OT - $4/gal Gas Threshold Crossed - Dam Breaking

[B A R R Y]

Cool car!

I had a '78 2 door with a 460, in the early 1990's. Somebody gave it to me.

It would pass anything but a gas station! I think it had a 38 gallon tank...

It was a fun car to drive, but I would have killed for 12/16. Mine got more like 10 overall. I was able to replace the Mark with a brand new 1992 Mazda Protege for my wife's commute between Meriden and East Hartford, CT. The Protege's monthly payment, fuel, taxes, and full insurance coverage were less than the monthly gas bill on the Lincoln.

Every time I backed the Lincoln up for first time of the day, I got a shower from the sunroof!

I always got a kick out of the fact that my Ex-Ryder '86 Ford E350 dualie 14' hi-cube, one of my PA trucks, was lighter than the Lincoln when empty (5800 vs. 6000). The 10,000+ GVW hi-cube only had a

351...

The Lincoln was the only car I ever saw that could fit a 4x12 Marshall half-stack and a guitar in the trunk!

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[B A R R Y]

There you have it!

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[Robatoy]

[e-mail]...

I had, at one time, 5 (five) Minis ( parts for 8) My one Cooper S had

5 different colour doors/boot/fenders etc. I loved that car. I spent a part of my student loan on Mini-Lite wheels. I always carried a spare fuel pump, fan belt and tool kit. I knew that thing inside-out. Great fun blowing people away at traffic lights. I got to know the look of Camaro grilles by seeing them in my rear-view mirrors. Eventually, they'd catch me, because they had the cubes, but what a laugh.

Great mileage too.

r

[Richard Evans]

I had a '58 Cadillac that could carry 4x8 sheets of plywood in the trunk. They stuck out a bit, but I did it many times. There was enough room between the bumper and the radiator I could put a stool there to sit on when I was working on the engine.

Man, those were the days.

[Robatoy]

Thems not 'real' Cooper S's. Fast and fun, no doubt, but expensive FRAUDS!!!...LOL ( I paid $ 800.00 for a 1275 S engine with a Weber on it)

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Rather than blame US car makers, blame the people that insist they need those big vehicles and buy them so they can go to the grocery store for a loaf of bread. . Don't forget to add the Toyota V-8 5+ liter too. No one forces us to buy gas guzzlers.

[Leon]

That engine was a real sleeper. I had a friend that had a Torino with the CobraJet 428 ? 9?. Sounded pathetic, as I recall the AIR pump was the loudest thing under the hood, but blew away 396 Malibu's.

[Richard Evans]

It was rated at 325 HP, but I read years later that it was intentionally underrated to get it by the insurance companies. Actual output was something over 400 HP. Mine was the only one I've ever seen. I read on the Web that there were only something like 126 made.

Good set of pictures here.

was flame orange.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Oil companies are only part of the equation though. Speculators are buying and selling amongst themselves and driving up prices while making millions at our expense. Same with de-regulated electricity.

[Richard Evans]

Sorry, that's only one picture. The collection is here:

[Leon]

Exactly!

[Leon]

In defense of my 5.7 Toyota. ;~) I traded my 5.0 Chevrolet that got worse gas mileage with 150 less hp. The V6 version of my Toyota got 2 mpg better in town and no better on the highway. The V8 had a much bigger rebate than the V6 did and will take about 100 fill ups before the V6 starts to be cheaper to operate. I fill up about 17 times a year.

[Puckdropper]

charlieb wrote in news:483DA674.7BF0 @accesscom.com:

What I want is a more fuel efficient LAWN MOWER. I've got around 4 acres to mow, and it takes 4-5 gallons a week to do it. I wonder if I can get more grass mowed per gallon by putting the next size larger deck on it... Probably not.

Puckdropper

[Robatoy]

=2E..and *I* have to learn NOT TO PUT FERTILISER on my lawn!!!!!!!! WTF is next? A sprinkler system?? Would I be THAT stupid?

[Lew Hodgett]

Goats.

They will even keep the shrubs under control.

Better than sheep with less residue.

Lew

[Axel Grease]

Residue? Do you mean manure?... AKA- fertilizer? Sheep manure is the best fertilize on earth (tied with rabbit poop) but it makes grass grow very fast.

Goats taste good on a barbeque, but they prefer rough forage (the shrubs, trees, vines, flowers, etc)... not very good for mowing grass. Buy short-legged cows to keep grass in check. Shetland ponies are fairly good grass eaters too (and they will pull a home shop built wooden hay wagon, a traction driven sickel bar mower, hay rake, etc.)... but not good to eat, unless you like tough dog food.

Axel

[Phisherman]

I have a Tundra V8. It took $78 to fill up yesterday, but I plan on making that last a few weeks. Actually I need a truck to move furniture, wood, landscaping material, etc but have cut out restaurants, vacation and visits to help offset the cost. We want big vehicles, but 40 mpg too! I am seeing more bicycles lately, which is a very good thing for keeping in shape.

[Jim Behning]

I borrowed a friend's bigger chainsaw when I was putting in fence posts. About 600 fence posts that I was putting points on before hammering them in to the ground. My little Craftsman/Poulan with a 16" blade and a small engine got a lot better hours per gallon than his bigger saw. I keep wanting to replace the saw but it is so cheap to run and it refuses to break. Stupid 25 year old saw.

I bought a 5' used Befco finish mower for behind my John Deere 870. It mowed fast but made an awful racket. I took it apart to figure where all the noise was from. Worn bearings cracked deck, loose sheet metal and some broken welds on the blade shield sheet metal. It may take me weeks to finish welding, patching and replacing bearings but it should be quieter when I am done. I guess since I paid a third of new and I do not pay myself any wages for hours of cleanup and welding time, parts at $200 I am ahead? I really undervalue my free time labor as rebuilding a mower deck is really not fun. It might be more fun if I had bought a 60 gallon air compressor instead of 20 gallon compressor. Sandblasting when you have 2 minutes of good air is pretty slow.

[Swingman]

It's a result of many factors, but "supply and demand" is indeed part of the current scene just from the fact that global production levels have dropped in the last few years.

That said, there is a _lot_ of crude sitting in tankers offshore in "storage" (1980's deja vu?), so much so that tankers are in short supply as storage containers, and Iran, whose oil is not the best refinery product, is the leader of this pack. This, in my mind, _is_ the real reason why Bush was blown off by the Saudi's recently, but not something you will see in the media.

What is also notable is that you don't see the executives of big oil companies scrambling to drill at these prices, which is strange as hell to someone who has BTDT, albeit in a small domestic sense.

Whatever it is we'll sooner or later see. Because, if there is indeed a speculative "index trader crude bubble, and it bursts as all bubbles are wont and the price of crude _plummets_, that will be prima facie evidence of the current record prices NOT being driven by "supply and demand".

In that event, it would be high time to inject some prudent, and possibly global, regulatory restraints on the practice of commodities index trading ... providing you can find an un-buyable politician with the balls/will to lead the charge, if there is such a beast.

IMO, and in any event, and at the very least, some 'transparency' needs to be regulated into the current practice of 'commodities index trading'.

[CM]

Charlie,

Arizona is right behind you.

I remember the first time I paid $2.00 a gallon was in Beverly Hills, CA. . Jill and I were looking for a museum and got lost. We stopped at a little gas station and while I was pumping my gas a Bentley pulled up and a very attractive gal got out to fill her tank. She was wearing a see thru gauze top with no bra. I'm lucky I didn't spill my gas all over. I think I did drool on my shirt. Jill just sat in the car laughing at me.

Take care,

cm