1970: The COST of a CAR | Nationwide | Retro Transport | BBC Archive
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ส.ค. 2022
- Britain has become a nation of devoted car lovers, with an estimated 11 million vehicles now on the roads. But just how much does it really cost to run one of these 'temples on wheels'? Nationwide's Jack Pizzey arms himself with a marker pen and reports on the real price of running an average car - in this case a 1968 Austin 1300 - for one year.
Originally broadcast 30 January, 1970.
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The most shocking comment was the motorist telling us he paid £7.10 a month for his mortgage..
Actually I think it was £7.10 a week. The Morris was £10 a week.
And remember, this is pre-decimalization and pre-VAT.
That would work out as anout £129 a week or £516 a month mortgage repayments.
Considering that the date is pre-decimal money, I think he may have meant £7 10/-, Which is £7.50 in new money
Shocking as in low or high? £7 is £86 a week in todays money and i pay £54 a week on my mortgage
What aught to be shocking is what has happened to the cost of everything today.
“I was hoping for 425, do you think you could stretch to that a bit?”
“No, some idiot has written on the side of the car with a permanent marker pen.”
lmaoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂You should write comedy that was brilluant😅😅
That’s hilarious!
Lol
Hi claslessbozo317..yes he didn't mention the money for a spray job...😅😅😅
that was the most elegant price negotiation i have ever seeen lmfao
Very well, splendid! 😂
Jolly hockey-sticks 😂😂
The 'Oh I couldn't care less, Life's too short' lady was at a level of carefree happiness I feel I could only dream of achieving given today's world
3:45 "Right! Well, don't say I didn't warn you! I've laid it on the line to you time and time again! Right! That's it! I'm going to give you a damn good thrashing!" 🤣
You have to be off a certain age to know exactly what your on about..... Sybil
It had a fawlty manuel gearbox.
Brilliant 👏
Love that faulty towers episode gormet night with the branch hitting lol
@@jdb47gamesOoh...nice one.
epic comment by the lady at the end " Cant care less! Lifes too short! "
She had no idea how others lived, born into extreme wealth.
@@chuckemmorll2821 true probably!
@@chuckemmorll2821 she'd get a huge comedown when trading in that Zodiac as the depreciation & running costs were crippling ,even to a snob like her! It was probably banger raced by 1975
She was right - she’ll be dead 💀 by now.
She must vote tories
Loved the posh lady at the end in the big expensive Vauxhall (I think) booting it out of the petrol station 🤣🤣
it was a ford zephyr , i loved those cars as a kid ! by the time i was old enough to drive one ....they were virtually all gone ! smashed up in destruction derbys , scrapped or rotting away beyond repair in someones yard.
No way was she a genuine person. Probably a producer or something doing a bit of acting. TV back then was just as much BS as it is now.
I knew there would be a comment about here, I bet she was a great Filly.
@@peterscotney1My favorite Ford. Must be an Executive, though.
I own a classic car from 1967 , Ironically, It actually costs me less to run it now than it would then. No Tax to pay, No MOT to pay £88 per year insurance fully comp . Parts are dirt cheap.
How are parts dirt cheap for a classic car?!
Sinclair C5 ?
The Lady at the end of the video hit the nail on the head lol
I was 19 then, and lads my age bought cars for a fiver regularly, if you were lucky it'd last
6 months or so. My dad started a small body/chassis repair business, just him and a young lad,
Morris 1100's he worked on constituted most of his business. Sub frames rotted like carrots
and the suspension fell to bits.
GOOD OLD DAYS 🤣
" What, 10 pounds a week, you could buy a house for that!"
you really could.
That's still only £194 in 2024!!!!
I would’ve absolutely died if that lady clipped the wall 😂😂😂
the lady in the end was great, absolutely great, absolutely wonderful, she got it right!
Her husband paid for it, that's why!😂
Depreciation has always been one of the biggest cost when buying a new (or new-ish) car and that still holds true today.
I've never understood why so many people feel the need to pay £300 every month for the privilege of a brand new car every 3 years when you can get a decent set of wheels for a couple of grand and if you look after it properly that might last you 5 or more years. Ok it won't be the latest model or anything flash but nor will it be such a huge financial drain. And lets face it there is no fun to be had in driving anymore no matter what car you've got. The Government have made sure of that!
Car payments are easily the biggest and most common wealth killer of the working classes.
100% bang on
The situation over the last few years has changed, depending on what sort of car one buys. If you are so negative towards cars and driving, what on earth were you doing watching this upload?
@@resnonverba137 He's not being negative towards cars, he's suggesting a cheaper way to do it
People pay 300 a month for peace of mind and reliability
“Oh I couldn’t care less, life’s too short” oh the good old days.. glad we’re not paying for it now…
Another Great archive film though, it’s great seeing all those now-classic-cars just being driven around as an average get around
she can say that because her husband foots the bill. nice little motor that was
1960s was a bad time to go through. These people are great and eloquent. It's what made their civilization conquer half the world and become the most successful. But then again, the present is still the best time to live for most humans.
All I have to say is:- "Wow" !
P.S. I would say costs have risen by 25 times since 1970. - so the Morris 1300 cost £550 ie, £13,750 or $20,000 in today's terms. My father bought a Jaguar XJ6 in 1970 - it cost £2,000. It seemed like a huge amount at the time. (My parents sold a nice 4 bedroom house in the north of England for £8,000 in 1969. They bought it for £4000 in 1956). From about 1970 - 1976 there was hyperinflation. Costs rose, literally, weekly. It was a terrible time and bank interest rates went through the roof in the 1974-1976 period. I think we're in a similar inflationary period now.
Terrible? Wages kept pace to a much greater extent. The CEO / average worker pay ratio was far healthier. Notice that the HP example in the film was over 24 months, whereas people take on 5 or even 6 years' worth of debt against their depreciating car these days. The average person's wages went further back then. My dad was an area manager for Little Chef in the mid and late 70s, and my mum gave up her job because his salary was enough for a very comfortable life. I grew up in a very nice 1930s semi, with a large garden, and my brother and I wanted for very little.
@Jack Warner Ya essex 😝
@@legin3753 post war 4 bed house in 1982/83 in Birmingham in an nice area At the timeI think was £36,000
@Jack Warner It was a nice, architect designed house. The area was a good middle class urvan place. Definitely not posh but certainly most home owners were very house proud.
@@nkenchington6575 Good point about the 24 months and you're right about the CEO/average worker ratio. I used the word "terrible" because we were all worried about what the costs would be "in 6 month's time". People were scared of taking on a loan in 1974-1976 because the interest rates looked set to go up to 15-20%. Thankfully, that didn't happen but they did get to about 12% for a period of time. Had that persisted, it would have bankrupted many borrowers.
Amazing that it cost more than a mortgage, times have changed. Also I winched at him getting under the car with just a jack. Not a 3 tonne one mind, but an OEM.
I'm 54 and I'm wtf, I know wages were low but seriously £7 that's crazy
@@thebadgamer1967 I don’t think they where lower back in the 40’s. My grandma made about $7 a week.
Cars cost the average UK person over 6k a year. not hugely dissimilar to mortgages now.
was thinking that myself...lol
I have not had a real mortgage for some time and have only ever bought one car on HP, but it would be interesting to do a genuine comparison today. I think some people might be shocked!
The underestimation on the part of the interviewees is clearly a result of them not factoring in the depreciation. I don’t know many people who calculate their vehicle’s depreciation in their daily/weekly/monthly running costs. Largely because it’s difficult to predict but also just because that’s a “later” problem.
You don't need to factor in depreciation if you run the same car until it dies. although the recent used car price bubble my car (same model year and the extra mileage accumulation) my car was selling for the same price (£5,450) I bought it for 8 years ago at 2 years old with 10,000 miles in 2014. It didn't last long though.
I've spent more on fuel then I have the car, £7053.25 in fuel to drive 87276 miles and that's mostly kept down by the fact it's a small petrol Toyota Aygo that's averaged 69.8mpg over the entirety of those miles. (It's from figures tracked using fuelly).
The Austin or Morris 1100 refused to start in similar fashion to John Cleese in Fawlty towers who thrashes his red one with a tree branch.
Bring those sort of prices back. Every motorist like myself would be as happy as hell.
Let's have house prices come down to that sort of level too, prices have spiralled out of all control now, I'm glad that I'm one foot in the grave, I don't even think that I would be able to afford to retire, my pension is worthless, no doubt means testing will come in to see if we qualify for state pension by the time retirement comes around for me. "Oh you have a car, sell it, your own home, sell it, I see you're wearing clothes, sell them, you should be able to afford to live on the street"
10 pounds in the seventies is about 180 pounds in today's money, you can get a banging SUV fult optioned for that weekly budget that would make those trash dumpsters on wheels pale in comparison.
@@garminbozia what frightens me so much is just how much, even now, the average person spends on a vehicle.
I considered an electric vehicle, I couldn't afford to buy outright, but the average price of £30,000 the monthly payments were more than I'd ever paid for a mortgage, that's before the cost of a charger (if you can have one), the cost of charging when out on the road, if you can find a chargepoint, or even a working chargepoint, then you need a bank card of some description, a technical phone, that's just to be able to charge the battery, from £30,000, add on those extra costs, probably £33,000, then there's road tax now, MoT, tyres, and other wear and tear items, servicing, if you don't own your own vehicle outright, I wouldn't think that for a combustion engined vehicle or an electric vehicle, that the cost would be that much different now. I would never have thought that the price of the average car would be more than I paid for my house when I bought that in 1996
@andrewgage6942 What do you mean that you have one foot in grave?! :O
You should not be a motorist.
"We'll keep a tally of what it costs as we go along." Well, vandalising it like that will only reduce the value. :-) 2:21
He was probably using a Chinagraph pencil.
These days of course the BBC would be using flashy captions.
My mother was expecting me at the time - just five months before I came along!
Was waiting for that salesman to respond with "Old owt ya aaand!"
04:13...Clearly for the camera. A BBC presenter fixing a car! These people wouldn't get out of bed for a mechanics wage!
I like the £100 a year in petrol , that’s a tankful now.
£100 in 1970 =£1229 in 2022
@@unarmedduck (I did this for my own curiosity but thought I'd share it!). £1,229 at £1.70 a litre buys you 723 litres or 159 gallons. Therefore a car today doing 40mpg would get 6,360 miles from today's equivalent of £100 in 1970. Our chap in the film got 10,000 miles from £100, so fuel is considerably more expensive now (assuming his Austin did 40mpg). QED.
@@PurpleTT99 No chance it was anywhere near 40mpg, those are the modern cars, we are talking about engines from 50 years ago.
@@foryou6888 Yeah fair point.
@@PurpleTT99 bro that thing was probably doing 1 mile per gallon 😂
The thing is these BL cars didn't start in winter ! That sound of a Morris clanking starter was familiar in the 70s.
Ah the ideological lies of the capitalist media. If it was familiar it's only because BL still had a major market share. Ask anyone with actual experience about the useless automatic chokes on Fords & VWs and the healthy market in manual conversions. BL had the A & B Series engines, with Westlake combustion chambers, best best burners going with ultra simple & effective SU carburettors. If you couldn't get one started it was your own fault.
I'm surprised the guy he's selling the car to didn't mention the calculations on the side.
😆😆😆
:-)
Priceless. 🤣
thanks for taking me on a time travel!
The only person who had some sense was the lady who said "who cares, lifes too short". Absolutely right.
Love the line “soaring costs!”
Absolutely brilliant!!
I remember buying a fully loaded camero in 75 for $ 6000.00 we couldn’t sleep that night for worrying how in the world are we paying for it! Haha
£100 a year in petrol would equate to £1,719.36 in today's money.
Depends on how far you drive to compare it
10,000 miles average. Today it's far below that.
@@joesam7744 it must be cos my car is 10 years old with 58,000 miles on the clock.
For those watching in 2050: Ten pounds a week is about three million pounds adjusted for inflation .
3 million pounds ? whats that in zonks ?
Correction: for those watching in 2028
My first car was a 1971 white Austin 1300. I loved that car, until a friend rolled it into a tree!!
It’s funny how we always remember our first car.
Mine was a bottle green fiesta, best part of 20 years old when I bought her in 1995. She was called Ruby! I eventually gave her to my son when he passed his test.
@@JulieWallis1963 someone's first car is usually their first taste of proper freedom. Being able to go where they want without having to have parents or a family member take them.
I think for that reason someone's first car will always have a special place in their hearts.
I grew up in the countryside. Buses were pretty much useless, especially past 6pm so all my friends and I learnt to drive as soon as possible.
@@SimonLloydGuitar I doubt it had any upgrades. It was very basic, it didn't even have a radio when I brought it for a grand sum of £250 in '91.
7:05 "couldn't care less, life's too short" -> crashes
Great back then
Love these videos memorable golden years back then. Am from 1960
Proper England ❤❤
Great people
Well spoken back then
That lady at the end was a right sort
The average weekly wage in 1970 was £18.37
The big barge the old lady drives off in at the end; a Mk 4 Ford Zodiac. I've got one, and I couldn't care less either at 18mpg (mind you I only do 1000 miles a year mine)
I wish people still spoke with these accents now days, I also wish petrol for the year still cost £100! lol
Since I wasn't around in 1970, I was curious how much £10 is in today's money. It's £110,76, if anyone is wondering :) (according to the inflation calculator of Bank of England)
Thank you for saving me the click through to the calculator!
£10 pounds in 1970 £182.82 pounds today
And the average wage was £23 a week
Title did not incorporate cost of public transport for a family that the car replaces, but also the optional trips that are tempting and now possible.
That lady at the end is giving me life lol
born in 1970, moved to arizona in 1980, land of trans am, dusters, the "woody" station wagon which is so big that several 6'+ tall men can lie side to side in the back across the WIDTH of the vehicle, and of course, the suburban, a vehicle fondly adopted by the mexican mafia, you'd find one with busted windows parked on virtually every corner of town before La Familia Michoacan went down... yeh funny vid
The lady at the end was fantastic!!!!!
4:13 no blocks axle stands or even a trolly jack....but it was the 70's we were all invincible
If I am not mistaken, that is the Shell garage at Preston Park in Brighton, that the lady is driving out of at the end...
The last lady is right...life is to short...expend every minute wisely...
who know who else had a short life.... nice pfp
11 million owned cars in 1970, 54 years later, there's 33 million cars.
A 400,000 cars a year increase - almost half a million a year over that 54 years.
That's bonkers. Mind-numbing.
The whack they took on depreciation was pretty steep...the way I beat that is to buy a very old, very cheap car that can not depreciate; I service it myself where possible (though I always buy NEW tyres, run high pressures in them and have the wheels computer aligned each year to save wear.) Still my biggest expense after rent.
Don't forget that cars at that time were garbage bins on wheels compared to cars today. They deteriorated much quicker while new cars were making progress much faster (which means that buying a new car was a much better deal back then)
@@huguesjouffrai9618 Exactly! I don’t know how it was in the UK but American cars at the time where practically disposable goods. You where meant to buy a new car every other year because the car was a status symbol & the economy was good enough for people to have that kind of disposable income, so the cars would pretty much fall apart in about 8 to 10. Nobody thought they’d be around that long.
The numbers are mind boggling on today's standards.
Maybe if he hadn't written all over the side of the car it wouldn't have depreciated so much in value!
£10 a week on running and owning a car which includes tire changes and parking fees over the course of a year. That is 1/3 cheaper than getting a weekly bus ticket nowadays where I live
‘£10 per week! You could buy a house for that!’
Wow. Just wow. For £10 a day you get a return trip on the tube in central London.
No that would be £110 per week adjusting to inflation today.
Try getting a mortgage of below £500 in London these days
@@Jawis32 so expensive 😅
@@global001 I'm not pointing out that it isnt expensive, but your comparing it to a public transport fare. 110 would be an expensive return fare.
10 squid was a lotta money in 1970
Don’t people talk ever so nicely, that Austin salesman could have been educated at Eaton.😊
Great video, I wonder how much the average car costs to run nowadays? Is it fractionally the same as 1970?I expected the pull away shot with the ‘life’s too short’ lady to show her driving a Rolls Royce for some reason.
10 pounds is about 182 in today's money
I was expecting that as well.
@@garminbozia Nearer 140 GBP I'd say. Approximately the wages of a skilled tradesman for 7 days.
“I couldn’t care less” the lady said as she drove out of the garage and the number 7 bus from Clapham ran into the side of her.
That was the poshest car salesman i have ever seen 😭😭 lol
Imagine spending more on your car per month than the cost of your mortgage!!
The lady at the end was so jolly. I wonder if she is still alive today. All wealthy people say those kind of things because they have money, to say those kind of quotes you have to be financially comfortable I believe, for them living is what they have to do and enjoy, it’s a struggle but a different kind of struggle. I’m assuming she is wealthy. I hope she is still alive today, wonder if anyone could find out if she is, would be interesting to know how her life went on from back then.
Wow !
Who would of thought that a mere 50 years later the price of fuel and insurance for one year could have paid for 20 cars in 1970 🤔
>"a mere 50 years"
Bruh
You do realize that the average British wage was 18 pounds a week back then
"I couldn't care less, life's too short"
She's seems like a fun one! 😀
She seems rich
Love the lady at the end. She is so right.
How lovely
I'm the poshest used car salesman who has ever lived; yeeeeeeeerrrrrrsssssssss.
working class men used to put on an RP accent if they dealt with the public (such that salesmen do)
The figures and the amount are accurate, for that time, while it can also be reconciled to put it back in accordance to time, dated and indicative years, with massive suppliers and supplies everything are reconcilable as long as the goals are trial balances and reconciled books of incorporation, it won't experience loss or any uncertainties. Increases in salaries can also be put into realization/trial balances -receivables and payables reconciliation that is to put the figures at par as well with the costs of living and maintenance in businesses accordingly. SMEs.
The lady at the end 👏🙌 if you can afford it, enjoy it
Pura vida como me gusts ver estos reportajes de otra epoca lastima que en mi pequeño pais tuvieramos un canal o iniciativa como esta para ver y notar como ha cambiado el lenguaje y las zonas urbanas y pueblos de mi pais.great videos pura vida
Diesel for one fill-up: £100. How times change.
Lady at the very end was just tryna WHIP. Godspeed grandma
Good thing about 70s cars is they don't hate anyone over 6ft tall.
True. We are a tall family 👪. Hubby 6ft 3, son 6ft 5 and me 5ft 10. Newer cars tend to be pretty low with little leg room.
Petrol for 1 year just £100. Now over that oer tank! They didn't realise how good they had it back then 😭
I’d love to see this study done in America in 2022. With average petrol prices at $5 a gallon and full coverage insurance and the average new car costing $45,000. Oh ya forgot to mention that most new cars require specialized tools and electronic service equipment that only the dealers have access too.
CityNerd has done this: th-cam.com/video/c2rI-5ZFW1E/w-d-xo.html
TL;DW: Around $7000 a year ($135/week), the actual cost scaling up or down with miles traveled.
$5 a gallon... how ever do you cope?? :')
Doing the inflation calculations on these things and the cost of them such as tires hasn't really changed all that much.
Of course the car depreciated so much, especially after the reporter vandalized the doors lol
more cars than ever, yet I've never seen, or rarely seen my neighbours wash their cars. Cost in August 2022, 175.p a litre and my 1ltr cost 10k 4 years old preowned lol.
Don’t take that Austin out in the rain , it will dissolve.
The sound made when he shut the door wasn't exactly reassuring.
Life to short,the way she sped out at the end
Seeing this In 2024 its mind boggling... my porsche is worth 70% more now than 10 yrs ago 😊😊
Petrol for one year in 1970 £100. Diesel for my car roughly every 10-14 days, £140 in 2022. This insane inflation is down to decades of central banks printing money!
That is certainly part of it. It is also down to increased wages across all sectors and investors demanding ever greater returns on capital invested.
How much were you earning in 1970 relative to the cost of petrol? I worked in a steel mill a decade later than that and I was making about £8k p/a (as a certified tradesman). I don't think anyone I know spent less than 500 a year on fuel then.
My dad had one of those.
£10 a week for a house?! We really are in trouble.
We are talking 1970 prices though! 52 years ago ten pounds was quite a lot of money!
In 2021 money that’s £110 a week. Still sounds like a bargain to me!
@@SigmundJaehn house prices in real terms are 4 times more expensive now.
A weekly wage then was about £18 per week.
@@fasthracing The average house price in the UK 1970 was about £4000!
That car salesman was a very dapper chap
7:05: “ooooh, I couldn’t care less…life is TOO short, haha…”
Was half expecting a double-decker to sideswipe her at 7:16.
"Petrol for one year...... one hundred pounds" 😆
£60 a year in repairs?! That's less than hour's labour today.
Don’t forget about inflation
@@incognito_. £750. Probably similar to today. It is for my car anyway.
They say 10 pound a week but if you keep car longer than one year most people back then prob keep car for 10 years then the average price comes down
Cars used to rust quickly back then... Much less of a problem on modern cars.
Exactly. I bet none of the people he asked had got a new car, or chopped it in every year. Thats a total mugs game..
If a 70's car was still on the road after 10 years it was a miracle, or it spent 8 of those years tucked up in a garage.
Wish I lived in those times instead of now
I've watched this a few times over the years.
Current fuel crisis aside, even a few years ago the cost of motoring had never been cheaper. Even the RAC said so, on more than one occasion. In 1984 you could buy a 1300cc five door hatchback for £5499. In 2014 you could buy a 1300cc five door hatchback for £5,999. Go figure.
' Go figure' ?.
There is no fuel crisis, you are falling for another trick my friend. Once people have lost touch with reality, you can convince them to do anything. Just keep doing as your told and dont ask any questions
@@foylad4862 quite right
I always buy £20 petrol and it always costs the same
What new car was 5999 in 2014?
@@foylad4862 there is a fuel crisis, but it’s been manufactured by the people who have tasked themselves with solving it. Welcome to politics.
Was road fund license mentioned?
£100 for petrol for 10,000 miles a year!! That's the price of a tankful nowadays!!
It's hard to do repairs yourself now everything is computerised.
thats why i drive a 25yr old volvo !
Last woman has the best attitude. 👩👍
That last woman is a ledgend she hasd the right attatude in life thats for sure
He might have sold it for a bit more if he hadn't written all over it!
Petrol for ONE YEAR = £100 🤣 No wonder we spent our entire childhoods on caravan towing holidays, camping holidays & driving miles & miles for days out the length & breadth of the country. My goodness how things have changed. We barely go anywhere these days 😞💔
Hell, then a car sold for half your annual income, now they sell for twice…
My dad bought his 3 bedroom semi detached house for 8.000 back in 1970
North London
Average earnings was about
7.00
Per week. Wages
Very odd
Looking back
Value for money spending
And happiness