will our cars be worthless?

[CudaSRT8]

Cheapstreet, I agree.  I must just be getting too old, but the current world situation reminds me of the past, cyclicle (sp?) trends, just different times, people and places.  The process of freedom, free enterprise system and inflation can be painful, but it's a fact of life here and it's what our young men fight and die to protect.   

When I got my first car, gasoline was only $ .26 per gallon and when it went up to $ .36, (that's what, a 50% jump?) within a couple year period, people freaked.  It stabilized for a few years but went through the ceiling to $ .50 during the first gas crunch.   I was driving a 440 six pack Challenger at the time and went out and got a Morris Minor as a second car to get to work (    ) !

Automotive body and paint materials for a complete strip and re-paint could be had for $50 tops.  The last high end body and paint job I did in the '90's cost my customer $2,600 just for the materials and paint.  In the '90s!  I don't have my shop anymore, but I'm sure it'd be a lot more now!   

Gas is now about $3.45 (regular) in the S.F. bay area and I fully see it going to $4 or $5 before it stabilizes for a while.  We better get use to that fact.  I won't be doing anything different except drive the 'cuda a little less than I would if gas were cheaper... 

[canadart]

Im with most of you guys on this one... PRY IT FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS!!
As a somewhat younger member of this hobby obsession at 22 I dont care if my car is older than i am, there is nothing that can compare to the feeling of sitting behind the wheel while that big old 440 sings its song to me. To me the grin it puts on my face is worth the $11 a gallon for race gas, and that they cant take away from me.
  to the big oil companies

Just my $.02

[eldubb440]

  to the big oil companies

if not for the oil companies, we'd have no fuel at all.........they have to find it, drill it (or buy it at 90+ dollars a barrel), transport it, refine it, and deliver it. id say the state and federal government makes more off a gallon of gas than the oil companies do......... and all they have to do is tax it

[Jim_Lusk]

eldubb is right. The government (state and federal) make more money on each gallon of fuel than the oil companies.

[67Satty]

I really don't understand all the hand-wringing.  Things are better now in this hobby (Mopars) than they have been in the last 25 years that I have been involved in it.  Gas is actually cheaper than it was in the early 80s right now.  "Why, I remember when gas was 25 cent a gallon, blah, blah, blah".  You need to compare 2007 dollars to whatever era you are talking about and you will find that gas is actually still pretty cheap.

Look at how easy it is to find parts and information for these cars today.  Remember when nothing was being reproduced and there were no message boards, just hanging out talking with people at speed shops and at the dragstrip, scrounging around junkyards and swapmeets?  Then again, maybe that was more fun in some ways.

Look at all the different ways of making huge power that was unheard of just 20 years ago:  cheap stroker kits, turbos, prochargers, E85, cheap aluminum heads.  Twenty years ago if you had a street car that could run 12s, you were a bad-ass and there were a few people running around with 10 second cars that were considered on the lunatic edge for what you could do with a street car.  Now, ten second street cars are common and there's a handful of people running around with 8 second street cars.

The only down-side I can see is that the used cars and parts have gotten to be too expensive.  Too many people are into it just for the money, and less little guys just trying sell off their extra stuff they don't need for a reasonable price.  But as long as you don't need an E-Body or a '68 Charger or something, there are still plenty of Darts and Satellites and things like that that people are practically giving away.

Do I feel guilty for owning a gas-guzzling Mopar?  Hell no!  How much gas is it using sitting in the garage most of the time?  If you're gonna feel bad about how much gas your old muscle car uses, you might as well feel bad about a whole bunch of other things that have a lot more effect on the world than that.  Worst-case scenario, we can just bump up the compression a whole lot and run some E85 and make even more power 

[A13Dart]

eldubb is right. The government (state and federal) make more money on each gallon of fuel than the oil companies.

Yup, this is true.  The tax per gallon is more than the oil company profit per gallon.  Another little known fact is  that the U.S. now imports about 12% of refined fuel to meet demand, since we don't have enough refinery capacity anymore.

E85 is heavily subsidized and not profitable to make.  Drives up the price of corn, so the answer isn't here either.

[CudaSRT8]

Satty,
IF you're quoting ME, sorry, but you totally missed the point in my post...   

[Jim_Lusk]

Amazingly enough the front page of our local liberal rag that masqurades as a newpaper had an article that does explain how the price of fuel today is not as bad as it was in the early 1980s (when inflation is taken into account).

[CheapStreet Duster]

the weeker dollar is a huge factor.....trade deficit's
so is the lack of any new refineries.. ,,,,supply.
the damn stock speculators are the current inflators..,,,.$50+ a barrel ?
they just broke ground near me on a alcohol plant that gets it from "fermented"
wood pulp or cellulose.....a byproduct of paper and wood mills...so getting e85 may be cheap and
plentifull in my area in the near future..?
cheaspt.

[67Satty]

Satty,
IF you're quoting ME, sorry, but you totally missed the point in my post...   

Not quoting YOU, just ranting in general.  I can't say that I even know that I read your specific post. 

Here's some more things we have these days that I forgot to mention:  high stall torque converters that work good on the street as well as the track, inexpensive aluminum radiators, lightweight starters, better cam profiles, better pistons, Cal Tracs, drag radials, DOT slicks, 3" mandrel-bent exhaust, the list goes on and on.  The interest in hopping up these cars is still very strong and I don't see it going away any time soon.  Just my two cents.

[austin9746]

Just my 2 cents.  I am only 23 so I have not been around nearly as long as many of you guys, but I have been driving long enough that I remember being able to fill my 72 valiant for less than $20 when I started driving in 2000.  If I recall gas was just about $1/Gallon.  I am a full time college student now in my last year, and am trying to find the time/money to get the valiant back on the road.   I spent the last 8 months in Germany, and before everyone starts freaking out about the 2.95 we pay for gas think about this.  They are on the metric system and buy fuel by the liter.  The are somewhere near 1.50 euro/liter last I heard.  So if you multiply all of this out you come to around 6 euro/gallon and if you were converting the euro to dollars thats about $11/gallon.  I am not trying to say that gas should be as high as it is here, but even at $4/gallon I think we are still well below what it could be.  I will also say that I do not know how some people can afford to drive at all the way it is now, when it costs $50 to fill your car with gas for the week so you can get to work, and many people are making around min. wage at $7/hr I wonder how they can afford to put a whole days wages in their gas tank. 

I would consider myself pretty socially liberal, and feel that there are a lot of things that need to be improved in our country as far as transportation is concerned.  I think everyone should look at the big picture before they start worrying about losing their car because they cant afford to keep it on the road.  As far as transportation goes there are a lot of areas that could be improved to lower Americas overall consumption of petroleum based fuels.  I know the cities are a lot more spread out here than in Europe, but the public transport systems, even in the poorest countries like poland are far better than anything I have seen here.  Also consider this, as long as I can remember the airlines in this country have been running inefficiently, are habitually delayed, and need the government to keep bailing them out of bankruptcy court.  The last I heard the most profitable airline in the US is Southwest Airlines, and they are running a profit margin of around 7%.  In europe there are many small carriers such as ryanair and easyjet that pay higher taxes than our airlines do, and ryan air is running about a 29% profit margin.  In my opinion if there were a higher standard for corporate responsibility many of issues with the transportation industry could be alleviated. 

I guess what I am trying to say is that before everyone starts jumping ship and selling their cars we need to think about pushing our government to increase funding for more efficient public transportation that would greatly reduce our demand for oil.  All I am saying if it were available, and I could take the train to school and work during the week in order to be able to drive my car on the weekends or nights off I would be more than happy to do it.  Also I would have to agree with the guys talking about converting to propane, if it means we have to adapt to changing times and find another fuel source, or even pull our motors and figure out some sort of hydrogen or electric set up 10 years from now when the technology is more readily available I would be more than happy to do so rather than give up my car.  I think it all comes down to us as a country standing up to the oil companies and automobile manufactures here and demanding a better product.  I may be wrong with these figures but I remember reading about the feather dusters that were made around 72? if i remember right, anyways if I recall correctly the cars had mostly aluminum body panels, an aluminum block slant six and a single barrel carb, and they got almost 30+ miles to the gallon on the highway.  Someone please explain to me how this was possible 35 years ago, and many of the fuel injected four cylinders on the road today are lucky if they can put up those kinds of numbers.  I remember looking at a 4 cyl. 5spd, S10 truck at one time, and it was rated at something like 21 miles to the gallon. Something about that just doesn't add up to me. 

The automobile companies in our country need to get a clue and start making more environmentally responsible cars, and in my opinion there should be a varied tax rate for fuel, whether it be based on personal consumption or the type of vehicle you drive. I agree with A13Dart that the tax rate on fuel is outrageous, but do you think that the soccer mom that is driving a giant Hummer that will seat 30, but 95% of the time is only occupied by the driver should have to pay the same tax as someone who is trying to make a difference and driving a fuel efficient hybrid or something of the sort.  My daily driver is a fairly efficient car, and considering that my valiant will be for fun only, at this point I can justify the 12 miles/gallon it will get since it will be driven maybe once every couple of weeks when I have time to go get it out of the garage. 

Sorry this kind of turned into a long rant, just hate to see people worrying about bailing on such a great hobby when there are so many things that could be done to save it in the 10 or 15 year window that you guys are looking at. 

[A13Dart]

austin9746 has made the same mistake that many people do.  You can not compare the price of fuel in the U.S. with any European country.  They have very little natural oil resources, and, more importantly, almost no refinery capacity.  They should be paying much more than us, and they are.  Canada has oil resources, but again, very little refinery capacity.  The largest energy advantage  that Europe has over us is more Nuclear power plants per capita.

[Poison_Dart]

Amazingly enough the front page of our local liberal rag that masqurades as a newpaper had an article that does explain how the price of fuel today is not as bad as it was in the early 1980s (when inflation is taken into account).

Yes this might well have been true, Although back in the 80's  I could fill my trucks for 25.00  2 x weekly for a total of 50.00 to go to work all week and earn approx ( 1800 per week *example) and the work was plentiful,
However now
it takes 70.00 to fill each time,and going up... I must fill 3 times weekly over 200 and travel farther to earn less, so for this reason we here in Ga,
must think , hmmm, Fuel for work or fuel for recreation? it's not in my thoughts of how much fuel is available in the future! it's how much I must pay for the fuel to earn my living, Because if I am to stay in business? I must eat the fuel cost rather then to pass the cost on to my customers as most businesess tend to do. This is what I hear quit a lot of other contractors say they do, However! the most of them are siiting at home or either waisting fuel ridding the job sites trying to look for work, go figure? I know some times it doesn't make any cents to take less and spend more, but in the long run this is what it takes to continue to operate a business here in Ga. So these are the kind of concerns I have about whether or not to have a Gas guzzling engine for recreation use, besides me having the ol-'71 was only a challange as to if I could cram a Bigblock down in-er, yes! it was done and yes! it was fun, but now's the time to move
on to something that I can actually afford to drive again, perhaps if I had left the slant 6 in and beef it up a bit?
 I am glad to so so much optimism though, at least this will keep the BigblocksDarts alive a while Longer...

[moparrr07]

if gas runs out im sure the aftermarket will come through, they allready have e85 carbs out now so im sure e100 are not too far along

[Mopartist]

If the time comes when I can no longer afford to drive a hot Mopar; I'll switch to this. The most 4 wheel fun you can have without being a hot rod.

[automan63]

What really blows my mind is that the people that seem to bitch the loudest about the price of gas being 3.+ dollars a gallon stand there bitching while drinking their 16 OZ "Desani" bottled water that they paid 2.50 for. If you do some quick math, at that rate that equates to $20.00 per gallon for water. Go figure. 

[ValiantOne]

What really blows my mind is that the people that seem to bitch the loudest about the price of gas being 3.+ dollars a gallon stand there bitching while drinking their 16 OZ "Desani" bottled water that they paid 2.50 for. If you do some quick math, at that rate that equates to $20.00 per gallon for water. Go figure. 

My truck takes 35 gallons of gas. I don't drink near that much water!!!

[fourspeed]

What really blows my mind is that the people that seem to bitch the loudest about the price of gas being 3.+ dollars a gallon stand there bitching while drinking their 16 OZ "Desani" bottled water that they paid 2.50 for. If you do some quick math, at that rate that equates to $20.00 per gallon for water. Go figure. 

I drink Pabst. It's cheaper!

[automan63]