Sign Of Gas Prices Gone By

BROOKSVILLE There it stands, a reminder of just how (relatively) cheap it once was to get around.

Not too many years ago, motorists could pull in and fill up at the Pure filling station at the corner of Ponce De Leon Boulevard and Jefferson Street.

Now a tire-kicker can visit the same spot and score, say, a used Buick sedan or Chrysler minivan. The gas pumps are long gone, and the property is now the home of the Best Way Motor Car Corp., and the onetime gas station is cram-med with vehicles.

But the "Pure" sign is still there. Only one price remains; spaces above and below are gone. One could deduce, then, that the price is for a gallon of mid-grade gas.

The damage: $1.65. It's low enough to make passing drivers sigh with nostalgia, thinking how those were the days.

The owner of the car lot, Nick Ahmed, was traveling out of the country and couldn't be reached, said his cousin, Mike Ahmed, who helps around the lot. Mike Ahmed also happens to work at the BP station across the street, where a gallon of regular grade gas was going for $3.87 on Friday.

Ahmed said the Pure gas station closed down about five years ago, and his cousin set up the car lot there in 2005. In mid-2003 a gallon of regular gas could be had for about $1.43, according to the Web site www.gasbuddy.com.

The parcel, which includes a main building constructed in 1959, is owned by Gerald Springstead and Richard Springstead of Brooksville, according to property records.

When asked why the sign hasn't been taken down, Mike Ahmed said, "That costs money. We don't need it down."

On a rainy Friday morning, Dick Snyder of Spring Hill stopped into the BP station. When a reporter brought the sign to his attention, it promp-ted the 54-year-old to dig further back in his memory.

"When I was started driving, gas was 55 cents a gallon," he said. "Of course, bread was 23 cents a loaf."

Another BP customer, Ed Russell stopped at the BP station. He looked at the Pure sign and laughed.

"I wish," said Russell, a roofer who drives to jobs from Pasco to Citrus counties and spends about $200 a week to keep his black Ford F-150 Harley Davidson edition pickup on the road.

A few minutes later, Bruce Butler sat outside the BP on a mountain bike scrutinizing a lottery scratch-off ticket. Butler, 49, of Brooksville, said he has a 1979 Lincoln with a big-block V-8 engine, but he all but stopped driving the behemoth when gas hit $3 a gallon.

As for the gas signs new and old, he said: "I don't pay attention no more. I'm a bike rider now."