Page "Internal combustion engine" Paragraph 39

While gasoline internal combustion engines are much easier to start in cold weather than diesel engines, they can still have cold weather starting problems under extreme conditions.

For years the solution was to park the car in heated areas.

In some parts of the world the oil was actually drained and heated over night and returned to the engine for cold starts.

In the early 1950s the gasoline Gasifier unit was developed, where part on cold weather starts raw gasoline was diverted to the unit where part of the gas was burned causing the other part to become a hot vapor sent directly to the intake valve manifold.

This unit was quite popular till electric engine block heaters became standard on gasoline engines sold in cold climates.