It's a "grease" car.
Mom and Dad bought a 1981 Mercedes 240D that runs on vegetable oil. It's magnificent! The exhaust currently smells like chinese food, but we were informed by the veggie oil provider that the tank we filled up today comes mostly from the Whole Foods chicken fryer.
The guy who sold it to us (Andy) is a mechanic and he did the conversion himself. The car starts and stops on diesel, and once it warms up, you flip two green (yes, green) lighted switches to change over to grease. He used a 30-gallon tank from a Ford truck for the grease, and the car already has a 15-gallon tank for the diesel. The car will go 800 miles on grease plus 400 miles on diesel (that is, if you /want/ to drive on diesel. Andy fills up the diesel tank about once a month and he drives 500 - 800 miles per week). That means we could drive from here to Atlanta without stopping for gas. Grease costs $1.50 per gallon, so the car will be paid for in about 40,000 miles! [Check Dad's work: $2200 ÷ $1.5 per gallon = 1467 gallons; 1467 gallons x 28 miles per gallon = 41,076 miles].
Oh yeah, it has a kickass stereo and a sunroof, and the A/C works. [When Dad pointed out the sunroof to me, I said, "Get it! Get it! [then] Shana, you HAVE to get this car!]
If only it were pink,
-Luna
3 comments:
Ooh! Owen's car is almost exactly the same--240D, same color, just an '82 instead of an '81. And...I'm super jealous of your 30 gallon grease tank--ours only holds 7 gallons.
You guys should talk with Owen about his cross country driving adventures with the veggie oil mobile...
Is he buying grease direct from restaurants? We're probably going to be jealous of your spare trunk space.
Niiiice. So I guess Kermit was wrong - it IS easy being Green.
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