Car manufacturers’ ads began to heavily “inflate” the gas mileage their cars would get.
VW then came out with an ad that made fun of that trend, with their “Honest 25 mpg” ad.
And an accompanying short video to also get their point across:
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One other angle about the gas shortages - I remember them as a teenager, I wasn’t a 30 or 40 year old trying to support a family by getting to work. I could walk to school and work. It would have been a much bigger deal for them.
At the time, I had a daily 52 mile round-trip commute, and my car got the fairly-typical for the time 13-16 mpg. So, even if I didn’t do anything other than go to work each day, I needed at least 17 galllons of gas each week. When some stations were limiting you to a $3.00 purchase, that meant that I needed to wait on long gas lines 3 or 4 times per week, just for my commuting. This was an incredible waste of time.
During that period, I was also in process of moving from one apartment to another (a move of about 20 miles), and the moving company announced that they were imposing a $100 surcharge for gas, and I had no choice but to pay it. That would be equivalent to more than $600 today.
Back then I was a garageman in a USPS shop in Flushing N.Y. Part of my duties on the 4-12 shift was refueling all the vehicles as they came back from a day of deliveries and writing down how much each vehicle took.
Funny how at the end of the day there was always a gallon or two more used on paper than what was on the pump meter.
To make the book and the pump meter balance, a gallon or two would have to be pumped into my 1959 Volvo PV544.
The book had to be balanced and I found a way.
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I remember that! I was half asleep in the back seat at 2AM on New Years Day. We were driving home from a NYE party and the CHP was driving on the freeway, over the loudspeaker repeatedly saying “Gentlemen, slow down!”
Joe Isuzu!
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I grew up in a pretty rural town that grew into a city. Back then, gas stations were few and far between. There were no long lines because there weren’t enough people but gas was often hard to come by. Like VDCdriver, my car got maybe double digits mpg and had a huge tank. And I wasn’t rich so had to add gas often even when gas was plentiful.
I vividly recall my reaction when I discovered my car had sprung a gas leak. My precious gas!! That was probably the fastest repair I ever did 
That brought back a memory from before the gas shortage days. In 1970, I then was driving my father’s '66 Galaxie 500 to my teaching job each day, and I discovered that it had developed a gas leak. The gas tank on these cars was more or less a vertical tank that was installed above the rear axle, which meant that it was a much more time-consuming job than gas tank replacement would normally be.
So, I made an appointment with the Ford dealership for this job and filled out the required form at work for a Personal Business Day. On the form, it was necessary to state the reason for that day off, so I wrote “Emergency car repair”. The Principal–who was a nasty by nature chain-smoking older woman–called me into her office and snarled, “Get your oil changed on your own time, Mr. VDC!”.
My response, was… “Miss Connelly, my gas tank is leaking, and since you always throw your Lucky Strike butts near my parking space, I would have thought that you would also feel that this car repair is indeed an emergency”.
She sheepishly signed an approval for my day off, and added…
Perhaps I should ask more questions before drawing conclusions.
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I got back from Nam right at the start of the gas crisis. I remember seeing gas lines 1-2 miles long. And if you were the last mile, it was highly unlikely there’d be any gas left for you. People were running out of gas all the time. Many people couldn’t afford these extreme increases in gas prices. Gas prices tripled almost overnight. When you’re lower income - that was a significant part of your budget.
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It was '79. I remember because my new bride and I picked up a new car and drove it from the dealer directly onto a gas line. For me that second shortage was worse because I was driving for work at the time and I needed to fill up every other day. I was commuting to college in '73.
I have to say, that was indeed a pretty rude reaction to your simple request . If your supervisor doubted the “emergency” nature of the repair, she could have asked you for a copy of the dealership repair invoice. Years ago I had a boss that doubted my reason to take a day off to attend a family member’s funeral. But he didn’t imply I was faking, he simply asked me for the name, then he verified there was a funeral notice in the local newspaper.
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Unfortunately, her usual practice was to shoot-off her mouth, and to think… later.
No matter how many times she made a fool of herself, she never seemed to change her pattern of behavior. And, of course, I could have informed her that she was very ignorant if she didn’t know the difference between periodic maintenance and emergency repairs, but–as we all know–it’s not a good idea to alienate those who wield power over you. The following year, I requested a transfer to a different school in the district, and when it was granted, my quality of life at work improved greatly.
Incidentally, that Principal was the same one who used to drive her mother to 4 or 5 different supermarkets on Saturdays in order to “save” 2 cents here and 3 cents there. She was fully capable of making life miserable for the underlings in her employ, but she couldn’t manage to give her mother some reality about how many dollars she was spending for gas while helping her mother to save… maybe… 50 cents.
Edited to add: Because two Personal Business Days per year were part of our contract, the Board of Ed (under pressure…) later ruled that a Principal couldn’t ask you about the nature of your PERSONAL Business. I think that this particular Principal’s policies were a major factor in the Bd of Ed’s ruling.
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In the early '70s when I was still a first termer in the Air Force, a two striper (E-3), a co-worker’s grandmother died and he was giving his sergeant a heads-up that he would be taking emergency leave to attend the funeral. The sergeant, who was a JERK, thought he was being funny when he said, “Why do you need emergency leave, she’s already dead…” I thought my co-worker was going to cry, his grandmother basically raised him due to an absent father and alcoholic mother… When the sergeant did not get at laugh, he then said “Hey, don’t you have two Grandmothers?” About that time another sergeant told him to knock it off… When the co-worker returned from leave, that sergeant had transferred to another section, I do not know if it was commander directed (punishment) or just our luck…
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