Roof Racks

Approximately a year ago, on a typically stressful visit to Ikea ( in our Fiat 500, as it happened - we only wanted some bits and pieces), we noticed some of their in-store advertising featured a yellow 500 with a roof rack, presumably transporting newly purchased Ikea flat pack furniture and happy owners home from the bustling superstore.

"Perfect!" I cried. "That's just what we need." At that time our only car was the Fiat (or rather, our only car in London) so if we wanted to buy flat pack furniture for example, it was a case of either hire a car or book a taxi. Neither of which are, well, cheap frankly!

Ever since that fateful day I have scoured the planet for a Fiat 500 roof rack and discovered them to be the only commodity actually and genuinely rarer than hen's teeth. I've found luggage racks galour of the variety that clip on to the rear of the vehicle, but not a single ordinary fitted roof rack.

Luggage racks are fine for suitcases and the like, but as soon as you want to transport something a little larger, say a Christmas tree, or perhaps (heaven forbid) a flat packed wardrobe, they're no good whatsoever.

After a not small amount of searching, I had all but completely given up in my quest for a roof rack befitting of a Fiat 500. Given up that is ... until today. For today I noticed someone is selling one on eBay. Hurrah!

Of course, I don't technically need one any more, but who knows when I might, and who knows who might have the car in the future and need one? And so I am going to bid for it. I won't be linking to it, however, for two reasons:

1. There's no sense in pointing the competition in the right direction
2. eBay links die after a few months and I'll have to remove it

Knowing my luck however, the AdSense links for this page will probably fire up an eBay link to the only Fiat 500 roof rack for sale in the known universe and I will be lost in the flood of anxious owners, desperate to get their hands on its hallowed tubular steel. Grrrrr...

By the way, apologies for the photograph, but there are so few roof racked Fiat 500s about the only photographic example I could find was this toy. I promise, should I win the roof rack, I will post a photo of it, on my Fiat 500, in this blog so anyone scouring Google for a photo of a Fiat 500 with a roof rack in the future will at least find one suitable picture!

Photograph courtesy of Scale 18.