In the course of doing some research for the Pismo story, I came across the following items:
Town Gas: Evidently, natural gas was not in common use in the U.S. until after the Second World War. Each town manufactured its own gas– town gas– out of what was available: most commonly coal, but also rutabagas. (I would use rutabagas at any rate.)
Wood Gas: A cursory googling will yield a number of cars retrofitted to run on wood. Big tanks of wood.
Homemade Gasoline: This seems obvious in retrospect, but if you have a source of crude oil in your backyard and you rig up a makeshift still, you can make your own gasoline. It’s easier than making moonshine.
Fritz, the Matneys had an old 1930s Farmall F-30 tractor that had two gas tanks, one for gas and one for kerosene, however kerosene was not used by the 50s. my father didn’t like me to use the Farmall, it was a rough old thing that would break your thumb if you wrapped your hand around the steering wheel wrong. (lots of violent feedback from rough ground) it still is hanging around at Scott’s place, but not used. i believe a fueling fire ended it’s usefullness after 50 years!
the story of making your own gasoline was amazing. who knew it was so simple!
We should build a mash-up of the Farmall F-30 and the Louisiana Y2K Superbike. That way the Farmall would run on kerosene once again, and also accelerate extremely stylishly.