Recliner wrote:
Were there any hydrogen-powered cars back then? I don't think so. There
certainly weren't any fuel-cell cars, let alone any hydrogen cars with a
good range.

The first hydrogen car is recorded as prototyped in 1807.
However some Russian trucks from 1941 sound rather more plausible:
http://naukarus.com/the-mysterious-i...drogen-century
using an interesting fuel source - degraded hydrogen from lowered barrage
balloons. If it was WWII you might have been able to cobble together
a route going past enough barrage balloon stations to make it work.

Theo