Probably… and I think I can prove it using maths (hopefully).

My dad, like many people his age, is always going on about the cars he bought in his ‘youth’ costing ten or twelve pounds – twenty quid at most – and how it was so much cheaper to drive back then compared to ‘modern’ times. But I’ve been thinking about this and did some simple calculations, and it simply wasn’t.

You can’t just look at fuel costs

Let’s look at the facts. Yes, in 1968 petrol was much, much cheaper. In fact, it cost the equivalent of 22p a gallon. A gallon; not a litre. The average price at the pumps today is around £5.40 a gallon. But these aren’t comparable – not in those simple terms. To get a real idea, you can’t just look at fuel costs.

A good graduate salary in 1968 might have been around £1,100 a year. Today, a graduate can hope or, if they’re lucky, expect to earn around £23,000 a year.

So does that mean motoring was cheaper then or now?

If a graduate salary today is £23,000 compared to £1,100, then a day’s pay would be roughly £63 compared to £3 in 1968.

So a gallon of fuel in 1968 would set you back 7.3% of your daily wage. Today it would cost 8.5%.

In this case, my Dad was right – driving today is more expensive.

Wrong. Plus, I wasn’t going to give in that easily!

The difference in fuel economy

You also really have to look at the difference in fuel economy between then and now, for a fair and reasonable comparison. A typical medium family car back in my father’s younger years might average 23mpg if you were lucky. Nowadays, it’s not uncommon to get double that or even more. Let’s say 45mpg to be on the safe side.

So if you spent 10% of your daily earnings on petrol, in 1968 you could travel 31 miles. Today, you could go 52 miles – that’s 67% further.

If your daily commute is a 40 mile round trip, in 1968 you would have spent almost 13% of your day’s pay on fuel. Today, you would spend less than 8%.

So there you have it – things weren’t always better in the past. I know we like to complain about the cost of fuel but, in truth, it’s never been cheaper.

Disclaimer: This article looks at the cost of driving when taking into consideration fuel costs, fuel economy and salaries. Looking at different aspects of driving may result in a different answer to the question, ‘Is driving nowadays cheaper than 50 years ago?’