally had my driver's license and freedom, but no money to do anything.

Mike

We had the gas lines and rationing in the 73 fiasco around here.
But I don't recall anything going on in 79 like that.

Took drivers ed in summer 79 and started driving in late 79

Was 17 in '73 working the Exxon station. Odd/even day's $5 limit,lot of pissed people. Exxon was trying to put my boss out of business as he was a independent. My girl friend's (wife) father was a Amoco jobber and would drop off tanker load in the middle of the night. Exxon never caught on.

Sold my Ram Air 67 GTO during the gas crisis....a move I regret to this day.

There was some rationing in 1979, but it was not nearly as bad as it was in 1973. I was in college living in the dorms at UNC-Charlotte in 1979. My home was about 30 miles away, and I went home every weekend for a Saturday job. I remember that I didn't go home for a couple of weekends due to concerns with being able to find gas to get back. The money I was earning barely covered gas to go back to my dorms.

I think the rationing only lasted a few weeks. Gas became available but was much more expensive. Cruising was popular in the 1970s in my home town, but high gas prices killed it for a while. I was driving a 1964 Buick Riviera with the dual carb 425 (factory) at the time. I had to park it because gas got so expensive. My dad bought a cheap early 1960s Studebaker Lark with an electrical problem. I fixed the electricals and drove it for about a year or two. In 1980, I bought a Suzuki GT550 2-stroke street bike. I fitted it with a luggage rack and saddle bags, and used it to commute back and forth between home and my school and jobs.

I was driving a 65 Lemans 2dr original 3spd stick,with later 350 ,qjet and M40. Kept the SD in the garage.

I was working at a full service Gulf gas station in that time period starting in 1973. Minimum wage in Ohio was .75 cents an hour. I was in high school, working after school and often closing the station at 11:00 PM. Clocking 40-50 hours a week including Saturdays and Sundays for a whopping .90 cents an hour. Our gas pumps would only mechanically register to 99 cents a gallon. We sold gas in half gallon increments when the gallon prices first exceeded 1.00 per gallon for premium. There were even/odd days for purchasing fuel but my boss had a list of about 50 long time regular customers who we would sell gas to anytime they came in. That was a real "customer loyalty" program!!

And let's not forget the national highway speed limit was set to 55 mph in 1974 due to that fuel crisis. Fifty-five on the interstate was brutal, especially in rural states!

Fun fact: $0.81 in 1979 - $3.50 in 2024 dollars.