Apart from moaning about the weather, that other great British pastime is grumbling over the cost of motoring. Every generation does it; soaring fuel, road and insurance charges, etc, etc. And by and large we just vent our spleen and grin and bear it – let’s face it what other option is there? Yet in real world terms, like our daily carping, actual costs may not have changed that much over the decades, as we reveal...
FUEL
One hundred years ago, a gallon of liquid gold cost just 10p – or ten gallons for just £1! However, when price is adjusted to 2023 values that equates to £7.37 per gallon. Apart from WWII, the biggest leap came in 1956 in the wake of the Suez Crisis where juice shot up from 27p (5s 4d) to 30p (six shillings) overnight, roughly equating to £10 a gallon in today’s terms. The typical family saloon was nothing like as frugal as they are now – for instance, the Mondeo of its day, Ford’s 1.7-litre 79mph Consul, couldn’t eke out more than 25mpg while the new 1.4-litre Hillman Minx only bettered this by four miles per gallon.
The golden days of motoring were probably pre-1974 where at 35p (£3.60) you could afford to run that 18mpg Jaguar Mk2. Then the Far East flared up again, hiking prices to 54p
