I was looking through a VW history book a few years ago and noticed a
Kubelwagen (looks like our "Thing") with a big hump in the hood.  I was
curious about this feature and was amazed to read that during WWII when the
Germans started experiencing shortages in oil and fuel they began to fuel
some of their vehicles by burning wood!  Actually they would set up a small
stove somewhere in the vehicle and burn the wood.  The gasses coming off of
the wood are combustible and they would route these to the carburator and
power the car this way.  However, as David noted with propane, the wood
burning gases used as fuel would give you very little power and was a very
poor way to fuel a vehicle (I think when the Germans got to this point they
might have started to realize that the 1000 year reign was going to be
slightly shorter than they had hoped :-).

PS I hope this doesn't give those folks who have been toying with the idea of
putting a wood stove in their Vanagon for heat any more ideas :-)

Thanks,
Ken Wilford
John 3:16
www.vanagain.com
Phone: (856)-765-1583
Fax: (856)-327-2242

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