How to make vehicular combat viable in a Post Apocalyptic world?

I want to create a Mad-Max-esque post apocalyptic setting. Unfortunately after a bit of looking into this, there is one massive issue with the idea of lots of maniacs tearing across the barren landscape of a post WW3 world in their armoured cars and trucks: Fuel.

The fuel of all of these cars and trucks is Petrol or Gasoline. This fuel is a highly refined product that degrades over time. The more volatile elements gradually evaporate, and the fuel begins to oxidize, which means that any car, boat, or plane left with gas sitting in it through the apocalypse will rust from the inside out in relatively short order.

Society has collapsed to the point where scenarios like you see in any of the Max Mad movies is realistic. Our modern day infrastructure is gone. Even in the extremely unlikely event that some of the oil wells and oil refinery plants are still operational, the infrastructure and logistics required to spread this out to every inhabited corner of the post apocalyptic wasteland would be long gone.

Given this unfortunate fact, what is the smallest change you could make to this setting/world to make vehicles and vehicular combat a realistic possibility once again?

posted about 5 years ago

Jimmery‭

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