09th Mar 2008
$3 gasoline? Noooo!
Piffle. In May 2006, the US Department of Energy said gas prices weren’t all that bad, if you adjusted previous prices for inflation. Of course, even adjusting for inflation the current national average price of $3.16 is getting a wee bit high; also, people drive a lot further in 2008 than they did seventy or eighty years ago.
But adjusting for inflation is complicated math, so it’s a lot easier to just say, “My goodness, $0.19 for gasoline, those folks in 1936 sure were lucky! Why were they getting suckered by fuel-additive scams?” (The modern world gets its share of these as well, including things like magnets to “align” the fuel molecules and other worthless baloney.)
My favorite:
An even greater hoax was the tablets that seemed to change water into gasoline. In this case the “slicker” would drive into a service station and calmly fill his fuel tank with water from a hose. Then, to the amazement of the attendant, he would drop a couple of pills into the tank and drive off, his engine running as well as ever. Naturally, after this happened a few times, the attendant would give almost anything for some of the pellets. The motorist would explain that ordinarily he didn’t sell any pills but finally would part with several packages he had in the car, getting $15 or $20 for enough to “convert 500 gallons of water.” That was the last the service-station man ever saw of his money or the motorist. The answer, of course, was that the motorist had a hidden fuel tank and the rear tank into which he poured the water was just a dummy.
Oddly, average vehicle mileage has remained consistent (without the need to adjust for inflation) over the years at 20 mpg plus or minus a bit. I don’t care whether you’re a believer in global warming or not — it is simply less expensive to have more fuel-efficient cars!
Cheers to Modern Mechanix for making this 1936 article available.
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