Is this a record fuel price ?

I’ve mentioned this before … but it probably bears repeating:

Around 1965, my Dad pulled into the local filling station and asked the attendant [remember them?] for a Pound’s worth of Petrol … I still remember the incredulous reply “a motorbike won’t hold a Pound’s worth!!”

But it did [just] … because Dad’s bike had a 5-Gallon tank.

MichaelG.

Back in the days when I drove Reliant three wheelers, I tried to get my Robin 850 to get 60 mpg, and after weeks of driving very carefully, I gave up only having achieved 59 mpg. Now my Corsa 1.7 with 3 1/2 times the power gets 60 mpg easily and 48 mpg in town driving.

There is a joke going round on social media at the moment, I paraphrase but basically:

"I saw someone at pump 3 today putting in £10 of petrol. Where was he going, pump 4?"

Hi, in retrospect, I think the prices I quoted for petrol that my brother paid are wrong and I think it was 3/9 (18.75p) going up to 3/11 (19.6p) a gallon and I think it was a gallon of paraffin that I sometimes had to go and fetch from the ironmongers that cost 1/9 a gallon.

Hi MichaelG, yes I do remember attendants, but by the time I started driving most of the locals were self service, but I did get caught out in Birmingham once, when a young lad came running out shouting "we serve you" of course I did apologise for my mistake and think he said that I wasn't the first not to notice the sign saying so.

Regards Nick.

Does sound like paraffin rather than petrol. My memory is terrible, so I had to look petrol prices up:

1950 = 3/-

1956 = 5/4 and rationed.

1960 = 4/8

1970 = 6/8

1980 = £1.28 (1/5/7)

1989 = £1.85 (1/17/0)

Note on British old money:

3/- means 3s 0d, where s=shillings and d=pence. Twelve pence in one shilling. Two hap-pence (½d) per penny.
4/8 means 4s 8d (which is 56 pennies)
1/5/7 means £1 5s 7d (which is 307 pennies)

Farthings (¼d, 960 to the pound) were about when I was a lad but I don't remember getting them as change.

Far superior to this modern rubbish metric money - 100 pence per pound is clearly political correctness gone mad.

Dave

You could buy 4 Blackjaks for 1d thats a farthing each. And I remember buying 10 Anchor cigarettes for 1s3d and puffing at them in the woods with my friends.

And who recalls T.V.O. (Tractor vapourising oil) aka paraffin that the Fordson tractor ran on once it was warmed up.
Started up on petrol but switched to T.V.O. after about 5minutes running. 1/2 the price of petrol.
On the L.s.d. story has anyone got any silver 3d joeys.
And as useless information, 3 old pence weighed an ounce, so 48 pence weighed a pound.

Funny old world!!!

Bob D

I worked as a petrol pump attendant from 1970 to 1976 (that's age 12 to 18). 22 1/2 hours per week on the 18:30-22:30 shift on some school days, 12:30-22:00 on saturdays and 07:30-12:20 on sundays. We weren't all that busy and I could do my homework easily in between punters. Used to get a £1 bonus if we sold £100 of petrol. That only tended to happen in summer (off the A38 in devon, halfway between exeter and plymouth).

Deity knows what the do gooders would say nowadays.

Edited By Mark Rand on 13/03/2022 19:30:21

The oil price was just as high in 2008, at over $130 per barrel, similar to the rates now. But I don't recall the pump prices being anywhere near £1.70 per litre back then. A definite whiff of consumer rip off?

**LINK**

.

Ah, but … that barrel contains 42 US Gallons : so the raw material cost is only a tiny fraction of the pump price.

It’s all the processing, and marketing, and taxing that has inflated.

MichaelG.

£1.28 a gallon in 1980?? Surely not, I was filling my 6 gallon tank for just over a fiver in 1983

Rob

The oil price was just as high in 2008, at over $130 per barrel, similar to the rates now.

But the $ - £ exchange rate was around $2 per £ in 2008 vs. around $1.3 per £ today, so $130 a barrel cost us less in 2008.

Had the "fuel duty escalator" kicked in then ? That has probably had more of an impact on the pump price rises between 2008 & present than the cost of the raw material, even though it has been "paused" for a while now.

The AA have reported in the last couple of days that wholesale fuel prices (as well as the crude oil price) have dropped recently, but forecourt prices continue to increase. On Friday the Shell station 1/2 a mile from home was £1.81 / litre for diesel - Asda 2 miles away was £1.65 & Tesco 2 miles further again (where I filled up) was £1.55. The Shell & BP stations locally (franchises) are always the highest priced, always the first to increase prices & always the last to reduce them.

Nigel B.

The Bank of England inflation calculator tells me that £1.28 in 2008 money is the equivalent of £1.82 in 2021 (2.6% compound over 13 years) so not that different really.

Our local station remains competetive but has reintroduced the minimum purchase limit for diesel, presumably they don't want muppets queuing down the road again.

I'm quoting from the AA Motoring Trust figures, which seem about right to me. Here's 1971 to 1985

1971 34.25 65.69%
1972 35.25 63.83%
1973 38.70 58.14%
1974 49.60 51.56%
1975 73.20 50.73%
1976 77.00 50.00%
1977 78.20 49.60%
1978 76.50 50.40%
1979 98.25 46.95%
1980 128.50 45.20%
1981 160.00 52.45%
1982 164.00 55.50%
1983 176.00 54.55%
1984 187.05 54.66%
1985 199.80 54.00%

Note the high rate of inflation the 70s and 80s - prices went up rapidly!  The percentage is tax.

However, in 1983, the AA say petrol cost 176p per gallon, making 6 gallons for £5 unlikely. Would have been possible around 1975? The AA figures are average prices for the whole UK and of the most expensive grade available at the time - 4-star. 2 and 3-star petrol were cheaper than 4-star but I can't remember by how much.

Ah the good old days - you had to queue for the right pump, then wait for a man to fill you up, then queue to pay. Maybe one day they'll invent a way of recharging cars at home so you don't have to queue for petrol at all...

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 14/03/2022 10:12:55

I remember in 1966 I used to commute home from my RAF station at weekends and local to home was a Jet petrol station and I used to get 4 gallons for a pound, but in those days I was lucky to get 30 to the gallon in my old Ford Pop, nowadays my Honda Jazz will do 48 - 50 per gallon when on a run. Dave W

Todays paper has a cartoon, set in the Savoy Grill.

"We were going to go for a burger and chips, but can't afford the petrol"

Yesterday local Shell garage, in Peterborough petrol 164.9 diesel 174.9

Morrisons seem to be about 7p cheaper.

Filled my tank last week when it was 149.9!

Going to drive very carefully now!

Howard

I paid a surprisingly large bill today, for fixing a sticking handbrake

… But they say that every cloud has a silver lining, and hopefully the improved fuel consumption will soon offset that

MichaelG.

Be glad you don't have a Range Rover;
"The priciest electronic parking brake repair cost on MotorEasy records is a £2,005 bill to fix the system in a 10-year-old Range Rover."

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-10216489/Electronic-parking-brakes-norm-cost-682-fix.html

Bill