What were gas prices during the Nixon gas crisis?

[ButterflyBlood]

and what would they be adjusted for inflation?

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

1. That is really tough to answer, cause most of our cost now is

Taxes.

IIRC in California regular went from around 30/gallon to 95 or so

but that has been a long time now

[eumesmo]

4. That's what I remember too

They were threatening $1.00. Lines were really long.

[Kali]

2. hmmm

I seem to remember them jumping from the 50 cents to 70 cents area - could have been even less for both though - just starting to drive then went out of the country for a year. Tempe/Scottsdale/Phx Arizona. '75 right?

[TexasProgresive]

3. Retail Motor Gasoline and On-Highway Diesel Fuel Prices, 1949-2002

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0522.html

[notbush]

5. Thanks Cooper82

The one I really remember was the 2nd arab embargo, when they were all pissed at us because we let the Shaw (of Iran) come here for medical treatment. I don't remember the lines being as long......but the price increases.....jeeze

[whistle]

6. I remember them going up from...

...(hold onto your socks and pull) $0.199 per gallon in December 1971 in Orlando Florida to $0.749 per gallon during that first oil embargo by OPEC sometime in 1973 or 1974. I remember that period because we had purchased our second family car which was a 1972 Plymouth Station Wagon which had a V8 engine and were only getting 14 mpg around town. I was absolutely livid that I had to pay $11.98 for a fill-up! Ha!

Prices settled back to the $.40 to $.50 per gallon range, but automobile tourism to Florida was so badly affected during those two years, that 85% of the hotels in Central Florida went into some form of receivership or bankruptcy. I think that Nixon had to resign in disgrace due to Watergate that year, and Gerald Ford who was appointed by Nixon when Spiro Agnew was kicked out on criminal charges in late 1973 or early 1974. President Ford then went on to make a name for himself, beaning people with his golf drives through the end of his term in 1976. Cheaper oil began to flow from Alaska, but we ended up selling most of it to Japan and Asian countries. Oil prices have been controlled by OPEC ever since. Get ready for a long hot summer!!!!:nopity:

[neebob]

7. Nixon resigned when I was 14

so I don't remember that much from when he was president, but I was telling my son just today about this big crisis 30 years ago and how stupid it is that everyone seems to have forgotten, with all their V6s, V8s, and hemis. It's as if the big business & government animal wants a disaster.

I remember around the time the Ayatollah Khomeini took over Iran, so it must have been during the Carter administration, regular unleaded was either $1.00 or $1.20 a gallon.

I have to put super unleaded in my Saab, and I just bought my first tank of gas at $2 a gallon last week. It was $2.02, actually, and now it's $2.07. They gave me this tiny can of Coke for filling up, and it seemed fitting. I felt like I should save it.

[TexasProgresive]

8. Energy shortages

The first big oil crisis bin the early 70's began the winter before. At the time I was living in Virginia in a house heated by fuel oil. There was a shortage of fuel oil caused by a harsh winter that lingered and a lack of refinery capacity. Refineries are set up to produce fuel oil starting in the fall and shift to gasoline in late winter or early spring. They had to postpone the shift to gasoline because of the continued demand for fuel oil which left the country short of gasoline the next fall and winter.

While there was an Arab enbargo I don't think it had as much to do with the trouble. During the gasoline shortage I was living in Houston, TX and there were tankers lined up to offload at the refineries. The situation in Houston was higher prices but mostly shortages and long lines.

The next crisis a few years later spiked the price of gasoline sharply and many stations would run out before they could take delivery. Some states made it where you could only gas up on odd or even days. Here in Texas we didn't do that but many stations limited sales to $5.00. One station allowed unlimited sales and when the tanks went dry he closed until he got more fuel. Max profit with limited overhead.

I forget the mechanism that caused that shortfall, but it combined with high oil prices, $40 to $45 a barrel on the spot market, caused Carter to push for alternative energy research which was scuttled by ronny raygun. The remnants of synfuel research is mostly a tax scam that repug backing companies use to cheat the rest of us out of needed revenue for the common good.