Want a novel way of beating sky-high pump prices and fuel strikes? A German inventor claims he has developed a way to make cheap diesel fuel out of dead cats. Dr Christian Koch, 55, from Kleinhartmannsdorf, said his method uses old tyres, weeds and animal corpses.

The ingredients are heated up to 300 Celsius to filter out hydrocarbons which are then turned into diesel by, and this is no joke, using a catalytic converter. Dr Koch told online new sources the resulting “high quality bio-diesel” costs just 15 pence per litre. The cadaver of a fully-grown cat can produce as much as 2.5 litres of fuel – meaning around 20 cats are needed for a full tank, he explained.

“I tank my car with my own diesel mixture and have driven it for 105,000 miles without any problems,” Dr Koch told Germany’s Bild newspaper.