Machines that made history WOOD FUELLED TRACTORS

Conversion kits allowing tractors to be powered by fuel produced from wood appeared briefly in Europe during the final stages of the First World War when there was an acute shortage of petrol and paraffin.

Times of need

The idea apparently started in France, attracted little interest but was revived in the late Thirties as the approach of the Second World War threatened further shortages of oil-based fuels. By the end of that war many thousands of tractors in mainland Europe, plus a small number in the UK and as far afield as Australia, were equipped for turning wood into fuel.

The process for using wood as an alternative engine fuel starts with a process that