Reykjavík Grapevine - 14.08.2015, Side 40

Hverfisgata 15,
101 Reykjavík
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40 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 12 — 2015TRAVEL
Waste not, want not
The Ystafell Transportation Museum sits
rather quaintly among rolling green pas-
tures, its closest neighbours being a few
laconic farms and a smattering of sheep. It
doesn’t seem terribly well-situated to be-
come one of the country’s largest vehicle
collections, but it came into this role quite
organically when its founder, Ingólfur Lars
Kristjánsson, moved to join his wife Krist-
björg Jónsdóttir at her family’s homestead.
Ingólfur began rebuilding cars and
tractors on the farm starting in 1946, and,
living by the motto “Never throw anything
away—you’ll need it the very next day,”
amassed a menagerie of spare parts, au-
tomobilia, and, of course, the aforemen-
tioned hundred-plus cars (and tractors,
trucks, tanks, fire engines, ambulances,
snowmobiles…) quicker than you can say
“Jón’s your uncle.” The fledgling collection,
beached and languishing around the farm,
was long considered an eyesore by many
in the area. But it earned some gravitas in
1998, when a spacious, indoor facility was
built to house the majority of the collection
and the museum officially opened. Today,
it’s maintained by Ingólfur’s son Sverrir, a
skilled mechanic and auto enthusiast who
jokes that he was “born in a garage.”
A snowmobile school bus,
a turn-crank tractor
After passing through a cosy sitting room
where Sverrir always keeps a pot of coffee
hot for guests, you enter the main show-
room, its walls decorated with steering
wheels, vintage car advertisements, and
old Icelandic license plates, its floor space
tightly packed with everything from turn-
crank tractors and chrome-wheeled baby
buggies to US military Jeeps, and Sverrir’s
own first car—a mirror-polished, cherry-
red ’69 Mustang coupe. On one end of the
room, a life-size display garage has been
erected, complete with two boiler-suited
legs sticking out from under the front of
the car.
Then there’s a blunt-nosed, tread-
fitted, gunmetal 1951 Bombardier Snow-
mobile dotted with circular submarine-ish
windows. The founder used to use this
whale to drive local children to school in
the winter. And a lovingly restored 1959
Moskvitch which, besides being a repre-
sentative example of a once exceedingly
popular leisure car in Iceland—“many peo-
ple have memories of summer vacations in
a Moskvitch”—was also used in Icelandic
director Friðrik Þór Friðriksson’s 1994 film
'Bíódagar' (“Movie Days”). There’s an-
other gem in the elegant convertible 1919
Dixie Flyer, a Kentucky-made car that was
only manufactured from 1916 to 1923. Just
three of these cars still exist worldwide:
one’s in Texas, one’s in Australia, and the
last is at Ystafell.
The personal is historical
Such fun factoids, stats, and miniature
histories are recounted on modest, typed
sheets of paper, which have been tucked
carefully into laminated sleeves and
placed on the windshields and hoods of
each piece in the museum. Sometimes,
these histories are poignantly brief: “1966
Toyota Crown: Steindór Bjarnason of Nes-
kaupstaðir gave the museum this car in
2004. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able
to dig up the history of the car, but hope-
fully, we’ll work this out later.” And some-
times, such as in the case of an Austin
A90 Westminster first used by British na-
val officers in Bermuda and then sold to
American soldiers based in Keflavík, these
provenances are far more granular:

The first owner in Iceland was Gunn-
laugur Þórbjarnarson—he bought the car at
the end of the summer in 1962…Gunnlau-
gur restored the car and used it until Au-
gust 28, 1979, when he sold it.
Hilmir Arnórsson bought the car on Oc-
tober 28, 1991 and was its seventh owner.
When he bought it, the car wasn’t drivable—
it had no engine and was very rusty. Hilmir
restored the car and now it’s in very good
condition.
Owner directory:
1. Gunnlaugur Þórbjarnarson:
1962 – 1979
2. Jón Guðmundsson:
August 28, 1979 – October 10, 1988
3. Guðrún Arnórsdóttir:
October 10, 1988 – January 14, 1991
4. Sævar Guðmundsson:
January 14, 1991 – June 18, 1991
5. Þórgils Björgvinsson:
June 18, 1991 – October 28, 1991
6. Hilmir Arnórsson:
October 28, 1991 –
It’s not unlike reading a Saga genealogy,
if perhaps a rather dull one. And yet, this
miniature history seems significant. This
pretty normal car, owned by seven pretty
normal Icelanders, has now become part
of a much broader, richer story.
Relics of the Not-So-Cold War

Moving into the next showroom, we en-
counter what looks like a diagonally sliced
oversized Playmobile car, but is actually a
1991 Kewet El-Jet electric car from Den-
mark. It has two seats, four gears, a horse-
power of ten, and a box of Cuban cigars in
the window. There are, we realize, a num-
ber of Eastern Bloc cars and license plates
around the museum—such as the first
Trabant ever imported to Iceland—which
is interesting for us, having grown up in
the anti-Communist states. Sverrir laughs
about this—Iceland, he says, “is the only
place other than Havana you would see
Soviet and American cars side by side.”
Icelanders, he explains, “bought cars
from all over... except maybe Australia”
but there were special incentives for buy-
ing cars from Russia, particularly after the
collapse of the Soviet Union. “We made a
deal—Iceland would get cars and gasoline
and they would get fish.” He nods. “The
cars were very cheap and very popular—
Russian cars had great heaters.”
We find another relic of the Cold War
era, and perhaps our favourite car of the
collection, parked unassumingly under
a painting of a flamingo in the back cor-
ner of the second showroom. Flanked on
one side by a bubble-fronted 1955 Chevy
3600 truck that the town of Akureyri had
converted into an ornately be-crucifixed
hearse, and on the other by a Vespa,
there is a black 1982 Cadillac Brougham
d’Elegance, license plate: 1. It’s the car
that was used by President Vigdís Finn-
bogadóttir, the world’s first democratically
elected female head of state. “Without a
doubt, many important world leaders trav-
elled with Vigdís in this car,” says the in-
formational sheet. “It’s not impossible that
both American President Ronald Reagan
and leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail
Gorbachev sat in the backseat while trav-
eling to the Rekjavík Summit in 1986.”
But even a presidential Caddy—even
one that was maybe, possibly even mi-
nutely involved in landmark nuclear dis-
armament talks—can be repurposed and
written into the nation’s more quotidian
history. Following its presidential appoint-
ment, the car was sold to a fancy hotel to
be used for weddings and special events,
after which it was owned by one Eiríkur
Óskarsson, from 2001 to 2008. “Never
throw anything away!”
On The Road Again
(And Again)
Driving through Icelandic daily life at the
Ystafell Transportation Museum
The Ystafell Transportation Museum is open from 10:00 – 20:00 every day
from 15 May – 30 September. During the winter, guests can call ahead to
view the collection: 354.464.3133. http://www.ystafell.is
Words Larissa Kyzer
Photos Larissa Kyzer
In a wide, grassy meadow where the road to Húsavík breaks
off from the Ring Road, you’ll encounter a rather incongru-
ous sight: a tomato red tank truck proclaiming “Over 100
Cars” in bold white letters on its side. An arrow just below
points in the general direction of the middle of nowhere.
Driving past this spectacle after a day tooling around Mý-
vatn in North Iceland, my partner and I—neither one a car
enthusiast—were charmed enough to welcome an unex-
pected detour. Less than ten kilometres later, we found our-
selves at the Ystafell Transportation Museum: a former farm
turned countryside garage turned “car graveyard,” which
today is a living record of Icelandic history, retold one car
at a time.
Sverrir laughs about
this—Iceland, he
says, “is the only
place other than Ha-
vana you would see
Soviet and American
cars side by side.”