Some people involved in the automotive, aircraft, and fuel industry in the 1920s & 30s have commented on this tangentally. The simple version is the fuel and engine makers were refusing to move forward on high performance unless the other did first. The engine manufactors refused to build motors capable of using high performance fuels, because such fuel was not available. The fuel manufactors refused to mix fuels useful for high performance engines, because such motors were not available. Jimmy Dolittle who worked for one of the oil companies describes in his auto biography how when acquiring a aircraft it was common to instal custom built high performance parts, then carry ones own witches brew of fuel additives to hop up the 65 octane gas available at the airports. It appears many professional pilots or airline flight engineers kept containers of custom mixes in the tool compartment or behind the cockpit seat.
As Dolittle indicated no one in the fuel industry would invest in any additives, TEL, Methonal, or whatever, because the lack of appropriate engines meant there was not a clear market. Selling additives seperately was a niche market for the chemical industry