Dan's Papers - July 25, 2008

I'm frankly sick of television news. For the last year we have heard the pundits bloviate about Obama and Clinton. Now, it's higher gas prices every day ad nausea. Unfortunately, much misinformation is being spread by the oil companies and supposed oil and car experts. There has been more *%!$ on the airwaves spread by CNN, NBC and especially FOX than there is in a cow farmer's pasture.

To make you feel better about the four bucks plus you are paying for gas, let me tell you what people are paying for the oily nectar in other countries. Those in the Netherlands are presently paying the highest price in the world, $10.48 per gallon for regular grade. In England it's $9.12, Spain $7.54, France $9.28, Italy $8.68 and Germany almost $9 per gallon. Recently, in a new poll, supposedly the people of Denmark are the happiest people in the world, yet their gas costs $9.76 per gallon. So stop complaining. We seem to be surviving quite well here in the States, so why are we bent out of shape? Obviously, the main reason is that most of Americans, since the beginning of car time, have always driven less fuel efficient cars than the Europeans. This price jump has happened so fast that it has caught all of us with our gas gauges down.

I don't pretend to be an oil expert, but I believe we will have $4 per gallon plus fuel prices forever. Budget and set your driving life style for these prices. The one factor I really worry about is the cost of home heating oil. I don't think it's fair that a homeowner in a cold American climate has to be forced to pay such an increase just to survive in the winter months. Perhaps the government could give a tax credit to these people and at least remove their state and federal tax from the inflated bill.

No one ever used to think much about gasoline prices. When General Motors brought out its economical Corvair in the early sixties, which one of us jumped for joy over how fuel-efficient the machine was, even though it was meant to compete with the Volkswagen? In fact no one even bought the relatively frugal Volkswagen for fuel economy, they bought it mainly because it was extremely well built and really inexpensive. Gasoline at that time ran about 40 to 50 cents per gallon. Who cared how much they used?

In the old days, I remember the biggest concern of the average driver was the mechanical dependability of their car. Another big worry was getting a flat tire, especially on a long trip. In the 1920s, one was considered lucky if he was able to get 10,000 miles on a set of tires. By the 50s and 60s, tires had improved and 35,000 miles per tire was a good deal, but flats were still prevalent. This era was right before the advent of the French tire company Michelin, who invented the steel belted radial tire, which has proved to be a quantum leap in tire safety and longevity. In today's automotive industry, virtually every tire is made in this fashion. Presently, a bizarre aspect of tire development is that many of the new, really high performance, low profile tires with soft rubber compounds have only about 10,000 miles of life in them, worse than rubber of the 1920s! Cars weren't super dependable then either, and when on a long road trip, if the car made it without some sort of problem, it was a feat to be proud of. The great Packard motorcar was known for its legendary dependability. Packard's famous advertising slogan read, "Ask The Man Who Owns One."

Years ago, there were a few vehicles I owned that gave me pause regarding fuel mileage. The first was a 1971 Volkswagen Camper Van. It had virtually the same engine and chassis as an air cooled Volkswagen Beetle, but the main difference was the relatively large and heavy van type body. The truckette had the same shape as a loaf of Wonder Bread, and was as aerodynamic as, well, a huge loaf of bread. Driving down the highway, your gas consumption turned to toast. Due to its shape and lack of horsepower, it had a top speed of only about 72 mph on a level highway and this was the average speed driven on most trips. As everyone who has ever driven an early air-cooled Volkswagen knows, you drove them often with the pedal to the metal. The Camper got about 20 miles per gallon, a concern, but not a real bother because gas was still cheap.

One vehicle whose fuel consumption did concern me was my 1982 31-foot Revcon motor home. I loved this baby. It was the state of the art in motor homes, and probably the best you could buy, next to the legendary and very expensive Bluebird motor home. It was powered by a big, big block 454 Chevrolet V-8, and like all motor homes of the same size, was lucky to get seven miles per gallon. Even when gasoline was cheap, one always thought about it when watching the fuel pump shut off after filling up the seemingly bottomless 60 gallon tank. This all brings up another sad point, and that is motor homes not only look like dinosaurs on the highway, but with fuel being so expensive, they will literally become extinct. Currently, driving the average large motorhome from NY to Florida costs about $1,000 in fuel. It's sad, because to many Americans, RVing is a way of life. Perhaps someday, there will be breakthrough, like a lightweight diesel motor home that achieves at least 20mpg. If you really want to be happy, move to Denmark, where the girls are pretty, but gas is really expensive. Or, you could relocate to Venezuela where the gas is twenty-five cents a gallon. Or, you can stay here and keep complaining.

Bob Gelber, an automotive journalist living in the Hamptons, appears regularly on television as an automotive expert. You can email him at bobgelber@aol.com