I saw a very early race car the other day on tv. It had a hand pump on the side that was used to pressurize the fuel. I don’t know if it pressurized the tank but I get the impression that you to keep doing it on and off while driving!
Yes, those brass era cars require hand pumping of the fuel pressure (unless they were gravity fed like Model T Fords). The hand pump pressurizes the fuel in the tank.
Once that's done, the fuel pump will generally be able to handle everything from that point on. Once you stop and want to restart, you have to pump up the tank again.
