20 replies to this topic

[Graham Clayton]

Fellow NF members,

Here is a picture that appears to show a South American coupe powered by a wood/gas unit that was used in WW2 due to fuel shortages. It seems that this car is similar to the types of cars that Juan Manuel Fangio started his career in. Does anyone have any other information about this car, the race, course and date, or any other information about racing cars powered by such units?

http://www.carroanti...nio_corrida.jpg

[Vitesse2]

I can't get the picture to open Graham, but we did have a short-lived thread about Brazilian gas-powered racers:

http://forums.autosp...&threadid=23786

[RTH]

There was a coal powered car in the Mille Miglia which made routine stops to refuel with extra bags of nutty slack !

No doubt someone can find a picture !

[doc knutsen]

Originally posted by Graham Clayton
Fellow NF members,

Here is a picture that appears to show a South American coupe powered by a wood/gas unit that was used in WW2 due to fuel shortages. It seems that this car is similar to the types of cars that Juan Manuel Fangio started his career in. Does anyone have any other information about this car, the race, course and date, or any other information about racing cars powered by such units?

http://www.carroanti...nio_corrida.jpg

Wood/gas power was used for all private or commercial vehicles in Norway during the years of Nazi occuoation. Our Swedish neighbours also had to use wood gas for fuel, but, being a neutral country, they did enjoy the occasional motorsports event even i the dark years of 1940-45. In the book "Speed in Sweden" there is a lovely pic of a racing 1938 Chevrolet that has been converted to run on wood gas. It is towing a monowheel trailer that is the actual gas producing unit. The trailer is painted with the legend "V Power"....the letter V being pronounced like "ved", or wood, in Swedish.
My father did a lot of gas conversions in those days, on all kinds of motor cars...including fitting a few dummy wood gas conversions to those cars (mainly Chevrolets and Buicks) run by the Resistance movement members...they were petrol powered, but had to have the dummy gas units fitted in order not to arouse the suspiction of the Nazi forces or their minions.
One advantage of the wood gas power was, of course, that when you ran out of fuel, you took an axe and wandered off into the woods...petrol stations were superfluous!;)

[Bonde]

We had a similar situation in Denmark, of course, but a lot less wood than our Scandinavian brethren.

But didn't the wood have to be reasonably seasoned (dried)? IIRC, the major constituent of the generated gas was actually carbon monoxide, so I could imagine there may have been a few nasty accidents with generators in confined spaces? Had outdoor grill parties been popular during WWII there would have been rather a lot of nice grill charcoal available...but not then again there wasn't much to celebrate, nor much meat to put on the grills... :

[Sharman]

I think it was coke in the UK. Grey utility buses anybody?

[Ray Bell]

Jim Keogh ran his Falcon on LPG at Sandown... the Hang Ten, I think... back in the seventies.

And Terry Walker can tell you that the supporting event to the Applecross race in 1941 (or was it 1942?) was for production cars fitted with gas producers.

There's also a photo in John Medley's book of a Bentley, IIRC, at Bathurst using a gas producer.

[David Shaw]

IIRC the LPG Falcon only ran demonstration laps alongside it's sister car (conventionally fuelled) as CAMS wouldn't let it run in the Hang Ten. 1977 I think, Pioneer sponsored cars.

[Bondy]

IIRC The LPG Falcon was driven by Bruce Watt, it was the ex Murray Carter XA Falcon and it as mentioned only ran demo laps at the 79 Hang Ten 400. His team mate was Ray Allford who as also mention ran a conventionally fuelled XC Falcon.

[Catalina Park]

I think the first time that LPG was allowed by CAMS was in one of the Bathurst 12 hour races and it was used by Mal Rose and his team. CAMS would not allow the car to be filled with gas in the pits and the team had to replace the gas tank everytime they needed fuel.

[Wolf]

Originally posted by Vitesse2
I can't get the picture to open Graham, but we did have a short-lived thread about Brazilian gas-powered racers:

http://forums.autosp...&threadid=23786

Vitesse- http://www.carroanti...nio_corrida.jpg . The text of the link was OK, but the actual link pointed nowhere.

[dretceterini]

The Bush administration is build a LSR car in secret. It will be run on all their hot air.

[Vitesse2]

Blair's building one as well. His runs on bull***t and will only be visible through smoke and mirrors.

[Mallory Dan]

Good at U-Turns tho' Vitesse, and adept at 'spinning'.

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Bondy
IIRC The LPG Falcon was driven by Bruce Watt, it was the ex Murray Carter XA Falcon and it as mentioned only ran demo laps at the 79 Hang Ten 400. His team mate was Ray Allford who as also mention ran a conventionally fuelled XC Falcon.

That would be right... Ray Alford, not Jim Keogh...

And Catalina should really check the dates, shouldn't he?

[Catalina Park]

Probably!
I can remember getting the bulletin from CAMS stating that LPG was going to be classed as "commercially available fuel" up till then it was not allowed in CAMS events.

[Ray Bell]

Of course, that wouldn't have been a consideration at Sandown...

Closer to CAMS, they could more easily overlook the rules.

[Graham Clayton]

A photo captioned "Interlagos 1941":



Source: http://driveonwood.com/forum/408

[RonPohl]

And one of the classes in ALMS (Americsn sportscars racing) is going to run on natural gas next year.

[Sharman]

George Mangoletsi made his initial money from his design of gas carburettor which was in great demand during WW2

[Tuboscocca]

There was a coal powered car in the Mille Miglia which made routine stops to refuel with extra bags of nutty slack !

No doubt someone can find a picture !

This was a 'works'-Alfa Romeo Gasogeno in 1933 (which covered the distance with an average of 64 km/h), which ran in a special race class for 'alternative' fuels...

Pictured in many MM books, and Alfa books i.e Fusi (1978) page 162


here a photo of a model

http://www.alfaromeo...m/?tag=gasogeno

regards Michael

Edited by Tuboscocca, 30 September 2012 - 14:11.