petrol pricing

[neilowen]

when did uk start pricing fuel in litres instead of gallons

[JonnyBoy12]

Not sure of the exact date, but did you know that this is also a measure of cat offspring as well? When a mother cat gives birth it is called a litre of kittens!

[alexanderd]

Eddie could be a litre if its a water birthing

[JonnyBoy12]

Sorry that was meant as a joke, eddie! I found that in a book of school mistakes, which are called howlers. Another one is by a kid who thought that a large part of North Africa is covered by the Sarah Desert!

[Hopkirk]

I seem to remember that when petrol went over £1 a gallon, a lot of pumps would have needed replacing to add the extra digit, so many petrol forecourts switched to litres at that time.

[paddywak]

ack when I was a pup,I had a Saturday job at a petrol station (no self servive in those days) and I've always remembered that on my last shift before starting at the pit the top grade petrol was 4/11d or 24½pand that IS per gallon not litre

[paddywak]

please excuse the spelling mistakes I'm not at my best today

[gsr600]

you must be ancient paddywak :-)

[jd_here]

When they didn't want us to know how much a gallon we were paying !

[ABerrant]

In the UK it has been perfectly legal to sell petrol by the litre since 1897.

In the late 1970s increasing numbers of forecourt pumps priced fuel in litre units.

1st January 1981 - where voluntary litre pricing was being used there was a requirement for dual pricing i.e. the equivalent price per gallon must also be displayed.

1983 - around a third of forecourt pumps were metric, however these accounted for around 60% of all sales.

1989 - 95% of petrol sales measured in litres; dual pricing requirement relaxed.

1st October 1995 - mandatory switch to litre pricing.

[paddywak]

I admit to getting on a bit gsr but I'm not quiet ancient yet I started at the pit in July of '66,so it's not all that long ago,as I said on a recent post,I blame decimalisation for the start of the huge price rises,they got away with rounding everything up,realised they could get away with it and they've never stopped doing it/