Christmas presents should not always be of the soft (ehrrrmm… boring?) type. I’m convinced that everyone who bothers reading ViaRETRO will agree that classic car related presents are often the best.
The day before yesterday – on the 24th – my esteemed colleague Claus Ebberfeld suggested that you should Treat Yourself to a classic car for Christmas. An excellent idea no doubt, and one which I can only subscribe to. But needless to say, we can’t all do that – at least not every year. But just like we here on ViaRETRO always chant that “Any Classic Car is Better Than No Classic Car”, I will equally maintain that “Any Classic Car Related Christmas Gift is Better Than No Classic Car Related Gift”. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a complete car…
Well I got really lucky this year, with what I truly regard as some excellent and genuinely inspired Christmas presents! Back in August, Søren Navntoft wrote Flower Power Camping Gear and Thermo Flasks which is a subject I too feel quite strongly about. I already have a seventies fold-out chair in orange, green and brown colours which looks fab together with my red NullZwei. But clearly, even more period-correct picnic kit will only make it better. Well, this is what Santa brought me this Christmas.
An excellently retro picnic set consisting of a fold-out table, which when folded away, holds four small stools within. It’s an Italian set, originally bought in Italy by a Danish couple while on holiday back in the early seventies. The table top is a bright shade of orange, the cloth on the stools vividly striped, and there’s thankfully no plastic to be found as both the stools and table edge is of the purest steel (seeing as the set still exists today, I presume they used better quality steel for this picnic set than they did for the period Alfasud and Lancia Beta?). There’s a light and charming patina to the set, but on the whole it’s in surprisingly good condition. Even the original stickers are still in place – I think the brand is called “Stillac”, though I’m not entirely sure? What do you make of the sticker? Does anyone know of this brand? Another sticker confirms that it was produced in Italy in 1973 – incidentally the same year as my BMW 2002 was manufactured. Perfect!
But that’s not all. No picnic is a proper picnic without food. So with the table and stools, I also got a large lunch box which I believe was produced during the sixties by a Danish company called “Glud & Marstrand”. Again, it’s metal and it’s orange. There’s a lovely patina to it and the leather handle looks great. Inside, the five original trays are in excellent condition and ready for an ice pack on the bottom tray and my full Scandinavian smorgasbord on the top four trays. Ohhh… I sense that my next classic car meet will be a good one…
But dear ViaRETRO reader, what did Santa bring you this year? Were you stuck with soft presents again? Or did those who love you gift you with what you truly desire? Did you find something classic car related under the tree this year? And if so, please share in the comments below what you got…