When Carl Camilleri goes to fill up his Ford Falcon XR6 Mark II, he pays just over 70 cents a litre for fuel. Filling up the whole tank costs about $60.<\/p>\n
The tank is about 85 litres and if driven daily, lasts Camilleri two to three weeks around town.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can see why I love this car,\u201d Camilleri says.<\/p>\n
He is one of a dwindling number of Australians with a car fuelled by liquid petroleum gas \u2013 a fossil fuel composed of propane and butane, compressed into a liquid.<\/p>\n
It may not be as headlining-grabbing as EVs when it comes to environmental impact, but LPG cars burn cleaner than traditional cars, releasing significantly less CO2<\/a> than petrol or diesel models.<\/p>\n \u2018One of the last of the perfect, Australian-made vehicles left around.\u2019 Photograph: Carl Camilleri<\/p>\n Camilleri bought his car for $28,000 in 2013. At that time, there were 500,000 other LPG-fuelled vehicles on the road. That number has declined substantially, but the fuel crisis caused by war in the Middle East has suddenly made his car a hot commodity. Another motorist at a service station recently offered him more than $20,000 for it, which he politely declined.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s become quite the blast in the Australian car industry recently, being one of the last of the perfect, Australian-made vehicles left around,\u201d Camilleri says.<\/p>\n Sales of LPG cars peaked in the early 2000s when the government offered generous subsidies for factory installations and conversion. From 2014 onwards, the rollback of subsidies and the demise of local car manufacturing \u2013 where LPG tanks were factory fitted \u2013 caused the number of LPG-fuelled cars to drop sharply. As of 2025, there were only 200,000 left on Australian roads, according to Elgas<\/a>.<\/p>\n Camilleri\u2019s son with his LPI car, showing off its all-weather capabilities<\/p>\n But for enthusiasts, they are worth hanging on to.<\/p>\n After driving over 178,000km, Camilleri\u2019s daughter calculates he has saved almost $20,000 in fuel. \u201cThe car almost paid for itself,\u201d Camilleri says.<\/p>\n Carl once drove from his house in Point Cook to Deniliquin for a weekend and then all the way back on one tank. \u201cI remember watching the gauge all the time, 660km, and that was with a boot-load of clothes and three people in the car; it was pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n Stuart Brown\u2019s Range Rover has clocked more 400,000km. He says it\u2019s in immaculate condition and still goes like a \u2018freight train\u2019<\/p>\n He also praises the car for its ability to tow what he calls his \u201ctoys\u201d \u2013 a boat and a caravan \u2013 across Australia. Camilleri\u2019s Falcon was factory-equipped with LPI, a system which injects LPG directly into the engine as a liquid rather than a vapour, offering better efficiency and more power.<\/p>\n The downside?<\/p>\n Despite the advantages, there is a downside to LPG.<\/p>\n The hardest part of owning an LPG car is finding a place to fill up, Camilleri says.<\/p>\n Brown\u2019s LPG Ford Ute outside an old Ford assembly plant. His advice for anyone thinking of getting an LPG car: \u2018Make sure there\u2019s gas near you\u2019<\/p>\n LPG sales dropped 87% from 2011 to 2025<\/a>, and the number of service stations offering the fuel has fallen to about 406 in metropolitan Melbourne<\/a>, 79 in metropolitan Sydney<\/a> and 37 in metropolitan Perth<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a problem. Stuart Brown created a Facebook community group for LPG users after his wife ran into trouble finding a place to fill up their car.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was visiting Tasmania in an LPG car and was having trouble finding gas \u2026 as the problem persisted, I was thinking this is ridiculous. I thought, well, maybe we\u2019d make and grow our own group.\u201d<\/p>\n He never expected the group to grow so big, with more than 6,000 members, many joining due to the fuel crisis.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the last month the group\u2019s exploded because people are remembering that LPG is cheaper \u2026 seeing it\u2019s not going up in price, so they\u2019re coming back to it,\u201d Brown says.<\/p>\n Brown and his wife own two LPG mid-90s Falcon utes and an LPI 1998 Range Rover.<\/p>\n The Range Rover has clocked more than 400,000km. Brown says it is in immaculate condition and still goes like a \u201cfreight train\u201d.<\/p>\n Brown\u2019s LPG Ford Ute. He and his wife own two LPG mid-90s Falcon utes and an LPI 1998 Range Rover<\/p>\n Lack of government and motoring organisation support are two key issues facing LPG car owners, Brown says.<\/p>\n \u201cDespite the fact we are basically using an Australian fuel manufactured in Australia that\u2019s cheap and plentiful and clean, it\u2019s this obsession with net zero that is holding LPG back.\u201d<\/p>\n There are other ways to get an LPG car, such as conversion kits, which come in many different forms and acronyms, such as LPDI and LPI.<\/p>\n Conversion is done by installing an LPG storage tank, usually in the boot or under the floor of cars, and this will usually require a 4WD but other commercial vehicles can be used too.<\/p>\n A converter is then added. This converts the liquid gas into a gaseous vapour, as well as regulating the process. It is recommended that all of this is done by a mechanic and it\u2019s estimated to cost between $1,500 and $4,500, according to Repco.<\/p>\n The NRMA recommends planning ahead for journeys with LPG cars, to make sure there are adequate places to fill up along the route.<\/p>\n Brown\u2019s advice for anyone thinking of getting an LPG car is: \u201cMake sure there\u2019s gas near you and \u2026 be prepared to educate people on the fact that it\u2019s Australian and cheap and clean.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Carl Camilleri goes to fill up his Ford Falcon XR6 Mark II, he pays just over 70…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-634386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}