COLOURED MOTOR SPIRIT

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 948, 15 April 1930, Page 7

COLOURED MOTOR SPIRIT

HOW THE SYSTEM BEGAN OBVIOUS ADVANTAGES There is an interesting story to account for the origin of coloured motor spirit. In the high altitudes of China and India, small railroads are operated by motor spirit and kerosene engines, and it was found that the natives were rather fond of these fuels, and appropriated them for their own use. The authorities had considerable trouble to check these thefts and to bring the culprits to justice until they hit on the idea of colouring these fuels red. From then on everyone found with coloured motor spirit or kerosene in their possession was severely punished. Later some of the railroad companies and large trucking and bus companies in the United States coloured their motor spirit for a similar reason. As pointed out by Atlantic Union, whose first grade spirit is coloured red, coloured spirit will show a leakage in the petrol system, whereas the loss could not be thus revealed with a colourless fuel. Again, points out the company, road dust that accumulates in every carburettor becomes tinted with the colour of the spirit, thus giving the motorist a clear indication when his carburettor needs a thorough cleansing. COLOSSAL FIGURE More than one billion, one hundred million gallons of coloured motor spirit were sold throughout the world last year—a quantity more than five times the entire consumption of motor spirit in the whole of Australia during the same period. In New Zealand the colouring of motor fuel is effected by the adding of one part of a harmless colouring matter to over one million parts of spirit. It is absolutely impossible, says Atlantic Union, for this colouring matter to have the slightest effect on any part of the engine.