I think you guys missed my whole point. I'm not advocating keeping the barrels. My point is that the 55 gallon drums of the 50's were of much heavier gauge steel than side mount tanks that were installed by the factory at the time of the manufacture of this vehicle and thinner gauge side mounted tanks are still used on modern vehicles with side mounted tanks. The tanks are probably rusty inside anyway and there is no need for that much fuel capacity. It is all just speculation as to what the purpose of the barrels was. I hauled a lot of grain from elevator legs during the 60's and 70's. A lot of custom combiners carried extra fuel as well as oil for their combines with drums mounted in this fashion.
Mike and Willy, if you read through the expert testimony of the explosions of the GM pickups and the Pintos, it was not the impact that caused the explosions. The tanks ruptured and the cat converters ignited the gasoline. We sold gasoline in drums into the 70's. We dropped them, smashed them and no telling what else. As long as there was no spark, or something hot like a cat converter, all we did was waste some 20¢ gas. Now we have to report a spill of 25 gallons or more. In 1970 I turned over a tanker with 8,000 gallons of gas that ran down the ditch. Luckily there was no spark.
