What's going on here then?

[Evoluzione]

I just came by it this morning on FB, they think the truck is filling with gas and that it runs on it, but really?

[spikeyhead]

That really is a gas bag on top of the truck. It was done during the war when petrol was in very short supply and needed for planes.

[cbmotorsport]

Is that the fella from Peaky Blinders atop that ladder?

[spitfire-ian]

Evoluzione said:

but really?

Yes, really!

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/11/gas-bag-veh...

[nickofh]

Very interesting thankyou. Another interesting fact about WW2 that i didn't know.

Like the execution vans a few weeks back.

[Orchid1]

cbmotorsport said:

Is that the fella from Peaky Blinders atop that ladder?

He would never be sober enough to stand steady atop a ladder.

[Jimmy Recard]

I remember reading a scene involving that in some book when I was a child. The Machine Gunners maybe? Goodnight Mr Tom?

[cbmotorsport]

Orchid1 said:

He would never be sober enough to stand steady atop a ladder.

True.

[spikeyhead]

I only knew about this because Mr Jones butchers van in Dads Army used the same scheme in some episodes.

[Eric Mc]

Many service vehicles and trucks were converted to run on coal gas during the war. My dad,as a youngster, actually helped out on a coal lorry that had been converted. There's even an episode of Dad's Army where his butcher's van is converted to gas.

However, that picture looks a lot earlier than World War 2. It looks like it could be World War 1 - or even earlier.

[snobetter]

Jones did this to his van in Dad's army, proves it.

[selnic]

Amazingly the company in the picture, Herbert Roberts of Kelghley is still going today. A quick google shows the same picture of the lorry on their website.

[TurboHatchback]

spikeyhead said:

I only knew about this because Mr Jones butchers van in Dads Army used the same scheme in some episodes.

'Open, two three, UP, two, three' etc.

[BigBen]

nickofh said:

Very interesting thankyou. Another interesting fact about WW2 that i didn't know.

Like the execution vans a few weeks back.

I am fairly sure there is an episode of Dad's Army where Jones' van is thus converted just before an exercise involving bayoneting van roofs. If there wasn't their should have been.

[bobbo89]

... Just fill it up and now you've got a blimp!

[talksthetorque]

Wouldn't touch it with a barge pole - It's in Keighley.

Would love to see the MOT tester's face when you chugged in with one of those.

[oxford drinker]

Eric Mc said:

However, that picture looks a lot earlier than World War 2. It looks like it could be World War 1 - or even earlier.

Agreed, that CX plate would date the truck towards the end of WW1. The pictures of the cars from the link above are quite bizarre!

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Surprised they're not all smoking.

[Evoluzione]

Thanks for the replies, you wouldn't have thought they had the technology back then to run IC engines on gas, but evidently so - gas powered public transport here: