May 2024

by Robin Astle.

From FBHVC Newsletter 2024 No. 1

LEGISLATION by Lindsay Irvine

GDPR

I appreciate this is a topic which is not even Marmite – there seems to be a universal frustration with its application whether it be “cookie pop ups” when you open a website or difficulty accessing historical information on the basis it contains someone else’s personal data. Post-Brexit reform of what is now UK GDPR has been promised in the Data Protection and Digital Information (No.2) Bill but it is not with us yet. However, in the two areas where there is particular angst, I do not see much scope for change. The two areas are linked and relate to information on the history of a vehicle. It is the case that until relatively recently (2017), for those interested in knowing details of their HV including previous ownership, those details were available from DVLA. For those lucky enough to have the old buff logbook (as I have on the Riley) much of its journey through life is documented. Without going into legal detail, the effect of EU and now UK GDPR is that the DVLA cannot disclose the details of previous owners. In response to questions put to us on the issue, we have considered suggestions of workarounds based on data protection principles (consent to disclose is the obvious one) but to anyone who has experience of being a reasonably large-scale data controller, the practicalities and cost of obtaining consent for disclosure are potentially prohibitive. Even with a charging regime, you can see that asking the DVLA to write to previous owners who may have moved, passed away etc. in the interim for such permission would be a considerable burden and not a core aim or objective of the organisation. In addition, you can be sure some past owners may not welcome receipt of a brown envelope asking for such permission (“who wants to know and why?” might be a typical reaction).

The other related question we have received concerns club handling of personal data including sharing, and how this might affect archives containing vehicle histories. Club officials reading this will almost certainly have gone through the mill with drafting and implementing data protection policies and may have made use of the FBHVC Essential Guide on the topic. Many clubs have sought consent from members for exchange of personal data such as addresses and phone numbers. All this of course brings obligations such as keeping information up to date and ensuring continued consent. What about records of car owners as part of the club history? Can they lawfully be retained without the need for updating etc? A useful summary can be found on the National Archives website which states as follows:

Archiving

• The law recognises that there is a public interest in permitting the permanent preservation of personal data for the long-term benefit of society where relevant.
• There is a specific provision for this – ‘archiving in the public interest’. This can apply to archiving by public, private or voluntary bodies.
• Processing data for archiving purposes must be distinguished from processing that supports daily business, as the exemption does not apply in those cases – for example, data gathered for marketing purposes. It also needs to be transparent.
• Safeguards must be met to use the exemption which minimise any adverse impact on living individuals.
• Public use of ‘archived’ personal data will generally be possible once the people concerned are dead, and may be possible earlier if the use is fair to the individuals in the records.

A fuller exposition is in their Guide here: https://cdn.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/information-management/guide-to-archiving-personal-data.pdf

However, the point I wanted to highlight in this article is set out in the final bullet above; a club should be careful about thinking it can replicate the old permissiveness of the DVLA in relation to disclosure of personal information. Personal data kept under the historical archive principle is still not readily disclosable without permission or until the relevant person has died (or deemed deceased). The frustrations of GDPR are not easily circumvented!

Purpureus Pannus

Have you encountered the concept of Clickbait? To describe it, I turn again to my favourite ancient Roman poet, Horace (he of carpe diem fame) as he hits the right literary judgements. In one of his works, he talked about writers who would tack on a purpureus pannus, a purple patch, into their otherwise overly serious (or dull) thesis to get attention. Clickbait is along the same lines, attracting your attention with some sensational phrase or title generally to make you read some banal advertising for which the ‘influencer’ gets paid. Youtube is full of such purpurei panni often along the lines of “the end of the world is nigh”. Yes man with sandwich board is now online but with a bigger audience and whose words can cause unnecessary upset or distress. We were recently sent a couple of Youtube videos, one of an ‘influencer’ under the title “The Digital Revolution Spells The End For Older Cars” and another on the topic of Road Charging. Inter alia, the first claimed that in the future, insurance may not be obtainable or be unaffordable for classic vehicles (as he termed them) due to the digitisation of vehicles. I should say his thesis was based on a German anecdote and a letter from a German whistleblower. This suggested that because future risk would be calculated on the basis of output from “black boxes” in vehicles which would transmit driving styles, speed and times when the vehicle is being driven, classic cars would be disadvantaged because they were not “connected”. Actually, these concepts must be fairly familiar to readers, particularly in the context of young drivers whose premiums are based on the voluntary fitting of such boxes. However, this commentator links broader technical features likely to be mandated in future generations of cars, such as breath testing, to the idea that since “classic” cars can’t conform “their end is nigh”.

We don’t entirely agree. Yes, the digital future is coming and many of the features he refers to, particularly increasing “connectedness”, are realities, especially for driverless vehicles. As I discuss elsewhere, Road Traffic law is being adapted to cater for these highly “digitised” vehicles with implications for insurers of those companies mandated in the future to carry liability for accidents. However, it is the market that generally dictates, and with many millions (and probably hundreds of millions worldwide) of unconnected cars, it is unlikely that insurers will want to reject this market. Having consulted our Commercial Insurance Partners, Peter James, they confirm there is no substance to the essential thesis of the video. As was obvious at the recent Federation/Club Expo at the British Motor Museum, Peter James continue to welcome HV business! In relation to the “threat” of Road Pricing, can I refer you to my fairly comprehensive article in 3/2022, the bare bones of which I think hold good. Oh, and remember, each time you click on one of these videos, the maker collects! Vale.

Fuels by Nigel Elliott

Petrol Octane a brief history

In the late 1920’s the Cooperative Fuels Research (CFR) Committee was formed to respond to the need of oil refiners and engine builders to develop a means of measuring and defining petrol combustion characteristics. Prior to 1929 the knock resistance of fuels was rated using an engine where the compression ratio could be varied between 2.7:1 and 8:1. Each fuel was run in this engine at various air/fuel ratios and ignition timing settings to obtain conditions for maximum power. The highest compression ratio was then established beyond which knock and power loss occurred. Fuels were assigned values that related to the Highest Useful Compression Ratio (HUCR), a scale was later standardized against toluene.

The octane scale as we know it today was first proposed by Graham Edgar in 1926, established in 1929 and has been used ever since. Two paraffins of similar physical characteristics were selected as standards:

• iso-octane (2, 2, 4 trimethylpentane) defined as 100 octane number
• n-heptane was assigned a value of zero octane number.

Hence a volume blend of 95% iso-octane and 5% normal heptane has an octane number of 95. The octane number of a fuel is the % volume of isooctane in a blend with n-heptane that shows the same antiknock performance as the test fuel when tested in a standard engine under standard conditions.

In 1928 the CFR Committee decided that a single cylinder test engine was needed as a first step in developing a petrol knock test method. In early December 1928, the CFR Committee accepted the basic Waukesha Motor Company design and the first engine was constructed in 1929.

The test method simulated lower speed and lower load operation and was referred to as the Research Octane Number (RON). During the 1930’s it was found that it was not possible to correlate the performance of cars on the road with just one type of octane number because engine designs and driving conditions were constantly changing. A higher load octane test was developed to simulate high speed high load operation and it was called the Motor Octane Number (MON).

Nowadays it’s normal to define octane using at least 2 and sometimes 3 octane parameters:

• Research Octane Number (RON)
• Motor Octane Number (MON)
• Octane number of the front-end fraction of the fuel (R 100°C)

The octane number of the front-end fraction of the fuel is important for carburettor and single point fuel injection systems feeding a number of cylinders, as during sudden acceleration the lighter front end components of the petrol can reach the cylinder faster and if their octane rating is low can cause transient knock for a few seconds. Since the move to multipoint fuel injection at the inlet valve or in the cylinder this is no longer an issue and most oil companies have dropped the front-end fraction octane requirement, so older vehicles may experience transient knock during hard acceleration on modern fuels depending on their octane requirement.

Different engine designs have different RON and MON requirements but in general for classic and historic vehicles, both RON and MON are important. Modern direct fuel injection engines have been found to be mostly RON sensitive. This is probably due to the in-cylinder cooling effects of direct injection and stratified fuel mixtures. In Europe, RON is posted on service station dispensing pumps whereas in the USA (RON+MON)/2 is posted, hence the apparent lower octane numbers. A European unleaded 95 grade has a minimum RON of 95 and a minimum MON of 85 which would be posted as (95+85)/2 = 90 in the USA.

The higher octane Super E5 Unleaded protection grade in the UK has a minimum RON of 97 and a minimum MON of 86 which matches the old leaded grade (BS4040). In mainland Europe, the Super Unleaded grade has a minimum RON of 98 and a minimum MON of 86. A number of Super Unleaded grades are also available in the UK market with a minimum RON of 99 and a MON of 86.

In the mid-1930s Research Octane Numbers (RON) were around 70 which allowed compression ratios to increase to about 5.5:1. Many 1950s vehicles, for example, probably require no more than 80 RON petrol, if such a product were available, yet will run well on 95 or 97+ RON petrol. Furthermore, most pre-war cars were designed to tolerate even lower octane fuels yet will also run well on today’s 95, 97 or 99 RON petrol. Octane describes a fuels resistance to knock and has nothing to do with the energy content of the fuel. There is no such thing as “too much” octane for older engines. Octane requirement should therefore be seen as a minimum requirement to ensure the correct operation of the engine.