projects birthday

[eddiefarrell]

  Ruby tax book.jpg (Size: 136.12 KB / Downloads: 360) My new project is 83 years young today. 28th December.

[Rogerchummy]

I notice the incredible annual road tax charge of £25. This must be about £750 or even more per annum in today's money.

[Barry Townsend]

Your car is just a baby, my RN is 88 on December 31st!! 
I did post recently that I couldn’t understand why so many cars were registered so late in the year, presumably there must be some angle that made it worthwhile?

[Tony Griffiths]

I notice the incredible annual road tax charge of £25. This must be about £750 or even more per annum in today's money.

The sticker dates from 1968 to 1974 when the rate was £25. In 1968 the amount was equal to £436 today and by 1974 to £262. Still expensive. In those days a telephone was still considered by the Civil Service, who ran the nationalised GPO (General Post Office) as a luxury item. Installation charge? £20 - unless you opted for a 6-foot cable and a phone in the hall on a table when it was reduced to (if memory serves me correct) £15.

[Duncan Grimmond]

You I remember having a telephone installed in 1984 for £75.00. This was the standard charge and in our case included three telegraph poles from the lane end to the house!

[andrew34ruby]

£25 road tax. Yes it had been £15, then £17.50 and then it rocketed to £25. As a young man eager to be on the roads I just paid it.

[Andy Bennett]

As background for a talk I give on Austin 7s through the decades I did some research regarding various costs of motoring in 1933, when compared to today.

Many will already know, so apologies to you all, but this might be new to some. Tax was based on a 'horsepower' calculation from the RAC. But it wasn't the 13BHP we think about, it was based on piston size, being:

diameter x diameter x number of pistons, all divided by 2.5.

For the Austin 7 this gives 7.8 and a charge of £8, or around £500 in today's money.
It was the original 696cc version which gave an RAC horsepower calculation of 7.2 and so the name Austin 7.

Andy B