Automobiles similar to this were common when I was a kid... our family car was a 1940 Studabaker, bought new about the time I was born. It was before WWII. During the war fuel and tires were rationed.
My grand dad had a natural gas well on the farm and there were others close by that he tended. The gas wells had a lot of moisture mixed in with the natual gas. The moisture would collect in low spots in the transmission pipe lines. My grand father would ride a horse all along the pipeline... open a valve and blow out the moisture... usually burning it then close the valve and go to the next low spot (or trap)
My dad figured out how to modify our "Studybakers" carberator, change the timing and maybe the pointsso that it would run on the stuff he called "drip gas".... he'd collect the drip gas and put it in a 55 gallon drum that was mounted in place of the back seat. (I think he had friends using some of it too.) The black smoke would roll... and it had a distinctive smell.
It was illegal... even though it was making use of a waste... TAXES hadn't been paid on the fuel.
My dad always had tires even though they were rationed... I'm pretty sure that he traded "drip gas" for tires and anything else that was rationed.
I guess it won't hurt to tell you about it now... he's dead... and it all happened before that I was 5 years old.
