petrol | Diesel is for tractors

What? another new illness? Yes, well, maybe.

Tell me more!

Its something that plagues a huge number of the worlds population, in a variety of guises. Its been around a long time, but I’ve yet to find its true name, so let me discribe it to you and ask yourself if you possibly have it too.

It probably started for me when I was about 6 years old. My father allowed me to steer the car on a private road. I don’t know if it was an airborne illness or something that resulted after touching the cars controls, but that was when it began.

The next batch of symptoms were not noticed by family as anything abnormal. Posters began to appear on the walls of my room, mostly of Italian exotica. Toys were replaced with scale models. The tv shows I watched began to change from regular cartoons to ones with cars, examples such as Transformers & MASK, to anything that featured an engine – Night Rider, Steet Hawk, Magnum P.I, Airwolf, Automan, Hardcastle & McCormick, Miami Vice(although the parents didn’t know!) Dukes of Hazzard and the A-Team. There were more but I can’t remember the names.

Then it got worse. I started to go to local Rally events. My parents must have simply not wanted to admit I had this sickness, because the signs had become obvious. The sound of the neighbour starting his Sierra Cosworth. It drove all the other locals crazy, but I couldn’t get enough. Lying in bed at night as the same car would return from a night out, I could hear it approach from miles away. Each downshift, the gentle increase and decrease of revs while cornering, to the roar on the straights.

Sunday sports tv was replaced with F1. The collection of mags left in the house by my uncle we raided. I hit the jackpot…. mountains of issues of CAR magazine.

I started to watch, actually study, my Dad as he drove. I wanted to as good as he was. I listened to any conversation that had the slightest hint of petrol, hoping for tips or just cool car stories.

I would identify the make and model of every car I would see, thankfully all this was kept in my mind as I’m sure those around me would have had me committed. Instead of being angry when I spotted a car I didn’t know, I was delighted. It meant I had to go researching! All this in the days before the interwebs, it meant visiting the library, the newsagent and actually talking to people, face to face.

But things took a turn for the worse when a certain red beast, with “2 roundy triangles” under the bonnet, arrived from the land of the rising sun. Then the sickness turned into its most destructive form. Financial stage 3 sickness. First it was the initial cost of the car. Then the shipping and freight insurance. Then the flights to the UK to collect it and ferry back. The duty, the VRT, the insurance, the fuel. The large bill for the rebuild, the various bits and pieces it needed along the way. Then came the mods.

Oh the mods…… its by now that if you aren’t nodding with me, you are probably safe and disease free. So go away. If on the other hand, your smiling, knowing what its like to suffer, read on.

I find myself turning on the pc and immediately checking car sales sites & parts sites. Not just in Ireland, no, that would be too easy and probably not cost enough. Nope, the internet is a global market place, so I must use it to the full, along with my ever dwindling bank account. But its ok, I have an understanding woman in my life. She knows I have inner demons, which torment me, daily, hourly. She can read my body language from the other side of the room. She knows, really knows, when I have located the NEXT car. Or worse, when I have located that rare part, for the rare car, that I DON’T own….yet. Oh yes, B, you are a truly understanding woman and I am blessed to have you in my life.

What she doesn’t realise, is that I have slowly, over many years, been trying to nuture this disease in her also. Wicked? Wrong? Disgusting? Evil? yes, probably. But I know that if we both suffer the same sickness that it will ultimately bring us even closer together. When will I stop? When the day comes that she wakes me up, saying “I’ve just changed the injectors on my car and fitted the uprated fuel pump. Want to go for a spin to test it out?”

Any day now!

Thank you Dad for this sickness, and to my Mum for understanding, it has come to define me and is a part of my soul now, I’ll forever be grateful.

Free power?

As you may have guessed, I’m not the biggest fan of diesel powered cars. Petrol is good, but Hydrogen is better. Vegetable Oil & Electric propulsion, especially when the electricity comes from renewable resources, are great ways to power something. What I’m about to tell you may get me killed…… really.

My Granduncle, like me, loved all things mechanical. He spent a lot of his life tinkering with cars, trucks, radios, televisions and other things that may be in need of some fettling. As a child, he would tell me stories about places he had visited and people he had met. Stories about various cargo he had moved and stories about accidents and coverups. What really got my attention was when he would talk about various types of engine(sad, I know). He is largely responsible for me owning a rotary powered car, and the name Felix Wankel stuck in my mind until I was much older and spotted my first RX-7, but thats a story for another time.

What have I to tell you that is so dangerous? Well, its a type of engine I heard about from my uncle, many, many years ago.

He knew about a scientist, German if I remember correctly, who invented a revolutionary engine. Simply put and to cut to the chase, it was water powered. Rubbish, I hear you say? No, fact. This man found a way to allow anyone with access to fresh water, to run their car.

So why haven’t we heard more about this? Why are we driving cars with Petrol, Diesel and various other fuel types? Exactly. Why?

And this is the dangerous bit. My Granduncle told me how this was obviously a fantastic breakthrough and the inventor had found a way to bring affordable transport to the masses. Quite rightly, this was the dawn of a new age in transport. But, the inventor disapeared. His research…. vanished. In fact, it was as if the whole thing never happened.

A lot of you are probably thinking “Conspiracy Theory!!”, ok fair enough. But think about it for a minute. We would all, as consumers and general population, stand to benefit from the discovery. Who would loose out?

The Oil Industry.

Think of the sheer wealth within the oil business. Untold wealth. Think of what has happened, worldwide, for decades, because of the fight for oil…… Is it really so hard to believe that someone threathening this global mega money making machine could vanish?

What about Gas? Another huge industry that would stand to loose out.

Think about the money invested in super tankers, oil rigs, pipelines, refineries etc. Think about the businesses intertwined with them also. Consider the number of fuel depots, in each country, worldwide. What about the number of fuel stations in one country alone. Think about the taxes made from selling the fuel. To threathen this world of wealth would have immense consequences, surely?

Oil is a non renewable resource. The cost of it is increasing and will continue to do so. But it WILL run out. Water, according to the USGS, covers 71% of our planet. There is so much water on our planet, in our planet and around our planet.

How many of you have found yourself stranded at the side of the road, without fuel. Probably a long trek to the nearest station. What if you could just bring a bottle or other container to the nearest stream, fill up and be on your way again? Sounds good, doesn’t it?

I could suggest a simple naca duct, somewhere on your car, connected to a tank.

Think about it the next time its raining. Picture it as free fuel, falling from the sky and all you have to do is collect it. In truth, that is exactly what it is, free fuel(until the governments find a way to tax it) and the life blood of our planet.

So, if I vanish mysteriously, or perhaps am involved in an accident, at least give it a little thought. And ask, “why are we not driving water powered cars?”

Thank you.