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Celebrating our two-lane highways of yesteryear…And the joys of driving them today!

Costs Of A Road Trip In 1913 Vs. Today


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Aside from the "little woman" comment (I know you did it in jest), I love your post!

 

I appreciate the time that you took to figure all this out. Very informative.

 

:D

 

Becky

 

As I was researching some planned posts about the Lincoln Highway, I came across the following description of the costs of a transcontinental trip in 1912. I used the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to adjust the dollars to current values. The surprising result was they are about the same in both years.

 

That is to say, the costs of auto travel in real dollars haven’t changed much in the last 95 years! Some are a bit higher, others a bit lower, but overall, not significantly different. Of course the quality of the accommodations, the level of comfort, the reliability of the vehicles, and most certainly the nature of the roads are worlds apart!

 

In 1913 (the first year of the series) the CPI was 29.4 and in January 2007, it was 606.3 (1967=100), a 20.6 fold increase. To keep it simple, I used a 20 fold increase and entered the adjusted number in red beside the 1912 number. The actual adjustment would probably be closer to 21 times for you purists.

 

The source of the cost data is my 1912 Automobile Blue Book, Volume 6, Mississippi River to Pacific Coast. The quotation follows with my notes in red.

While no hard-and-fast rule can be laid down as to cost, it is possible to give some approximate figures as to the daily expenditure per capita upon a trip of this sort. I will assume that there are not more than two cars forming the party—an ideal arrangement, by the way, owing to the difficulty of always finding adequate accommodations west of Nebraska and because of the ability of one car to help the other in case of a breakdown. The cheapest way would be to take a camping outfit throughout the entire journey, as that would bring expenses down to about $1.00 [$20] per day per head for personal expenses. Adding another $3.00 [$60] per day, gasoline, oil, etc., should be amply allowed for. Gasoline, it should be added parenthetically, will cost anything between 15 cents [$3] and 45 cents [$9] [ouch] per gallon. If the tourist decides -and, I think, wisely-to dispense with the extra encumbrance of camping outfit, he should, under average conditions of luck be able always to make some kind of night accommodations. In such case the daily expense would amount to about $3.50 [$70] per head, and for two persons, such as man and wife, the cost ought not to exceed a daily average of $6.00 [$120]. The cost of running a 4-cylinder, 5-passenger car of moderate wheelbase would account for about $55.00 [$1100] per week, this item including the driver's [chauffeurs] expenses but exclusive of tires. The average cost of a hotel room throughout the trip is $1.50 [$30] a person, where the tourist wishes to have the best accommodations each night stop can offer. Regular meals at the hotels average 50 cents [$10] per breakfast and supper (where noon dinner is served), and 75 cents [$15] for the midday meal. This is the rule throughout the smaller cities of the West. It will be found a highly practicable arrangement to take luncheon in the car.

 

If the tourist is not pressed for time, and wishes to enjoy the pleasures of fishing and hunting en route, an ideal arrangement would be for the owners of 3 or 4 cars to club together and provide a motor truck with chef [Why not the little woman? Kidding, Kidding, Kidding! I didn't mean it, really!], mechanical equipment and a camping outfit. Camping would then become a delightful diversion, especially if a start were made in early summer, and the awkward contingency of being- compelled to abandon the slower running vehicle be avoided.

 

In the case of our own trip, we made it without any mechanical troubles to speak of, with a grand average of gasoline consumed of about 10 miles per gallon, a mileage of 106 miles to every quart of oil consumed and 297 miles for every pound of grease used.

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As I was researching some planned posts about the Lincoln Highway, I came across the following description of the costs of a transcontinental trip in 1912. I used the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to adjust the dollars to current values. The surprising result was they are about the same in both years.

 

That is to say, the costs of auto travel in real dollars haven’t changed much in the last 95 years! Some are a bit higher, others a bit lower, but overall, not significantly different. Of course the quality of the accommodations, the level of comfort, the reliability of the vehicles, and most certainly the nature of the roads are worlds apart!

 

In 1913 (the first year of the series) the CPI was 29.4 and in January 2007, it was 606.3 (1967=100), a 20.6 fold increase. To keep it simple, I used a 20 fold increase and entered the adjusted number in red beside the 1912 number. The actual adjustment would probably be closer to 21 times for you purists.

 

The source of the cost data is my 1912 Automobile Blue Book, Volume 6, Mississippi River to Pacific Coast. The quotation follows with my notes in red.

While no hard-and-fast rule can be laid down as to cost, it is possible to give some approximate figures as to the daily expenditure per capita upon a trip of this sort. I will assume that there are not more than two cars forming the party—an ideal arrangement, by the way, owing to the difficulty of always finding adequate accommodations west of Nebraska and because of the ability of one car to help the other in case of a breakdown. The cheapest way would be to take a camping outfit throughout the entire journey, as that would bring expenses down to about $1.00 [$20] per day per head for personal expenses. Adding another $3.00 [$60] per day, gasoline, oil, etc., should be amply allowed for. Gasoline, it should be added parenthetically, will cost anything between 15 cents [$3] and 45 cents [$9] [ouch] per gallon. If the tourist decides -and, I think, wisely-to dispense with the extra encumbrance of camping outfit, he should, under average conditions of luck be able always to make some kind of night accommodations. In such case the daily expense would amount to about $3.50 [$70] per head, and for two persons, such as man and wife, the cost ought not to exceed a daily average of $6.00 [$120]. The cost of running a 4-cylinder, 5-passenger car of moderate wheelbase would account for about $55.00 [$1100] per week, this item including the driver's [chauffeurs] expenses but exclusive of tires. The average cost of a hotel room throughout the trip is $1.50 [$30] a person, where the tourist wishes to have the best accommodations each night stop can offer. Regular meals at the hotels average 50 cents [$10] per breakfast and supper (where noon dinner is served), and 75 cents [$15] for the midday meal. This is the rule throughout the smaller cities of the West. It will be found a highly practicable arrangement to take luncheon in the car.

 

If the tourist is not pressed for time, and wishes to enjoy the pleasures of fishing and hunting en route, an ideal arrangement would be for the owners of 3 or 4 cars to club together and provide a motor truck with chef [Why not the little woman? Kidding, Kidding, Kidding! I didn't mean it, really!], mechanical equipment and a camping outfit. Camping would then become a delightful diversion, especially if a start were made in early summer, and the awkward contingency of being- compelled to abandon the slower running vehicle be avoided.

 

In the case of our own trip, we made it without any mechanical troubles to speak of, with a grand average of gasoline consumed of about 10 miles per gallon, a mileage of 106 miles to every quart of oil consumed and 297 miles for every pound of grease used.

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