Man drives car that runs on chip fat from England to Greece (Next year, he’ll take a plane, with fuel made from plastic bags)
Now, here’s a strange story for you:
Chip fat-powered rally driver Andy Pag was cock-a-hoop as he steered his sticker-covered car into the forecourt of a sleepy Greek taverna just over the border from Albania. “Today we have successfully completed our mission,” he declared, punching the air with delight. “We have arrived in Greece, powered by nothing but grease!”
Nine days after leaving a “greasy spoon” cafe in North London, he and his team of adventurers had achieved their ambition to traverse Europe without using fossil fuels. Instead of filling up at petrol stations, they have been pulling into restaurants and charming often bemused chefs and owners into donating their waste cooking oil. He has travelled more than 2,000 miles (3,200km), using about 45 gallons (200 litres) of chip fat. His car has been doing more than 40 miles to the gallon, which he claims is better than normal diesel. And he has also saved more than 350 euros (£300) in petrol station bills.
It’s quite something, don’t you think? No more worries about rising oil prices. Who cares how much a gallon costs when you can fill your car at the chip shop, while stuffing your face with some fish and chips?
Yes, I can see the future – and it ain’t orange. How many miles a gallon do you think you’d get from a bloody orange? Those snooty fitness fruits are way too busy packing vitamin C to be of any real use. No, if you want to go places, think greasy cafs and chippies.
So, it’s goodbye petrol station, and goodbye and good riddance to any road side restaurant that can’t produce a decent, old-fashioned fry-up.
It’s a great way of recycling too: to feed our cars with the stuff that was used to feed us. Granted, we might all put on a bit of weight, if we will have to eat enough greasy food to keep our cars going – but the sight of all those happy motorists clogging up the roads, breathing in car exhaust that still smells vaguely of fried batter, fish and chips, is well worth any number of our own clogged up arteries.
Anyway, back to the proud inventor of the fish and chips car. You might think he’d be resting on his laurels now, taking out patents and buying up stock in chipshop blue chips and what have you but you would be very much mistaken!
Andy Pag’s not done yet. Why stop at reinventing (the greasing of) the wheel when there are so many other modes of transport left that could do with a touch of your genius, and greasy spoon?
So, here’s what he will doing next:
“Next year Andy plans to circumnavigate the globe with a mixture of cars, boats and planes. And the aircraft, he says, will be powered by aviation fuel made from plastic bags.”
How marvellous – and just like that old Sinatra song…:
“Come fry with me, let’s fry let’s fry away
If you can use, some exotic booze
There’s a bar in far Bombay
Come fry with me, we’ll fry we’ll fry away“
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August 28th, 2008 at 14:57
You know that this is far from a new innovation right? There’s one person at work who’s been driving back and forth for about a year using “biofuel”. Sometimes it smells like carnival burgers, some times it just reeks of fat.
However this is a terrible solution. It still chucks out carbon, and it’s partly responsible for the world wide food shortage and price rises because farmers are growing fuel crops instead of stuff for eating. It’s just a lubricated way to fuck the planet really.
I kind of wish no one had worked out that new long chain hydrocarbons work for fuel in the same way that prehistoric ones do. It’s slowing down actual progress. Like sticking a plaster on to a foot long gash in your leg then trying to walk off…
August 28th, 2008 at 20:41
Bah, you’re no fun!
I still like the idea of the fish & chips car - and I can’t wait to take a pass on the first plastic bag flight…
J.
February 25th, 2009 at 23:22
beautiful site..))
I will go to you.
February 25th, 2009 at 23:29
Thanks for visiting & commenting. Glad you are enjoying it so far,
J.
March 11th, 2009 at 09:53
Is there a way to become a content writer for the site?
March 11th, 2009 at 13:52
Hi there, Radley. Thanks for visiting.
So far, this has been a one man show (and I do like it this way.) I’ve never even thought of looking elsewhere for content providers. I’m not sure how that would work - and I’m not sure I want to go there with this blog.
In principle, I would not be against forms of collaboration but I do like this particular blog to be my personal (often silly) play thing. If more people would want to write stuff, I would certainly be open to try and find ways of creating a format for that.
Maybe that should be a new site/blog altogether (with links to the blogs/sites of all the individual contributors to that collective blog/site.) That could be fun - though I have to say that I don’t have time myself to set up something like that. (Though I would certainly be interested in joining such a band of bloggers.)
J.