do you remember gasoline with lead?

[Cranberry]

There are up to three different gasoline-pumps here, but all three are unleaded and differ in octane rating (91, 95, 98)... I remember the 95 and 98 being called "unleaded 95/98" on very old gas stations, though

[Cranberry]

There are up to three different gasoline-pumps here, but all three are unleaded and differ in octane rating (91, 95, 98)... I remember the 95 and 98 being called "unleaded 95/98" on very old gas stations, though

That's the way it is here now.  Three pumps, all with varying grades ("octane ratings").  Typical choices here are 87, 91, and 93, which is equivalent, roughly, to what you call 91, 95, and 98.  (US, Canada, Brazil, etc. use the [RON+MON]/2 number.  Germany, Netherlands, Austria, etc. use RON only.  Rule of thumb is add five to the US number to compare it to the German number.)

I only recall there being two pumps when I was little.  Both had lead.  Old folks called the leaded fuel "ethyl" which is short for tetraethyl lead.  It wasn't in fuel originally, but was added as an anti-knocking agent starting in the mid-20s.  Apparently a collaboration between GM, DuPont, and Standard Oil managed to suppress government reports about the dangers of tetraethyl lead, and by the mid-30s it was added to 90 percent of the automotive fuel used in the US.  Then, when I was very young (early 70s?) I started seeing three pumps:  regular, premium, and unleaded.  Eventually there was only unleaded.  For a while, where there was both, the nozzles were different sizes.  The nozzle of the unleaded fuel was smaller, maybe only 3/4 inch in diameter, but the leaded nozzle was at least an inch in diameter.  New cars in the 70s were made with a smaller hole in the filling port so that only the unleaded nozzle would fit into it.  Either would fit into the bigger leaded port for the older cars, but the unleaded was more expensive so the older cars just used the leaded fuel.  Lots of folks would take a ball-peen hammer and expand the opening of the fuel input port on their new cars so that they could accept the less-expensive leaded fuel.  I remember seeing lots of cars with the hole widened this way.  It must have been fairly common to do this in the 70s.

My dictionary said it was called octane rating in English, I never needed that word before and likely never will again But good to know how it's really called.

I talked to my parents about it, and they said that there never was that much leaded gasoline, as the vast majority of cars used and uses Diesel, and not gasoline... When gasoline started to come to most gas stations, it was mostly already unleaded...

[Cranberry]

Okay, thank you for clarifying this. I always love it when I learn some new English term/expressions on the Atlas Forum

On a funny side note, the abbreviation for octane number's longer, "official" name in German is ROZ (I guess you'd call it RON), which is homophone to and nearly spelled equally as "Rotz", meaning snot. Just to point that there; I always giggle a bit when I see ROZ standing somewhere on the pump

Is there a specific name to gasoline with 87/91/93 or is it just called gasoline 87/91/93? Here in Austria, the lowest is called just plain "Benzin" (=gasoline), the medium "Super" or "Super 95", and the highest "Super Plus" or "Super 98".

I don't drive yet myself, but my parents told me that they had never experienced any differences between fuelling normal gasoline or fuelling gasoline with a higher octane number. Then again, they have a Diesel, like nearly everyone else here

This I think is a great advice. After all, you can never know it or experience it yourself if you don't try it. It can be a fine line between satisfying your, in that case curiosity on the one hand and offending others on the other, that is just equally true.