I tell ya, those folks back in the 20th century really had their heads screwed on right. We might make fun of them for sending “letters” through the “post” and “making their own dinner at home in the kitchen”, but they had some damn clever ideas. Not necessarily perfect, but definitely ingenious.
Give me an example, I hear you say? Alright pal, how about this one. A wood-powered truck! To quote grandJDM reader Jon Christall’s Flickr page (which quotes the Toyota Museum), we get this:
“During and after WWII, supplies of gasoline were low in Japan. To cope with this, a truck—equipped with a “wood gas generator”—went into production. Compared to gasoline-powered autos, the lack of power in this truck was impossible to ignore. People often had to get out and push them up hills. Approximately 26,000 of these trucks were produced (based on the Toyota BM model), and at the time were the primary type of available truck.”
You just can’t beat that. Badass, 1940s style.
And the beast also had to carry its own fuel load. However, very innovative thinking by Toyota 😛
Common method in the 40s. There were lots of wood-carburator trucks in germany too. They even tested it on trains.
You can make diesel out of wood too! I have seen plenty of wood gas conversions before but I didn’t know they produced factory build vehicles to run on it.