one word; internet. we continue to www our way to pants-shitting hysteria. 70's & 80's had no "oildrum.com", "lifeafterthecrash", etc... Perhaps a few freakish newsletter on the fringe back then, but nothing near the kind of alarmists we have today. oil to $500 in 10minutes.
After the oil embargo, the japanese began making even smaller cars and the speed limit went down to 55mph. If you went faster than that, the people you passed would honk their horns at you. I traded my two american cars for two japanese one. I would clock over 50 miles per gallon on my toyota tercel and that was up from 8 mpg. The honda civic did even better acccording to the internet but I didn't own one. I never bought another full size car again. We were on our way to energy conservation. They even installed solar panels on the roof of the white house. Then they elected Ronald Reagan and the first thing he did was take down the solar panels, raise the speed limit and reduce car miliage. Hurray for the "six greatest president history" or so I was told the other day. Frankly, I don't care if gas goes to 20 dollars a gallon or even higher, if it will make way for some honesty and integrity in the United States Government.
How the hell did you get 50 in your Tercel? I had an '83 SR5 5-speed and the best I could manage was 33-35 highway, 29-30 city. What I'd like to know is, why today's cars can't match that Tercel pound-for-pound of curb weight, with the advances in the last 25 years. The 3AC engine was carbureted for Christ's sakes. Yes we have more safety features that add weight but you'd think 25 years of computers, EFI etc would more than counteract that.
i kind of agree. at $20/gal, the roads will be ours. but may have to pack some heat just to get to the grocery store.
In the past there was no possible solution such as alternative energies, the governments alone were forced to find the solution. But now the governments seem to let it flies on its own fate with little intervention and hope the market will fix itself. China has shown some intervention by increase price significantly in the hope that it will reduce the consumption and the result will benefit everybody in the long run.
Hey TA , check the internet it will back me up on that. Probably sticking to the speed limit helped too. 50 mpg or better was easy.
i use to have little nissan sentra with 1.6L-40 mpg on hwy is no big deal. cost me around $60 to get from NY to FL back in 2000. mileage depends on many factors, including your driving style and even weather. btw-i did 400K miles on that car and it runs just fine, until some moron on chevy impala hit me on small street with 25 mile speed limit. the only thing i change on it is oil(i use synthetic all time),brakes and belts. around 350K the car start losing compression a bit, but still runs great.
Your taillight's bleeding. Looks like what compression you lost in the cylinders was gained in the quarter panel