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Murilee Shows You How To Steal Gas, 1985 Style!
Some guys might be ashamed of a blurry Super 8 film showing them at age 18, siphoning gas whilst sporting dirtbag-style long hair (no, it's not a goddamn mullet), a Dark Angel T-shirt, and a '68 Mercury Cyclone with cheap mags in the back and factory hubcaps on the front... but this is Jalopnik! Here's some footage I shot for a film class; let's just say I gave up on the project because it's really hard to capture a good burnout at night on ASA 64 Super 8 movie film (it does show off some cinematic technique, with a sophisticated skateboard-as-camera-dolly shot). And, since Super 8 film is silent and we are not crooks, let's have a little Tricky Dick soundtrack to go with it! Never heard of Dark Angel, dude? Make the jump!More »
i feel gassy
SwiftFuel Is Just Like Fuel, Except Probably Full Of Crap
Today brought us news of a purported new solution to high gas prices: SwiftFuel. Currently intended as a replacement for leaded 100-octane aviation fuel, SwiftFuel claims to be ethanol-based, but somehow free from ethanol's negatives such as its lower energy density, incompatibility with gasoline, and propensity to destroy rubber components. How do we know all this? The company's MySpace page told us so. But since we realize social networking sites sometimes contain minor misrepresentations, we decided to dig deeper. What we've discovered, and more importantly, what we still don't know, after the jump. More »
i feel gassy
AutoNation CEO Says High Gas Prices Are Good For You, Automakers
Mike Jackson, Chairman and CEO of AutoNation (and thus America's number one car salesman), finally breaks taboo and utters the unthinkable: High gas prices are a good thing. "You have to tell the American people the truth," he says. "Energy costs are going to be higher." Oh Mike, Mike, Mike. Don't you know that the first rule of Car Club is that gas will always be cheap? And if it isn't, then you make it cheap, a-la Chrysler's "Let's Refuel America?" Mr. Jackson's
i feel gassy
More Cheap-Ass Drivers Ignoring Gas Gauge, Getting Stranded
There are good reasons for running out of gas; let's say you're the Lord Humungus and the only way to get the juice is to defeat the puny plan of the refinery owners. Or maybe your primered-out hoopty lacks a functioning gas gauge. Fine reasons, those. However, if you run out of gas on the road because you can't bear the idea of paying so much for go-go juice... well, our tear ducts are staying dry over your predicament. [Associated Press]
i feel gassy
DC Choir Director Prays For Cheap Go-Go Juice In San Francisco
We've tried taking over a major oil-producing country. We've tried making fuel out of food crops. We've even tried making hybrid SUVs. Not one of those solutions has lowered gas prices, so how about praying 'em down? Choir director Rocky Twyman has come out to San Francisco from DC to take a shot at invoking some divine intervention at some of the costliest gas pumps in the land. He suggests that, in addition to praying for cheaper gas, folks should walk more and use carpools... wait, isn't that cheating?[Associated Press]
i feel gassy
Gas Is $5.40 Per Gallon On The Cali Coast, We Cry
Think the prices at your local pump are high? If you aren't in California, don't feel so bad. Sure, you may be paying $4 per gallon, but whatever. Because as our auto-loving friends on the Cali coast know, yes, it really does cost $5.40 per gallon. You non-Americans may scoff, what with European prices being around eight thousand dollars per gallon, but for us this cost is simply outrageous. Don't oil companies know this is America? We'll never stand for such prices. Or at least we'll just sit here in our cars and wait it out. [CNN]
can gasoline be a biofuel?
Genetically Modified Bacteria to make "Renewable Petroleum"
A biotech company based in California announced Monday that they have genetically engineered common bacteria to produce hydrocarbon chains. LS9 claims they can produce hundreds of different kids of hydrocarbon molecules this way, including crude oil free from the sulphur particles that contaminate ground oil. This could, in turn, be refined into gasoline, jet fuel, diesel or lubricants. More »
vintage go-go juice
Tulsa Belvedere's Gasoline Samples Valuable To Science!
So all is not lost with the rust-plagued Tulsa Time Capsule Belvedere! Turns out the gasoline samples in the trunk (stored there in case gasoline couldn't be found in 2007) are of great interest to modern-day petroleum geochemists, who are always on the lookout for "age-related" samples for testing. More »
laws of physics enrich gasoline retailers
Hot Gasoline: Less Bang Per Buck
Back in the early 20th century, US regulators decreed that the official definition of a gallon of gasoline was 231 cubic inches at 60 degrees Fahrenheit. All well and good, but the problem is that gasoline expands somewhat as temperature increases, meaning that you're actually getting less energy per dollar when you buy gas warmer than 60º F. According to consumer-watchdog types, this translates to something like 3 to 9 cents extra per gallon at the pump this summer. The House Subcommittee on Domestic Policy, chaired by presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich, says retailers should adjust prices based on fuel temperature; retailers say such a move would cause the destruction of the American Way Of Life. More »
bye-bye franklin, now it's me and my black metal friends
Cohorts of Count Grishnackh May Ban Norwegian Gas-Power'd Car Sales
Some Norwegian politicos seem to have let all of those Burzum records go to their head and are intent on killing the gasoline internal-combustion engine as dead as Mayhem frontman Euronymous. Ruling Labor, Socialist Left and Center party wonks are checking to see if a ban on gasoline-powered vehicle sales would be illegal, forcing a move to biofuels on the part of automakers who want to do business in the Scandanavian nation. According to Truls Wickstrom of the Transport Committee, "Most of the major car makers are banking on flexi-fuel." Yep, Truls. They're also banking on hydrogen, electricity and diesel. Except Ferrari. Ferrari don't play that. More »
russia
The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Com... Oh Crap, They're Here
Westlake, California, February 3, 2007. Apparently the Russian uber-multinational is going to save us American consumers money by not wasting it on a team of graphic designers obsessed with the finer points of signage. And if rumors hold, Gasprom Chairman Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev is going to swap jobs with Putin in 2008. Meaning that ex-KGB chief Vladimir himself will be selling premium fuel to yuppie Benzes in bourgeois paradise. A brave new world, indeed. More »
news
West Virginia Gas Station Explosion Kills 4, Injures 9
Some of us here at Jalopnik exist in the form of smokers. We're stupid, we know, but it is not our fault. To sorta-quote Dave Berry, "If the government was serious about stopping kids from smoking, they would eliminate the 10th grade." Somehow this all goes back to a night long ago during 10th grade. We were at a gas station and yelled at a girl we knew who was smoking while filling her car. She flipped us off, and told her stupid gang-banger boyfriend that we had called her a "dumb bitch" for puffing and pumping. There was some pushing and shoving though fists never flew. What that fine, upstanding member of the
news
Gas Prices Are Feeling A Little Bit Bloated Today
Has anyone gone out and tried to fill up today? If you're in the Midwest, you're paying anywhere between $2.80 and $2.99. Even Michigan's auto-friendly Governor Granholm has launched an online petition to send to President Bush asking him WTF is going on. On the West Coast, we've heard prices are approaching $3.00 (or $4.00 in Beverly Hills...but that's mostly due to the TomKat family's fleet of Ford's used the other day). Out on the East Coast, prices hit $3.00 a gallon — that is if you can find any gas to fill up with — as reports of gas-less stations are sifting up from local media outlets. All of this gets us thinking maybe there is more we could be doing, especially with Earth Day tomorrow. Well, at least the Main Stream Media is all over this. CNN has the touching story above of a man pawning his watch for gas — to run his 1991 Jaguar. More »
news
Feds Lift Mandatory Oxygenate Standard
Methyl tertiary butyl ether and California used to be tight like Walter and The Dude. But then MTBE got all overzealous and screwed up the mission by polluting the groundwater. So Cali partnered up with ethanol, but you know, things with ethanol weren't really working, either, as it actually increased air pollution in some ways. So finally, after a bunch of pestering, the Feds tossed off an "Okay kids, have it your way," and let go of a Clean Air Act mandate to force states into using oxygenates in congested metro area. Plus, y'know, we may even save a buck or two per tank. More »
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Mobil Trades Blood for Oil
We've often joked with CTE that activists who oppose our activities in the Middle East shouldn't be screaming, "No Blood For Oil!" but rather, "Blood for No Oil!?!" given the price of fuel these days. Perhaps mindful of that very idea, the New York Blood Center and Mobil have teamed up to offer a $5 gift card to people who donate blood between December 22nd and January 9th. [Thanks to Eben for the tip.] More »
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