UPDATE 1-US gasoline rises above $4 a gallon for first time

Refiling to delete extraneous word in fourth paragraph

(Adds forecasts for gasoline, crude prices, adds year-ago crude oil price)

By Bernard Woodall

LOS ANGELES, June 8 (Reuters) - The U.S. average price for a gallon of regular gasoline topped $4 for the first time, a survey issued on Sunday by the travel group AAA showed.

AAA's survey showed a national average price of $4.005 per gallon, up from $3.67 a month ago and $3.10 a year ago.

Average national gasoline prices had stabilized last week before Thursday and Friday's spike of U.S. crude oil futures by $16 to a record above $139 a barrel. Friday's one-day gain of $10.75 for crude oil was the biggest daily gain in history, and Thursday's gain was the second biggest.

A year ago, U.S. crude was trading at $66 per barrel. Since then, a weakening dollar and the chances of violence in oil-producing nations such as Iran have pushed oil prices higher.

The record crude and gasoline prices have taken a bite out of U.S. motor fuel demand and cut sales of gas-guzzling pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles in favor of smaller cars that use less fuel per mile, said Geoff Sundstrom, AAA's fuel price analyst.

"It's looking like the late 1970s or the early 1980s," said Sundstrom referring to increased sales of smaller vehicles. And available now but not decades ago are hybrids, which run on both electricity and gasoline.