I reflected today about the price of petrol, as I came across some of paper work when I Leased a Garage in Caterham ,surrey in about the early 60's. AS I recall we sold petrol for 34p a gallon! The first fill up of the fore court tanks was £616. I went to my bank to ask for a loan, bearing in mind that every day I
would be paying in the takings. Oooh, a bit risky said the bank manager... So I borrowed the money from a wealthy Dad of a guy I went to school with, and the collateral was my A7 ,OY26 ( which I still have).Out of this we had to pay our pump attendant.Once we paid for the first load we had a "load over load " payment plan.The along came greenshield stamps. Their Rep played all the local garages against each other to give them away. I t was usually assumed that we got them for nothing .. noway! had to pay for them. Then there was free glasses! We gave that up when we found 4 cases in our pump attendants hall!Then people wanted a credit account. we were advised that one bad payer could well wipe out our profits so we were one of the first garages who took a credit card.Oh , yes we had to watch the delivery drivers. At the end of each delivery we had the tanker dipped to show it was empty. The odd one had a good ruse with the dipstick and we soon found we were some times being short delivered.so in the end we had to climb on to the tankers a look in side. No capacity guages then..But Happy Days!

Location: Ferring by the sea /west sussex .UK

Hello Mac,
34p gallon Wow. Surely it was 2/10p!
Keep up the good work.

Ah, 34p (6s 8d in proper money)a gallon. Now I remember how I managed to run my Mini on a starting wage of £8 a week and still have enough left over to misbehave with wine, women and song. Nice memories Mac.

Location: North Herts

In Manchester in 1964, Jet was selling at 4 shillings a gallon.

Location: Frosty SW France

The first time I spent over £1 on petrol (to fill up the Top Hat) was 1973. I've still got Anthony Wedgewood-Benn's ration books,for next time.
It was 3/10d a gallon in Bristol in 1964.

Location: Frampton Cotterell

When I take my Pratts Perfection 2 gal can into my local filling station, they insist on charging me more than the 3/- that is embossed on the can!

Location: Near Jtn 28 On M1

My dad used to sell 5 galls of VIP 2 star for £1 in the mid sixties,we often had a queue.
We also sold shell,anyone remember the shell match money promotion, where you had to match 2 halves of a note to win,I remember that was very popular too.

Hi It is interesting to compare these long gone prices with New Zealand. Back in 1972 when I had a 35 Ruby as everyday transport to get to and from Secondary school. , In 1973 I started a Toolmaking apprenticeship on 98 cents an hour which equates in those days to about 50 p or Ten shillings in U K currency. I took home $32 a week after Tax, a tradesman got about $100 a week (50Pounds). A gallon of Petrol was 45 cents then and $1 was enough to cover my weekly motoring, I guess that petrol was per gallon 1/64 of the average weekly wage. Petrol has just hit $2 a litre here which equates to about$10 pe gallon, the average wage here is about $500 after tax so that is about 1/50 of a weeks wage for a gallon, not too far away from the ratio back in 1972, The big difference however is that the average small car Toyota echo/getz or whatever ,uses heaps less fuel than a similar car in 72, so someone driving that type of car is better off as are austin seven drivers. My austin seven gets registration (Licence) for $100 a year and Insurance (full-Comprehensive) for a little more than that with market value of $12,000(6000 Pounds), so it works out cheaper to run the Seven than any modern car, just it takes a little longer to get there!

Location: Wellington, New Zealand

I remember in the 60's there was a fellow that owned several stations in Long Beach, CA

Fuel was 25cents per Gal. They gave you a 5 cents off ticket off per gal for your next fill-up AND there was a drawing each month for a new car FREE!

One day the stations just shut tight..... Local paper had stories how the stations owner had been involved with a gang that tapped into a local refinery's fuel transport pipeline...

I miss the glass' they we're much nicer than mustard jars!

Location: Eastern Front (POLAND)

Scrap the modern, drive the Austin. 45mpg and it's so cold and bumpy you're not tempted to do a high mileage

I know it's swerving the thread a bit but look at the car prices in these ads from the September 1962 750 Bulletin..

See you later, just popping out to the tardis for a few minutes..

I'm rather a fan of this little inflation calculation gizmo.

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education/inflation/calculator/index1.htm

That 34p in (say) 1962 becomes £5.40 in 2009 money. As for those adverts that incomplete special at £185 is £2943. Doesn't seem so differnt.

However that Ruby, good runner, at £15 is only £239 today. You can still get "a car" with tax and test for that but not 7s. I guess they were only 25 years old then. That would be a mid 80s car now - that would be my everyday car now - and about the right price for that...

David

Location: Lewisham

One thing about petrol prices that has always puzzled me is why, when showing the price at the pump it always ends '.9'
So, currently our local ASDA is selling unleaded for 129.9p - Why? when we all know it is really 130.00p. Who are they trying to kid?
Jim Stringer.
P.S. Yes I too recall those far off days when we paid 4/- (20p) a gallon. - or, to put it another way, just £2.00 to fill up the tank of my Austin Sixteen.

Location: Isle of Sheppey, Kent

imagine the plite of the austin 7 supplier.

the cry from public now is that its all to expensive.

i bought a ford focus 8 months ago to do as much of the running around to make things cheaper,it cost £50 to fill it up when i bought it.

i filled it the other day and it cost £62,50 and the same day the iveco van cost £90

somewere along the line things have to be paid for.or the decisition is its not worth making again.

personaly i dropped 15 items this year,that i had on stock last year.

i`ll look to produce something else more worth wile to replace what i have dropped.but looking at last year.i think by next year i`ll probably drop twice as many items.

the cost of petrol controls things more than you think.

tony

James, in answer to your question why petrol price ends in .9............

I wonder if it is for the same reason that things in the shops used to be priced as 15/11d, not 16 shillings, etc etc. I was once told that was so that change had to be given and thus it had to be rung through the till.

Location: Farnham, Surrey

I think it is the old psychology thing- it looks cheaper at 4.99 than 5.00 even though we really know it is the same price, so we automatically go for 4.99.

Tony.

Location: Melbourne, Australia.

Tony.Just out of interest how much is a litre of petrol down there at the moment?.Does it go up sometimes 3 or 4 pence a litre per week or are we the only ones in the world that the fuel companies know they can take for a ride.

regards Ian.

Location: Sunny Worksop Notts

Ian,

It as variable as all get out- usually lowest midweek rising on the weekend by 5 cents or more a litre. (which at current exchange is not far off 3 or 4 pence)
Current price - and it varies from Shell to BP to Mobil, this week seems to be about 140 cents per litre midweek rising to 150 by the weekend for 92 octane plus another 10 cents a litre for 95 octane - more for 98 octane (E10 is cheaper by 2 or 3 cents I think but I don't use that stuff in my cars).
The pricing is very wierd and known only to the fuel companies.

Tony.

Location: Melbourne, Australia.

Hi, Tony.That would be around 94 pence a litre then
?It must be a couple or three years since it was that price in blighty.

Location: Sunny Worksop