Illustrated children's book series from the 80s about petrol drinking aliens

Question

As far as I recall the book was about some sort of monster on earth. It seems he was loosely based on Blondies song Rapture as he was either eating cars or at least drinking petrol/gasoline. There may well have been another page where it was coming out of the water or eating a ship.

It was paperback, in colour and I believe the aliens were pretty humanoid looking. I'd say aimed at pre teens as they were neither scary not very deep. Must have been around 1984 I had them.

I think I had several different ones growing up. Despite googling I can find no clues as to the name.

Answer 1

Possibly The Iron Man by Ted Hughes, published in the US as The Iron Giant. There is a Wikipedia article about the book here.

This has been published in numerous editions some with black and white illustrations and some in colour, so if this is the book it's hard to say which version you read.

The giant does emerge from the sea in the first part of the book, and he does eat a tractor but not any cars. He doesn't drink petrol.