Yes, fuel consumption certainly was one of the many considerations when buying a car in the 50,s and 60,s, just as it is today.
Holden was the best selling car back then, with just about every taxi on the road being either a Holden or a Falcon. (Holden still won that battle.) Holden was the main 6 cylinder family car too so lots of reasons for wanting a good fuel mileage.
Everything that cost money back then, was still related to income. Fuel was no exception so while petrol WAS cheaper,..wages and income was also much less too.
In the episode itself, the mere fact that two people in separate scenes made the (incorrectly scripted) point that Luciens new car would ONLY GET 10 miles per gallon, must surely have indicated it right there, that fuel consumption in that era certainly WAS an important aspect of owning a car.....otherwise surely that point wouldn't have needed to have been made,.......twice.!
For memory (I'm 73 now, so I was there),....basic wages in 1960 may have been around £10 to £12 a week (or maybe less because they were definitely only £4-2/6 a week at my first job in early 1958) petrol would have been around 2/2 a gallon at the time so it's not hard to realize that petrol consumption was a fair financial consideration.
Cheers.
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Zephaniah
8 years ago
I think it's an FC Special which should have delivered at least 25mpg. It's a long bow but maybe scriptwriters younger than us are so metricated that the mpg (an unknown unit to them) got lost in the translation from 10l/100km (around 28mpg). And yes, fuel cost was important back then - in '63 I was earning just 10 guineas a week and £2 of that at 2/6 per gallon went in the Jaguar's tank each week. If only I still had that MkIV.....
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