[V8] Fuel at $3 + per gallon

[Roger M. Woodbury]

I have found the recent threads about fuel mileage to be really interesting.
I think that at $3.30 per gallon...for premium...we have reached the flinch
point.  I believe that Nixon's "Silent Majorit" are going to start to really
scream loud, because their slice of the Great American Dream is withering.
I don't know about any of you, but if I owned a two year old Ford Explorer,
and was driving it about 40 miles to work and home every day, I would be
some cranky about now, realizing that I would have to double or triple what
I used to spend for gas each week.  

We are looking at the end of an era in terms of social history.  The age of
cheap gas as a birthright in the US is ending, and soon...very soon, we are
going to be exactly like what the Europeans have been for a long time:
devotees of mass transit.

Only we don't have a mass transit system worthy of the name.  Big Oil and
the former Big Three saw to it that we all were raised on the idea of having
our very own "hemi" or "tunnel port" or "GTO" or whatever.  

Now the Gummint is feasting on the bloated concept that we all should be
able to go out and haunt the open road any old time with taxes put upon
taxes upon the cheap gallons of gas.  Only, now that all is going to end.

GM is on the ropes.  It's plans for the next few years are ridiculous when
considered along side the spectre of $4.50 per gallon of regular.  

Ford is generally foundering under the misleadership of the current edition
of brain dead offspring of Henry....only Chrysler might have a key because
it is owned outright by Mercedes, which could really do everything right if
it doesn't let its arrogance get total control of everything...which it
might.

So, what is going to happen?  Well, first of all there will be a mad
scramble to bring to market "new" engines that will get extremely good fuel
mileage.  The manufacturers MUST do this, or they will perish in the face of
rising regular fuel prices. 

Secondly, the manufacturers who have high performance diesels ready, will
grow market share...VW and Mercedes, principally, as they both have engines
that meet the 2007 Federal gummint standards.  GM and Ford will follow with
limitied displacement, or "only some of the cylinders, some of the time"
engines" that will prove to be a maintenance nightmare, and come back to
haunt the manufacturer big time about the 2010 time frame...

In the meantime, those of us with old cars that perform remarkably well on
the rising price gasolines that we have can either keep them running, or
fool ourselves into thinking that we should incur major capital expense to
cut the cost of per-mile driving....typical pound foolish and penny-wise
thinking.

Me?  Well, I am still considering another V8.  Damn the premium fuel cost,
and full throttle ahead!  At least it is an "old" car.....

Roger