Hurleyville, NY – Hurleyville’s own Louis Wichinsky once adopted a 1980 Volkswagen Rabbit pickup truck to run on vegetable oil. Sometimes he’d even use soybean oil. (A red toggle switch on the dash changed the fuel over.)
But it was back in 1942, when he was stationed in London with the U.S. Army Air Force, that he hit upon what’s considered his greatest invention. He was spending the Jewish holidays with two brothers who owned a bakery. One of them, Sam Wolinsky, put a challenge before him: “Louis, you Yanks can do anything. How come you can’t build a bagel machine?'”