A two-hour price war at gas stations in a small town northeast of Toronto brought prices down to 45 cents a litre on Friday afternoon, before they jumped back up to $104.9.

Motorists waited in long lineups at the pumps in Port Perry, a town of about 8,500 located an hour northeast of Canada's largest city.

At one point, the prices were dropping by the minute. The manager of the Esso told CTV Toronto he was only following instructions from head office to keep lowering prices.

Drivers said they were shocked by the sudden price changes and more than happy to wait in line.

"I figured I couldn't miss it -- this was too good to be true," said one young man.

"As a student, I'm not complaining," said one young woman.

Local residents said the short-term price wars between the gas stations have been going on for 10 days, but prices had never dipped below the 50-cent-a-litre mark.

"It's an odd place to have a price war," said Rik Davie, a reporter for the local Scugog Standard.

"We're not aware of it happening anywhere else and we sure want Ontario to come to Port Perry, but I'm not sure this was the way to do it," he said with a laugh.

While prices at the Pioneer station on the same corner would only go as low as 87 cents a litre, it too had long lineups.

"Eighty-seven cents is still cheap," said one motorist. "I don't want to go there and lineup for two hours."

The gas stations ran out of regular gas in the afternoon and were only selling premium afterwards.

Gas stations across the country have spiked in the last few days following record-setting highs for the cost of crude oil, which broke through the US$100 per barrel mark for the first time in history.

With a report from CTV Toronto's John Musselman