[Telecolor 3007]

1st emission regulation where introduced in California in 1966.
Yes, gas was cheap back then and probably no one thought that they shoul reduce cosumption of fuel.
There where day when in Romania with a minimal wage you could but around 400-480 U.S. gallons of fuel! But cars where very expensive then. Dern, even with most streets in not very good shape you could go from one end of Bucharest to the other in no more then 30-40 minutes. And since there wheren't so many cars, fuel economy was grater. In the early '70's gas was becoming more costly, but it wasn't so expensive up untill 1977-1979. Most cars around here could do 16-24 m.p.g. back in the day. And we had (no very big) busses with V8 gas engines (and trucks too!).
In Romania price for gas is around 3.80-4 U.S. Dollars per U.S. gallon. In U.S. there are areas where I heard there is even around 4.50 U.S.D. per U.S. gallon, but you know, in U.S.A. 800-1000 dollars is a small wage, here the same sallary is big.