Steamboat Originals: Fred Robinson
10/29/2025 01:53PM ● By Eugene Buchanan
Fred Robinson founded Intergalactic Hydrogen, a car conversion and educational company that he runs with his son Tai. Photo by Paula Jo Jaconetta.
While Steamboat Springs has its share of characters, a few stand out as breaking the mold when it comes to their love of the community, philanthropy, zest for life and contributions to town. As featured in Steamboat Magazine's Outdoors Edition, meet three locals who you'll be lucky to ride the chairlift with. First up was Liana Torres and Dr. Dave. Last but not least: Fred Robinson.
Longtime Steamboat local and mechanic Fred Robinson’s mantra is simple: petroleum pollutes. He wants to wean the world off it and other fossil fuels, one car at a time. “My message is whatever we can do to limit our fossil fuel use is great,” says Fred, who you’re as likely to find on the slopes as under a Subaru.
As founder of Intergalactic Hydrogen, a car conversion and educational company that he runs with his son Tai, he has done just that, refurbishing several cars around town to run on everything from hydrogen to natural gas. You might have found one of his creations, a restored, bright yellow Hummer, on display last summer at the Cars and Coffee event every other Saturday morning at the Stockbridge Transit Center. It runs on five different fuels, including hydrogen, natural gas, ethanol, gasoline, and a hydrogen/methane blend he calls Intergalactic Gas. “I actually drove it a lot last winter because my Subaru broke down,” he says.
While he admits the conversion business has been a bit sluggish of late with gasoline prices somewhat in check, it hasn’t dampened his passion to find alternatives to petroleum. And he points to big manufacturers also flying the flag; engine-maker Cummins, he says, just released a 12-cyclinder motor that runs on hydrogen and natural gas, and Toyota is playing with it also. “And ethanol is making a bit of a comeback with the EPA relaxing some of its restrictions,” he says. Promoting the concept through his spinoff company, American Fuel Vehicles, his son, Tai, also the head freestyle ski coach in Jackson, Wyoming, is on board, recently converting a 4WD Volkswagen Gulf R to run on natural gas.
Such conversions have been Fred’s passion since 1975, when he first worked with a friend in Tampa Bay, Florida, to convert a diesel engine to run on natural gas. He has since been dedicated to using any fuel except gasoline and diesel, from tinkering with processes that allow ground-up trees to be converted into usable hydrogen or using algae to produce renewable fuels.
There’s no converting him from his conversion passion, which he has been at for a long time. He first tinkered with an old Plymouth at age 10 and worked as a mechanic through high school in Wayzata, Minnesota. After attending the University of Minnesota (“mostly to stay out of the Army,” he says), he transferred to Boulder’s University of Colorado, where he “spent most of my time skiing.” Working a a Porsche mechanic in Boulder, he moved to Steamboat in 1973 into a tiny house where Yampa Valley Bank currently resides. “We might’ve had the last outhouse in Steamboat,” he says. Here, he kept working on cars, including Porsches, VWs, Toyotas and more, founding a company called Intergalactic Garage, whose name he borrowed after working on a VW Bug affectionately called the “Intergalactic Taxi,” owned by Belle Zars, the granddaughter of Routt County pioneer Farrington Carpenter.
“It was actually a lie – at the time I didn’t even have a garage,” he says. “I did everything in my yard. But there’s never been a time that I wasn’t a mechanic and playing with cars. I can work on pretty much anything.”
In keeping with his planet-saving ethos, he built a before-its-time passive solar house in Henderson Park on Thorpe Mountain near Stagecoach in 1976, when he finally got a garage and changed his company’s name to Intergalactic Imports, now Intergalactic Hydrogen. There, with wife Nancy, he raised his four children, Tai, Sierra, Bart and Emily. His garage, meanwhile, turned into a veritable museum of alternative fuel cars, from his H2-H2 Hummer to an H-racer, a tiny hydrogen fuel cell car made by Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies, assorted car parts and alternative fuel memorabilia – including “thank you” cards from sixth-graders.
While his conversion customers have waned recently, due to decreasing fossil fuel prices, he’s still adamant about hydrogen as an alternative fuel. “We can create a sustainable, renewable, pollution-free energy future with hydrogen,” he maintains, adding that natural gas, propane, biodiesel, ethanol and electricity are all viable options that can help you drive clean. “The biggest problem with hydrogen is its availability and price, but hydrogen is our goal and what we want most.”
As for his longevity in the game, he says he owes it to not getting too big for your bio-fuel britches. “We’ve kept it simple so we’re still here,” he says. “I still have some of the same old customers and take on new ones here and there. Plus, I’ve got so much crap I’ll never leave. I’ve got quite a legacy to leave to my children.” And, of course, like Dorothy’s fossil fuel-less footwear, there’s no place like home. "This is absolute paradise here,” he says. "We get to eat elk whenever we want and have incredible views of everything from Stagecoach Lake to Mount Werner. There’s no reason to go anywhere else."
While Steamboat Springs has its share of characters, a few stand out as breaking the mold when it comes to their love of the community, philanthropy, zest for life and contributions to town. As featured in Steamboat Magazine's Outdoors Edition, meet three locals who you'll be lucky to ride the chairlift with. First up was Liana Torres and Dr. Dave. Last but not least: Fred Robinson.
Longtime Steamboat local and mechanic Fred Robinson’s mantra is simple: petroleum pollutes. He wants to wean the world off it and other fossil fuels, one car at a time. “My message is whatever we can do to limit our fossil fuel use is great,” says Fred, who you’re as likely to find on the slopes as under a Subaru.
As founder of Intergalactic Hydrogen, a car conversion and educational company that he runs with his son Tai, he has done just that, refurbishing several cars around town to run on everything from hydrogen to natural gas. You might have found one of his creations, a restored, bright yellow Hummer, on display last summer at the Cars and Coffee event every other Saturday morning at the Stockbridge Transit Center. It runs on five different fuels, including hydrogen, natural gas, ethanol, gasoline, and a hydrogen/methane blend he calls Intergalactic Gas. “I actually drove it a lot last winter because my Subaru broke down,” he says.
While he admits the conversion business has been a bit sluggish of late with gasoline prices somewhat in check, it hasn’t dampened his passion to find alternatives to petroleum. And he points to big manufacturers also flying the flag; engine-maker Cummins, he says, just released a 12-cyclinder motor that runs on hydrogen and natural gas, and Toyota is playing with it also. “And ethanol is making a bit of a comeback with the EPA relaxing some of its restrictions,” he says. Promoting the concept through his spinoff company, American Fuel Vehicles, his son, Tai, also the head freestyle ski coach in Jackson, Wyoming, is on board, recently converting a 4WD Volkswagen Gulf R to run on natural gas.
Such conversions have been Fred’s passion since 1975, when he first worked with a friend in Tampa Bay, Florida, to convert a diesel engine to run on natural gas. He has since been dedicated to using any fuel except gasoline and diesel, from tinkering with processes that allow ground-up trees to be converted into usable hydrogen or using algae to produce renewable fuels.
There’s no converting him from his conversion passion, which he has been at for a long time. He first tinkered with an old Plymouth at age 10 and worked as a mechanic through high school in Wayzata, Minnesota. After attending the University of Minnesota (“mostly to stay out of the Army,” he says), he transferred to Boulder’s University of Colorado, where he “spent most of my time skiing.” Working a a Porsche mechanic in Boulder, he moved to Steamboat in 1973 into a tiny house where Yampa Valley Bank currently resides. “We might’ve had the last outhouse in Steamboat,” he says. Here, he kept working on cars, including Porsches, VWs, Toyotas and more, founding a company called Intergalactic Garage, whose name he borrowed after working on a VW Bug affectionately called the “Intergalactic Taxi,” owned by Belle Zars, the granddaughter of Routt County pioneer Farrington Carpenter.
“It was actually a lie – at the time I didn’t even have a garage,” he says. “I did everything in my yard. But there’s never been a time that I wasn’t a mechanic and playing with cars. I can work on pretty much anything.”
In keeping with his planet-saving ethos, he built a before-its-time passive solar house in Henderson Park on Thorpe Mountain near Stagecoach in 1976, when he finally got a garage and changed his company’s name to Intergalactic Imports, now Intergalactic Hydrogen. There, with wife Nancy, he raised his four children, Tai, Sierra, Bart and Emily. His garage, meanwhile, turned into a veritable museum of alternative fuel cars, from his H2-H2 Hummer to an H-racer, a tiny hydrogen fuel cell car made by Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies, assorted car parts and alternative fuel memorabilia – including “thank you” cards from sixth-graders.
While his conversion customers have waned recently, due to decreasing fossil fuel prices, he’s still adamant about hydrogen as an alternative fuel. “We can create a sustainable, renewable, pollution-free energy future with hydrogen,” he maintains, adding that natural gas, propane, biodiesel, ethanol and electricity are all viable options that can help you drive clean. “The biggest problem with hydrogen is its availability and price, but hydrogen is our goal and what we want most.”
As for his longevity in the game, he says he owes it to not getting too big for your bio-fuel britches. “We’ve kept it simple so we’re still here,” he says. “I still have some of the same old customers and take on new ones here and there. Plus, I’ve got so much crap I’ll never leave. I’ve got quite a legacy to leave to my children.” And, of course, like Dorothy’s fossil fuel-less footwear, there’s no place like home. "This is absolute paradise here,” he says. "We get to eat elk whenever we want and have incredible views of everything from Stagecoach Lake to Mount Werner. There’s no reason to go anywhere else."