Why pump when you can pour?

That's what Ed Pirl thinks as he fuels up his converted
1983 Mercedes 300D sedan with vegetable oil. His car
gets 22 miles per gallon of oil.

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By Linda Shrieves | Sentinel Staff Writer
June 8, 2005

At first whiff, Ed Pirl's car smells like . . .
burgers. Or is it fries?

Stick your nose down by the exhaust pipe for a more
scientific inspection, and you realize the scent is
definitely more burgerlike.

"Our friends say they don't like caravaning behind us
to football games," says Ed's wife, Beth Pirl, "because
they get hungry and want to stop for burgers at every
fast-food place along the way."

While Americans are paying an average of $2.10 for a
gallon of gas, Ed Pirl is living off the fat of the
land -- literally.

Americans may go to restaurants to gobble up greasy
foods, but Ed Pirl heads to greasy joints to gas up his
vegetable oil-powered car.

Eat more fried foods, America. You may be fueling a new
way of life.

"It's a different kind of counterculture thing, but it
works great," says Pirl, mashing down the gas pedal
near his Port St. John home and zipping toward
Interstate 95. "And it makes you feel better about
driving around."

And away he goes, averaging 22 miles per gallon of grease.

Chicken-mobile jokes

When gas prices topped $2 a gallon last year, Pirl
turned to his computer to find ways to save money. He
discovered a concept that amazed him: Diesel engines
were originally designed to run on vegetable oil.

Penny-pinchers and environmentalists began converting
diesels to run on french-fry grease about five years
ago, and the movement has been picking up steam since,
says Lee Birante of Greasecar Inc. of Easthampton,
Mass., one of the nation's largest sellers of
conversion kits. Now there are probably between 3,000
and 5,000 Americans driving grease-fueled vehicles,
Birante says, and business has jumped dramatically in
the past six months as gas prices climbed.

With a 1983 Mercedes 300D sedan sitting in his
driveway, Ed Pirl figured he didn't have much to lose.
So Pirl paid Morgan Crawford, a graduate student from
St. Petersburg and veggie-car converter, to change his
Mercedes from diesel to diners' leftovers.

Five thousand miles and hundreds of gallons of grease
later, Pirl's car is still going strong.

In the beginning, however, others were skeptical.

"I pictured this thing sitting in my back yard for
years," says wife, Beth. "But now it's become the car
of choice for us."

Meanwhile, the Pirl family's Isuzu Trooper sits in the
garage, gathering dust. The family's Mitsubishi Lancer
sits in the driveway. Everyone prefers to hop in the
veggie car.

Pirl takes some gentle ribbing about the car. One
neighbor dubbed it the "Chicken-mobile."

"I drive up and he always says, 'What's cooking in
there?" Pirl says, smiling.

In the beginning, it probably did smell like Colonel
Sanders' kitchen -- because Pirl was filling up at a
chicken-wing restaurant. But when the restaurant's
hydrogenated oil began gumming up his filters, Pirl
discovered what most greasers learn: that all used oil
is not created equal.

The best oil, say grease-car veterans, comes from Asian
restaurants, diners or bars that fry in canola oil.

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Copyright © 2005, Orlando Sentinel

--
LP

"We are fighting today for security, for progress,
and for peace, not only for ourselves but for all
men, not only for one generation but for all
generations. We are fighting to cleanse the world
of ancient evils, ancient ills."

Franklin Delano Roosevelt
State of the Union Address - 1942