MB, please.
I've been around far longer than you think, and not as a basement-dweller, either.
I cut my automotive teeth on air-cooled 1964-1972 VW Bugs. I got so familiar with them that my best engine-change time for a Bug was 30 minutes! I had a 1980 (German) Ford Fiesta that was a fuel miser - I miss the little bugger, actually. There were VW Rabbits, Dashers, and Scirrocos, Honda CVCCs, Datsun B210s, Ford Pintos, Chevy Chevettes, you name it. Did they have the automatic tushy-wipers of current vehicles? No. Did they have the mandated safety systems of current vehicles? No. But they were still very much fuel-efficient, and that was running with those supposedly Gawd-awful carburetors, too. Electronic engine controls? Hell no. Your foot pedal was directly attached to the carburetor's throttle butterfly and accelerator pump, and that was that.
IOW, there was indeed a plethora of economical vehicles once the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973 hit (that's probably before you were even a gleam in your father's eye, I know...), as automakers cranked out fuel misers and throttled back on their land yacht production. Now it's 2008, and Deja Vu' has struck again. It amazes me that some watch in horror as the GM Tahoe/Suburban factory in Janesville, WI shuts down this December for good. Well, Duh!
A 14mpg Hummer (aka,
Tahoe w/codpiece) is still a bona-fide gas guzzler, any way you look at it. Even my new Jeep Liberty with 3.7L V-6 only gets about 24mpg highway, with a tailwind, cruise control on, and lock-up torque converter engaged.
The truly sad part is that I can guarantee people will see the current drop in oil prices as an excuse to go out and buy a mobile zip code of a vehicle, not realizing that their jobs that pay for such luxuries are still very much at risk until the economy settles out.