Basically, a long long time ago

The UK joined the 'European Economic Community',EEC

( later the the 'European Union', EU)

& the UK accepted going metric.

(well thats my memory of it, & going Decimal in 1971, google might say different and it might actually have been different)

It is just that many of us never changed from thinking Imperial Measures to Metric.

so no mm,cm , Meters,Grams, Kilograms, Litres, Kilometers etc.

More still Inches, Feet, Yards, Pints, Quarts, Gallons, Miles etc.

Well some times we do think Metric Sometimes..

and when I started school in 1971 everything was taught in metric, so I think in mm and cm and have no real idea what inches and feet are all about. So it's anyone in their fifties and older I think that fall into the non metric camp. But as you say the cars still measure everything in MPG and MPH. I have no idea of what a gallon is but I do know that the higher MPG figure I have is better. And I'm used to speed limits in MPH but equally when I cross the border into Ireland I'm equally at home with KPH.

simple :-)

Us that were already at school spent a term playing with plastic decimal coins & tills.

(maybe that was just my 'special class')

We were shown how to be ready for decimalisation,

then expected to help our parents

& grandparents to understand when it changed.

240 d to the £1 for those that go not remember.

then the next day 100 Pence to the £1.

8 bags of tesco own brand crisps for 69 pence seems good now compared to £1 for a grab bag some places.

(pity that neither provides many crisps compared to when they were 10 pence a bag,

I hear the Hovis Advert music playing.)

george

Hey George, I bet you remember Mac Fisheries.

The first supermarket.

How about "put a tiger in your tank" ?

We all complain about the price of fuel but when I had my first car in 1960 petrol was about 4/11 a gallon (that's about 25p) which was about a semi-skilled worker's hourly wage then. Now petrol is about £6 a gallon which is less than the minimum hourly wage so it's cheaper now!

I still have a tiger tail somewhere It used to hang on the back of my Lambretta TV175!!, and when I worked in the garage it was 3 gallons to the pound with change...

Re the petrol price and average wage or Minimum wage.

When i was 16 we could afford a moped and petrol.

Minimum adult wage might be just above the price of a Gallon of Petrol today.

(depends where you can get your fuel)

Not 16 year olds Minimum Wage tho.

More Jobs in Amazon or Lidl for 16 year olds are required,

then they can afford a Gallon of Petrol for an hours Net Pay,

and no time for 50 TXT's per hour.

https://www.gov.uk/n...imum-wage-rates

george

This is the joy of being British.

We had one perfectly good system in use, so the government decided to change to a new system and 30 years down the line we still use both systems and parts from the continent as well (just for good measure).

Bloody Geniuses :clap:

P.S. I'm a tad younger than some of you posting but I use a bit of both as well

Ah yes, but just think how much easier it is now to measure something.

I use whichever unit closes matches the distance required.

Sometimes its 2 and 9/16th of an inch other times its 47mm (which I know are not the same) in case anyone questions my conversion skills.

Mind you these days I have great difficulty seeing graduations smaller than an 8th :-(

I think the biggest uproar would be if they changed all the roadsigns to be in km, no-one would have any idea how far it was to their destination.

Ah yes, but just think how much easier it is now to measure something.

I use whichever unit closes matches the distance required.

Sometimes its 2 and 9/16th of an inch other times its 47mm (which I know are not the same) in case anyone questions my conversion skills.

Mind you these days I have great difficulty seeing graduations smaller than an 8th :-(

I think the biggest uproar would be if they changed all the roadsigns to be in km, no-one would have any idea how far it was to their destination.

oh good .... sums it all up perfectly ....I thought it was just me.

I was born in 1971, after decimalisation, and taught in metric units. However I learnt 'stuff' (like cars, engines, DIY etc) from my dad, who worked in imperial. As a consequence I can converse equally well in both and inter-convert them fluently. However, I do struggle with European fuel economy, which not only relies on metric volume (litres) and distance (km) but is also 'upside-down', working on a volume per distance travelled basis. I still can't relate to their figures, whether a number is good or bad or better or worse.

I think we're almost unique in the UK in terms of clinging to miles but working in litres. The USA are still defiantly non-metric (I can't say 'Imperial' as they're not even this, as their non-metric units are different from ours, what with their piddly little tons and gallons ). Pretty much everywhere else uses kilometres and litres, even former colonies such as India, Australia and the like.

The UK is a mixed bag of multi-cultural influences, reflected in our language, customs and units!

Edited 13 December, 201213 yr by weasley

Aye - if we're exposing memories, I'll throw my wee bit in too! In the very late 60s I had a Fiat 500L (EXA 617C is that sad memory!!) and i had to get from Kirkcaldy in Fife to Potters Bar north of London to get to University with all my clobber for the term, and sometimes for vacation work (unpaid) as vocational training.

I had all my worldly goods in a trunk that my father had had during the war, complete with great big brass buckles and latches. To get it in the 500 I had to remove the passenger seat, and upend it to fit behind the drivers seat allowing this trunk to lie in the recently vacated space!

That wee Fiat did a top speed of 59 mph, with an acceleration time of 0-50 of about 27 secs (because you couldnt actually ever get to 60 even with a force ten following gale). I cannot recall the mpg (in the 50s) but I do remember the cost of filling the tank under the bonnet was 14s and 10pence - 14/10d for three gallons only!! So for less than 75p I could drive about 150 miles, necessitating two fill-ups en route which took usually about ten hours driving including greasy spoon comfort breaks on the A1.

Now my YETI costs £76 to fill with 11 gallons and gets me 500 miles away. And I could fit 4 trunks inside the car if i removed the seats!!

Edited 13 December, 201213 yr by Freshacre

ah nostalgia............it's not what it used to be!

We live in France and have a LHD French spec Yeti .......... been in France for some time ........ but I still set the read out to MPG and MPH so that I can understand what's going on in this "metric world"

Diesel prices in the UK are far more expensive than France ........... filling up in the UK now almost needs a discussion with my Bank Manager

I still have a tiger tail somewhere It used to hang on the back of my Lambretta TV175!!, and when I worked in the garage it was 3 gallons to the pound with change...

My Dad had a tiger tail that we used attached to a fully extended radio ariel on the car to be able to find it when at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix.

Its the only opportunity mostpeople get practice at exercising their "sums" grey cells. Most European languages seem to have some sort of built in brain teeze.

In French, after 69 it becomes "60+10", "60+11" after 79 it becomes "4x20" and so on.

In German, you say the "units" quantity first then the "tens" (do kids still get taught this way with tens and units?) so 77 is seven and seventy, followed by eight and seventy etc.

So their brains are worked out all the time which is why they are so clever and rule to roost and we have turned ourselves into munkins.

Us that were already at school spent a term playing with plastic decimal coins & tills.

(maybe that was just my 'special class')

We were shown how to be ready for decimalisation,

then expected to help our parents

& grandparents to understand when it changed.

240 d to the £1 for those that go not remember.

then the next day 100 Pence to the £1.

8 bags of tesco own brand crisps for 69 pence seems good now compared to £1 for a grab bag some places.

(pity that neither provides many crisps compared to when they were 10 pence a bag,

I hear the Hovis Advert music playing.)

george

It was even more confusing to go to Malta on holiday after UK decimalisation as they, Malta stayed on £ s d for a futher two years before going to £ and cents.

Additionally, you could hand over £1 sterling at the bar but only buy 19/6d worth of booze; now that's confusing.

The idea of "Miles per gallon" comes from the days when motoring was strictly for pleasure. You bought your Gallon (Or 2 Gallons, in one of those quaint screw top tins) and then went on your happy way burning it up, going as far as you could manage and wherever your mood took you. Litres per 100 km is rooted in a much more mundane concept, with the implication that not only do you HAVE to do a journey (probably to work, or a customer, or the mother-in-law) but also need to work out the financial penalty. My 1936 Austin Seven does about 38 mpg, almost exactly the same as my 2012 petrol Yeti - now there's progress !

as EJSTUBBS suggests further up the thread , miles per liter sounds logical,does it not?

or......litres per 100 miles.......

We could then get a fuel consumption for when the car is stationary like you do. ours show ----- whereas if I convert to using metric, it will show anywhere between 0.6litres/hour to 1 litre/hour.

I grew up with feet and inches, but having trained as a UK engineer, mm got drilled into your brain through college and at work, a well as kilos, so I have no idea how many stone (what a peculiar measurement) i weigh.

I remember paying 67p/gallon back in 1981.....

Any advance (or retreat?!) on the 2/6d a gallon (12.5p) going into my Triumph 'Tigress'? I think it held one and a half. The 'Tigress' had two wheels, plus a spare on the back.

The figure I keep in my head is how many miles per litre am I doing.

If after doing 350 miles (from full) I put in 35 litres then I am doing 45.5 mpg (the equivalent of 10 miles per litre).

I use this as a baseline, so if I do more than 10 miles per litre (as I invariably do) then I am doing better than 45.5 mpg, less than 10 miles per litre then I am doing less than 45.5 mpg.

Works for me!

tom

Any advance (or retreat?!) on the 2/6d a gallon (12.5p) going into my Triumph 'Tigress'? I think it held one and a half. The 'Tigress' had two wheels, plus a spare on the back.

A scooter?.............a British scooter no less

I saw in a recent edition of the IAM magazine someone had managed to collect an example of every British scooter produced

Did it include the Velocette based on the LE engine?

I went to school abroad ( Army Schools) , these were in countries that all had metric, however i was taught in Imperial measurements in school.

With respect to KM & Miles, Does anyone else get the impression when driving on the continental motorways that the destinations seem to arrive quicker because the distances displayed reduce quicker, even though when you covert to miles its still the same distance. ( perception is a strange beast )

We all complain about the price of fuel but when I had my first car in 1960 petrol was about 4/11 a gallon (that's about 25p) which was about a semi-skilled worker's hourly wage then. Now petrol is about £6 a gallon which is less than the minimum hourly wage so it's cheaper now!

Indeed it is. Your figures are right and petrol is not much more than half the price it was then.

When my family got our first car, petrol cost 4s 1d per gallon for standard grade. If you look at this table, http://www.ukpia.com...ical-series.pdf , you'll see that was 1956. In that year, the average weekly wage was £9.17 (see http://www.measuring....com/ukearncpi/ for that and other data on prices and earnings). So a weekly wage would buy 43 gallons of petrol in 1956. Whereas in 2010 the average weekly wage of £452 would buy about 75 gallons, nearly twice as much. And if you care to work it out in terms of the miles you can travel for a chunk of your weekly wage, the cost has halved yet again because of improvements in fuel economy. So, roughly, we are getting four times as many miles for the same proportion of our average wage as in 1956.

If you ever wonder why many of our roads are jammed with traffic, there is your answer: fuel has been getting cheaper for 50 years, despite some blips in price here and there.

Edited 13 December, 201213 yr by r999

If you get confused about buying litres and working out your current miles per gallon then you will see the logic in tyre sizes as well:

225/40/18

225 mm (width)

40% of 225mm (= 90mm)

18 inches (rim size) all makes sense eh :think: