Catching up with old Brit Car Digests . . . .
On Thu, 28 Jul 94 9:50:55 PDT, Roland Dudley <cobra@cdc.hp.com> writes:
>After the energy crisis in the '70s I recall there being some sort of
>Federal mandate about the US going metric within a certain period.
>The conversion form "English" to metric was supposed to be phased in.
>After a year or two about half of the service stations in this area had
>their pumps calibrated in litres. Needless to say this caused a great
>deal of confusion and probably a bit of price gouging. Don't know what
>happen to the mandate but I haven't seen a gas pump calibrated in
>litres for years.
As I recall it, the reason gas station owners used litres was because most
pumps only recorded prices to 99 cents. When gas went over $1.00/gallon in
the late '70s, they recalibrated their pumps to record sales in liters--which
then sold for 25 or 30 cents. Ultimately they got new pumps that handled
prices up to $9.99/gallon.
At least this was what happened in the SF Bay Area.
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