The electronic petrol pump

A then small Marton firm, PEC, had it’s start in the Second world war when it was established to make smoke bombs. After the war they made a number of products before settling on manufacturing petrol pumps.

In the 1970s they noted the invention of the microprocessor and realised that one day their mechanical pumps would be a thing of the past.

They decided not to delay but begin designing an electronic pump.

The company bought New Zealand’s first development kit for the Intel 8080 processor and with it the engineers designed the world’s first electronic petrol pump. Producing these pumps received a huge boost with the oil crisis which pushed the price of petrol up past what the old two didgit mechanical pumps could handle. The now wildly spinning cogs wore out and pumps were jamming

Between the 1970s and 90s PEC led the world in pump design and employed 280 staff at their Marton factory. In 2000 they were bought out by the Gallagher (electric fences etc.) company.