i was reading the other day that a lot of car manufacturers are looking at methanol as a possible future fuel.

there's a lot of talk and development of hydrogen fuel cells etc, but this could be a long way off. methanol has a lot of advantages in that it can be stored and delivered in the same way as petrol, so the infrastructure is already there. it is also not a fossil fuel, being produced by plants, so provided enough plants are gown, there will always be a ready supply. it does produce co2 emmisions, but the growing plants return the same amount of co2 back to oxygen so it s much better for the environment than using petrol.

many countries, particularly in south america already have a large methanol fuel industry.

but what does this mean for us performance enthusiasts? well, methanol fuel has a much higher octane rating than normal petrol, and is ideally suited to turbocharged engines

so let's hope that we soon see an introduction of methanol fuel powered cars and fuels to the forecourts