It looks like it was a 7 gallon fill. That would make it 28 cents or so per gallon. Up here, we're close to $2.00 per liter... or $7.60 CAD per US gallon, factor the exchange rate at 0.78 and it comes to $5.93 USD per US gallon. If I still had my '69 Newport, we're talking a $200 fillup!
Has anyone compared the price of gas when you were first started driving to what it is now? Do the same with a gallon of whole mild to get a good comparison. Also average wage.
1947; gas ~12 cents/gallon; milk ~25 cents/quart, i.e., $1/gallon. 1947: Ford, Firestone, and Rockefeller wanted us to love our cars. Farmers just wanted to make a living. The US economy has always been controlled by the greedy. Today is no different.
I started pumping gas, summer of 1959. Cannot recall the price. It was after the changeover to "Mobil", but the station was till showing as "Mobilgas". I do remember the mid-1960's. Gas price wars a-plenty. One summer morning, either 1966 or 1967, we went clear down to 4.9 cents a gallon for Regular. That only lasted a few hours. But I was the one who took the calls from the oil company, then had to run out, re-set the pumps then change the old style metal price signs.
I remember back in the early 70's, when we went for family drives, we stopped at one gas station around Louiseville QC and I clearly remember it was 36 cents/gallon (Imperial gallons, which are 4.5 liters compared to 3.8 liters for US gallons). Back then it was along route 2 (since changed to 138). That comes to 8 cents per liter. Dad filled the tank of the '65 Savoy for under seven bucks. As Archie and Edith sang, those were the days... Note: around here, most of the greed is taxes.
I bought my first car in '65 at the age of 16 (license at 13) and dad let me fill up at the farm pump ONCE. Then it was $.28 at the co-op. Being on the farm milk was FREE. But if you lived in the city it wasn't. The adjustment to costs are equal to todays prices. But I no longer buy gas. Those that control prices do need to live nicely. They have earned it (taxes).
I'm in a rush! Hurry, Hurry, fill me up anywhere on the Jersey Pike at 25 cents, plus 9/10ths of a cent, seventy years ago. At least there were attendants, and you could get something called a "burger" inside. LOL
A time when the "service" in service station actually meant something! And clean uniforms on the attendants. Beautiful scene.
New Jersey is one of a very few states that still requires "attendants" by state law. When we visit family there, I still get out of the car, THEN realize I can't pump my own gas. I think Oregon is the same with this. NJ still enjoys fairly low gasoline prices as a result of low fuel taxes.
Yes and no. Either the state law was repealed, and it's now county option, or the new state law makes self service legal in communities under a certain size.
Never saw a color pic of that one before. I also never saw a pic of it with someone next to it for scale. No wonder the wheels looked impossibly huge. That's an amazingly low profile truck, especially for that era. I think that's because it's an early dedicated airport tanker, and they were trying to make it fit under the wings of DC-3s. It didn't. Though that's clearly not the only task it did. Was there more than one of those? There's a Diamond T chassis under that custom body, by the way. The design certainly grabs the eye. But I prefer normal Diamond T trucks of the era.
Now that's an oddball. That looks even more like an upside-down bathtub than some of the streamlined steam loco shells... It would make a really cool ride if redone as a van-like vehicle. Keep the same bright red color and the rounded body. One thing's for sure, it would get a lot of double-takes...
