MENU

Gatsonides’ Coal Gas-Generator

From the collection of the Overloon War Museum

h 125 cm x w 265 cm
1940-1945

Because the German occupier commandeered fuel for its own needs, early in the war there was already a shortage of petrol. To ensure that cars could still keep riding, some were equipped with a gas generator or a large gas reservoir on top. This meant extensively rebuilding the vehicle. The Dutch race car driver and inventor Maus Gatsonides developed a new kind of gas generator: a gasifier.

Read more ›
img
https://www.tweedewereldoorlog.nl/100voorwerpen/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/18.jpg
imgfull
'A Car Ride Without Petrol', Maus Gatsonides driving a car pulling his gas generator, 1940 (Source: National Library of the Netherlands, KB).
https://www.tweedewereldoorlog.nl/100voorwerpen/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/18.-Gasgenerator-van-Gatsonides1.jpg
img
imgfull
https://www.tweedewereldoorlog.nl/100voorwerpen/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/18.-gasgenerator.jpg
img
imgfull

The Dutch newspaper De Oprechte Haarlemsche Courant reported in August 1940 ‘Mr Gatsonides has come up with a totally different system: he has placed the entire generator installation on a trailer that can be pulled behind any car’. In this small unit, a kind of gas that a car could run on was made from coal: therefore saving on petrol and making rebuilding a vehicle no longer necessary.