Well, I thought maybe I should "Think Cheap," too.
Started looking at older vehicles on E-bay, etc.
You can get some choice old gas-guzzlers CHEAP.
3/4 ton and 1 ton trucks that are re-trimmed for a couple of thousand $.
Vista Cruisers (land yacht station wagons) for a $1000 or less. Mrs. Phil would love that. She like retro. But she started looking at old late '50s Nomad Chey Station Wagons, too. Those are too much for my Bank of Phil's Wallet.
Anyway, I am thinking -- put a couple thousand or less into FFV'ing them, and you have a top of line rum-runner for cheap, cheap, AND no gasoline. Saves thousands a year in that alone, and who cares if running E100 (totally alcohol) violates any non-existant warranty, like you might for a new FFV?
I am looking at (I think) alcohol costs (all costs, including recovery of equipment costs, labor, MARR (minimually acceptable rate of return), etc.) of under a $1.00 gallon. And that looks like worse case pricing. Start brewing from trash instead of cash crops and gets really cheap. So who cares what the mileage is?
But those costs assume I get into some serious volume -- I guess 10,000 gallons per year is the first regulation threshold. If things jump beyond that, I am thinking about "time sharing" the ownership of the Solar Boiler/Still. I think we can route around the regs by doing that. Dunno for sure, yet. But I am used to killing targets by studying them to death.
One of the kids working with me, has been watching over my shoulder on this. He wants to FFV a 1971 Impala. It is always best to start with corrupting the youth.
And on a whole other note, I have another ex-Army friend -- Cobra mechanic -- who is opening his own auto mechanic shop. He says he will do FFV conversions on the side if we want.
So does anyone know how highway taxes on homebrew works?