Gas balloons and slapstick comedy: a brief history of alternative fuel

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A certain gas balloon made the news quite recently, and that brought to mind these interesting pictures. Of course, a gas may be a fuel, but not every fuel is a gas. When you run your car on non-compressed gas, storing it will be the tricky bit. A balloon is light and simple but not quite as safe and solid as a tank.

The first picture was taken in Norway in 1917. The accompanying information says: ‘The ‘balloon’ on the roof is the car's gas tank. Due to rationing, gas was used as fuel during World War I and for some years after. The driver is taxi owner Isak Garmo.’

With fuel prices not likely to drop anytime soon, have you ever thought of converting your classic to run on an alternative gas? We remember King Charles’s old Aston Martin, which appeared to go quite well on “A surplus of English white wine and whey from the cheese process.” Have the valves managed to cope all right with that?

Historically, we have found other reasons to look for alternatives. In 1911 the American Supreme Court split up the Standard Oil Co. conglomerate as ‘The oil barons were squeezing profits out of the gas station pumps.’ American Motorists hoped somebody would come up with an alternative and, as a matter of fact, the International Association of Auto Clubs offered a $100,000 prize for the best alternative fuel for the internal combustion engine in 1913. Did they ever grant the reward to a clever inventor? It doesn’t appear that they did.

However, it does seem that the competition nourished a number of jokes on the silent movie screen. Both Harold Lloyd and Snub Pollard were seen fuelling their Fords with beer, drugs and magnet power in their slapstick comedies. Then there was the film Skylarking (as seen in the second picture) in which an inventor named Victor Edison comes up with a cross between a motor car and a hot air balloon... Yes, we do get carried away here…

Words: Jeroen Booij; picture: Municipal Archives of Trondheim / Model T Ford Club of America
 

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