WELL, IT'S HAPPENED... every old car enthusiast's worst nightmare.
Shortly after the deadline for last month's CMM, Brussels announced that the European Community will require member states to ban leaded petrol - probably by the year 2000. This is apparently part of a strategy to reduce European road transport emissions by up to 70%, although even the most optimistic estimates suggest that such a figure is unlikely to be achieved. Certainly not until well into the next century. The regulations banning lead will be forced through without debate; effectively bypassing our established legislative procedures. The Brussels bureaucrats intend to have their way and aren't going to be stopped by anything as irritating as parliamentary democracy. The only proviso that's been mooted is the possibility that individual member states can beg for a 3-year postponement if they can show that they would suffer excessive social or economic hardship because of the age of their vehicle stock. As Britain is likely still to have some 2 million vehicles requiring leaded fuel in the year 2000, we should be able to argue a good case for that extension.
There are so many issues at stake here that it's difficult to know where to begin. Sadly, the way in which the lead ban is being pushed through is typical of EC legislation: no discussion, no chance of different views being aired. The people dreaming up these ideas are unelected civil servants, and the European Parliament has little power to block the Commission. The lead ban is said to be a pet project of Martin Bangemann - the anti-motorcycle legislator. Although a certain amount of lobbying can, and does, take place, EC rules and regulations seem to proliferate without rhyme or reason - and totally regardless of the consequences.
Scientific opinion on the danger posed by leaded fuel is not clear-cut. The concern is that airborne lead may affect brain development in children: many tests have been carried out but their results have been inconclusive. Indeed, there's a strong belief in certain scientific quarters that unleaded is far more harmful. In fact, it has been suggested that unleaded emissions, coming from a vehicle without a catalyst (or with an ineffective catalyst) could be very dangerous indeed.
Leaded fuel has been demonized because it destroys catalysts - it's as simple as that. For reasons best known to themselves, the EC legislators decided that we would have catalysts, come what may. The fact that catalysts don't work properly in cold, northern European climates has been established beyond doubt. This much was known before the EC demanded their fitment, and various companies were researching alternative forms of clean engine - using lean-burn technology. Margaret Thatcher, to give her her due, held out against catalysts for as long as possible on the basis of the best scientific advice. She said that better systems were being developed; unfortunately, her reputation at that time was such that no one listened seriously to her. Logically, the politicians should have told the car-makers to achieve a certain emission level - by whatever means were appropriate. But, instead, catalytic converters were made mandatory.
A safe form of petrol would contain just a small proportion of lead - enough to lift the octane rating to an efficient level without resorting to cancer-inducing aromatics. Such a fuel would protect soft valve seats in older engines, and would also give the required low emissions when used in lean-burn engines. It would have kept everybody happy - except, significantly, the makers of catalysts, the makers of those catalyst-equipped cars which were already being sold in America, and those politicians who were courting the greens. 'Cats' are big money spinners, and turned out also to be useful image builders.
The result is that European car buyers are now being forced to shell out for expensive, platinum-filled cans that break up if they hit a road hump or get splashed in a ford. They disintegrate if the engine back-fires, or if the car is tow started. Catalytic converters are so unreliable that the UK government no longer requires them to be tested at MOT time. And yet an ineffective cat produces more pollution than any classic exhaust! All European motorists have been sold down the river by their politicians but, sadly, it's the classic vehicle enthusiasts who are going to suffer the most.
For the oil companies admit that, at the moment, there is no real substitute for lead in petrol. In Britain, at least, the major producers have no wish to phase out leaded 4-star, and say that there could be a niche market for many years to come. The so-called 'lead replacement gasoline' on sale today is not an acceptable substitute because it fails to protect engines under stressful conditions such as fast motorway driving. Research into lead substitutes will continue, obviously, and better additives will doubtless be discovered. But they're unlikely to be as cheap and as effective as lead, and there's certainly no guarantee that they'll be any safer.
So what's to be done? The people who fight our corner in Brussels don't hold out much hope of preventing the ban: once the EC machinery gets started it's virtually impossible to stop. Although lobbyists representing the Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs and the Federation of European Motorcyclists will be working hard on the issue, they say that the 3-year extension is, realistically, the best we can expect. But that needn't stop us trying, of course. We need to make our views known, and that means writing to MPs - both in Europe and at Westminster.
It would be well worth reminding these people that we actually pay them to represent us - and that if they allow the lead ban to be steam-rollered through 'on the nod', then not only will they have failed us, their constituents, but they will also have failed democracy itself.
David Landers
What is YOUR opinion on this controversial subject? E-mail your views to us at . Or you can contact The UK Department of the Environment Transport and the Regions direct - from their website you can email your views to them. For other unleaded fuel information in the archives, click here and here. For the official Government news, take a look at this page. Check out http://www.secant.co.uk/unleaded/ for loads of interesting stuff, including a marque guide. The BBC's 'Watchdog' programme covered the issue in October 1999; click here. Bayford Thrust has started selling leaded 4-star again (February 2000), click here for forecourt locations. And many thanks to Mike Millen for providing us with this very interesting link on the subject; take a look at 'The Lies of Unleaded Petrol Pts. 1-3' on this page: http://www.peg.apc.org/~nexus/.
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