Requesting information about pre-war cars converted to gas

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This wonderful old black and white video shows a car converted to gas. Which leads us to the following message we received from Richard. He sent in the story below:

“MG 3880 is the registration plate of a PA M.G. rebuilt by my father in 1940 after she crashed into the back of an un-light tramcar while changing direction at the end of it’s run in the blackout. Father was very much a hands-on chap and I believe he rigged up the car to run on gas, probably cobbling together all sorts of bits and pieces.

I have seen many photos of vehicles with gas inflated bags on their roofs and I have wondered how father did it with bottled gas. Bags just deflate under gravity but bottles have to be pressurised, did my father buy commercial bottle gas or did he have the means to pressurise a cylinder? In the back of my mind, I seem to remember him telling me he ran the car on town gas.

One of the earliest photos of me is sitting at the wheel of MG 3880 and I have been looking for her for many years, last known in Essex back in the 60s but still recorded with DVLA, I live in hope.

I am a member of MGCC and owner of a couple of M.G.s, I have a posting on the MMM website and an article in Triple M Bulletin as yet nobody has sighted MG 3880 so I have been draughting a further article using the gas theme. I feel sure there will have been articles in the motoring press of the time about gas conversions that father more than likely may have read, though only the thought would get him designing his own system.”

Thank you, Richard, for your sharing. Now we are wondering if there is anyone who can help. We are looking for general information about pre-war cars converted to gas (during WW2). For instance material or instructions on how this was done and how the gas was controlled.

Help would be very much appreciated. Please comment below.

Words by the editor. Story sent in by Richard Verrill.

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