[HAM] Question for any Aussie member

[Kon Zissis]

Hi Bill.
I live in Melbourne, Australia and I am not aware of any charcoal
powered cars from the WW2 era or from any other era.
 
It might be possible that an experimenter  during WW2 built a  primitive
car which was powered with some kind of steam engine or with a charcoal
engine but I have never heard of any production cars that worked with
steam engines or with charcoal.
 
Perhaps the pictures of the cars that you saw had  steam engines which
would have used coal or wood to heat up the water.
 
A few steam engine powered trains such as the Puffing Billy train in the
Belgrave area are still in service as a tourist attraction. 
 
In 1995 there was the 50th anniversary of the end of  WW2 celebrations
and one day during the lunch break from my job I went out and saw the
nearby public parade which featured veteran soldiers and also original
armoured  military vehicles  and cars and vans from the WW2 era and
amongst these there were some oddball and very funny looking cars and
vans but the engines of these cars and vans all sounded like normal
petrol combustion engines and they did not produce smoke like the steam
engines do.  
All the best.
Kon
 
Bill Odum wrote:
It is my understanding that during WW2  cars in Australia were run on
charcoal.  I have seen pictures of cars with what looked like a tank
mounted on a car which was part of a charcoal burner. Can anyone of you
good fellas tell me something about that?  With the price of
gasoline-petro now there might be something feasible about that. The way
things are going it might be cheaper to put vodka in the tank instead of
drinking it.Thanks for any info.