Can anyone please tell me whether unleaded fuel was commonly available in
the States in the 'sixties?
I remember many people who were taking delivery of their cars in the UK
asking whether they should use leaded or unleaded while in Europe. This
suggests it was fairly freely available on t'other side, while still being
effectively unknown in Europe at the point of sale? Such being the case,
does anyone have an original factory handbook which comments specifically
on the type of fuel that was suitable for use?
Unleaded certainly was not on sale in the UK at that time, though the car
manufacturers did have special supplies of their own. It occurs to me from
a discussion I had with someone yesterday, that if unleaded was commonly
found in the US, there's just a chance that Coventry fitted hardened valve
seats as a matter of course to many engines prior to 1968. I greatly doubt
they'd have had a US head and an Everywhere Else head going through the
engine build shop. If they did fit seats suitable for green fuel, this may
go some way to explaining why it appears so many Spitfire owners are
running cars with 'old' type seats that don't appear to have suffered with
green going in the tanks.
John Macartney
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