There is a version of The Whole Earth Catalog that describes plans to turn an old car into a 10kW generator, enough to power a small off-the-grid town. I think

There is a version of The Whole Earth Catalog that describes plans to turn an old car into a 10kW generator, enough to power a small off-the-grid town. I think they used the carborator to set the engine speed, so it didn't keep perfect 60Hz output but was good enough to run most appliances. I forget which version of the catalog it was in, one of the early ones I think. Maybe the generator itself was an old motor used as a generator, perhaps manually rewound?