This figure may be significantly off. It is projected back 49 years from the first recorded price, using general inflation. Items do not track inflation evenly — groceries in particular were far more expensive relative to other goods before modern agriculture, so a figure this old can understate the real price by two-fold or more. Use it for a sense of scale, not as a historical price.
What this series measures changed. ONS changed what this series measures in February 2000: earlier figures price Derv, later ones ultra-low sulphur diesel. The two ran level across the switch, so the history is continuous — but a comparison spanning February 2000 is not strictly like-for-like.
1.8pin June 1928 — about £1.61 in today's money.
- Price in 19281.8p
- Same money today£1.61
- Estimated price today · projected from January 2025£1.56
- Change since 1928+8688%
Price history
Record & method
No price was recorded for 1928. This figure is estimated: we took the earliest observed price (January 1977) and moved it back along the category inflation curve — a back-cast of 49 years. The further back it reaches, the less it should be trusted. Treat it as an approximation, not a historical fact.
- Source
- Office for National Statistics (ONS), dataset MM23. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Series title
- RPI: Ave price - Ultra low sulphur diesel, per litre (Derv prior to Feb 2000)
- Series
- CZML
- Estimated for
- June 1928
- Coverage
- January 1977 – January 2025
- Adjusted by
- CDKO · 18 → 1638.4 (May 2026)
- Back-cast
- 49 years before the first record · very low confidence
- License
- Open Government Licence v3.0