A retired Cornish mechanic is hoping to resurrect a 1930s carburettor design which could have allowed a car to travel 200 miles on a gallon of fuel.

Patrick Davies, from St Austell, found Canadian inventor Charles Nelson Pogue's designs for the carburettor in a hidden compartment in a tool box.

According to a report in the Sunday Telegraph, oil stocks crashed when Pogue announced his invention in the 1930s. And although it was never produced, the ST claims Pogue went overnight from impoverished inventor to the manager of a successful factory making motor industry oil filters – an implicit allegation that he had been 'bought out' by the oil companies.