A Car That Runs on Wood

In WWII, Europe was in a real fuel shortage. Oil imports were largely blocked, and what oil was available was used for aviation and tank fuel. Germany had a lot of coal, but no oil deposits. To make up for their huge lack of oil, German ingenuity turned to gassification of coal to make synthetic fuel. To run cars without using their precious oil, the German government and many European civilians tried a method of running a car by burning wood, and it apparently worked! Ford, GM, and other car manufacturers made kits, and many cars were converted to run on wood, either using a mass produced conversion kit, or a homemade version. A car using a factory built kit would run for 100,000 miles fairly problem free.

The way this worked was that wood was heated until it began to break down chemically. When wood burns in a normal fire, the wood decomposes chemically due to the heat, and some of the gasses produced by the wood are flamable, and they burn as they are released. That is the flame that you see.

With the WWII era wood burning cars, wood was heated to a temperature hot enough to decompose the wood, but the gas was not allowed to burn. It was stored in a chamber, and injected into the cylinders of a regular internal combustion car. Some of the government made cars were similar to a WV Beetle, and a small military runabout, shown in the photos above. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, prepared a very complete manual on how to build these units, written by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, foreword by Thomas B. Reed. The site is called Gengassidan.

Comments

[cary lalor]

I have been trying to find a good drawing of the set up for a wood burning set up for a car. Thanks Cary Lalor N1295 state rd 22 Montello Wi 53949

[steve lazarus]

i woud also want info as how to run a car on a wood burning setup

[Bob Shaver]

Steve: The best place I found to research this technology was the link in the post. It is a government agency of some kind that seeks to preserve this technology. I'd check there for more information.

Bob Shaver

[Brian]

I've not read it, but I've heard that this book is an excellent one on the subject of how to build such a vehicle: http://lindsaybks.com/bks/producer/index.html

[Al]

Thanks for sharing. I have a blog entry concerning this subject that my father shared with me when he was 27 in 1944.

http://spaces.msn.com/theparenttrip/blog/cns!CC9E496FB1586A7A!1077.entry

[Pete Wheeler]

Late in the year 1995 the magazine Classic & Sports Car had an article about some European guys still running their cars on wood. You can go to the web site and request the archive.

http://www.classicandsportscar.com

[Web]

It’s great that more people are focusing on making better environmental choices. Plus technology is making it more economical now, and that’s what people really notice. Wind energy, solar power, hybrids and zap EV’s, our choices are good. There are now electric cars being sold everyday, you just plug it into a regular power outlet. When people test drive them they say it’s far more fun to drive an EV.

[Peter Richter]

Dear Sir,
You might be interested in the fact that I took my driving instructions and test in an Opel, which had a wood burning "pot" in tne back.All one has to do, throw pieces of wood into it, ignited it, turned on a blower until you could light the fumes coming out. At this point, you would turn a valve and proceeded to drive the vehicle. I am trying to get a picture of the setup. Trucks were driven also with this kind of setup. I am surprised that this technology has not been perfected with today's technology and computerization.
Peter Richter