The late 1970s oil embargo really put a damper on things, and domestic travel especially. It would not even be a stretch if one were to assert that the citizenry’s forward progress was crimped. Mine was, for sure!
For you see, at this time, I was driving a ‘69 hardtop that was on its last legs. On the highway it burned through about a quart of oil every 200 miles. To make matters worse, there was a hole in the gasoline tank inlet and when driving uphill, gas fumes could be detected by the vehicle occupant’s proboscis?, um, that would be, nose! And, of course, there were the begrudgingly long lines of drivers-in-their-cars waiting, inching their way ever so slowly up to the pumps at gas stations by that time, eager if not desperate, to get their tanks topped off.
Something had to be done!
And there was!
People were all of a sudden buying more fuel-efficient imports. In need of a new car anyway, I opted for a utility vehicle, like a pickup without it actually being a pickup. In California, if you had one of these, you were allowed to get gas any day of the week and twice on Sunday even if need be. Otherwise, for the standard passenger vehicle, as an owner of, the days on which you were permitted to get gas were limited.
I had heard stories of people having to get up in the middle of the night, drive to and wait in long gas-station queues in the hopes of getting gas and then drive off to work and still be able to make it on time.
And, I had even heard of an incident in which one driver with his or her vehicle darted in front of another just to be able to pull up alongside the pump and get a fill-up. In response, the person who was kept from getting access to, after having waited in line and whose rightful time it was to get gas, removed his or her own locking gas cap and placed this on the fuel-tank inlet of the car belonging to the person who cut in line. Needless to say, the so-called “alleged having-regard-for-him-/her-self-but-no-one-else person that they appeared to be,” was thus prevented from getting any gas. I mean, it really got crazy; sometimes the exchange between those in disagreement about this, that or the other, even got violent. From my perspective, that’s how nuts this oil-embargo thing was.
But one thing I’ll never forget and that was with my then new utility vehicle, and after having waited a considerable amount of time myself in line to get gas, right when I finally pulled my car up to the pump, the vehicle’s engine cut off. Talk about luck! I couldn’t have timed it better if I had tried. My car’s gas-tank situation could be summed up thus: desert dry.
Ultimately, we all managed to get through the crisis coming through it, I wouldn’t say with flying colors, us and our cars though perhaps a little the worse for wear, more so our cars than us, thankfully.
It’s also what I believe led to domestic automobile manufacturers making higher quality, more fuel-efficient products, that, at the same time, were less damaging to the environment, good that actually came from this.