Marathon drive for tiny Fiat 500s leads from San Marino to Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland

Letters from San Marino children and a gift for the world’s underprivileged children will be delivered to Father Christmas “of the North Pole”

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By Paavo Tukkimäki
     
      Four diminutive Fiat 500 cars from decades ago, plus their service vehicle, are travelling the length of Finland to meet Santa Claus.
      But that's not the half of their journey.
      The cars started off last week from the Southern European microstate of San Marino in the bosom of Italy. The Fiats carry sackfuls of Sammarinese children’s greetings and wish-lists to Father Christmas.
      Then again, in a miniscule state even the mailbags seem to be scaled down somewhat, and so the consignment of just over a thousand letters is unlikely to cause panic at Santa’s post office.
      The cars are also delivering the San Marino children’s gift to Father Christmas himself: the children of the landlocked enclave in the Apennine Mountains, surrounded by Italy, have been urged to send a small contribution to the deprived children of the world.
      Father Christmas, who gets about quite a bit for a man of his age, will be asked - among his other seasonal duties - to see to it that this gift reaches those to whom it is addressed.
     
The "San Marino 500 Marathon" entourage arrived in Helsinki by ferry from Rostock early on Sunday morning.
      On the way to meet Santa in Lapland the drive through Finland has been divided into three legs. The first leg takes the group to the Central Finland city of Jyväskylä, the second one to the technology city of Oulu, and the third one to the Lapland capital of Rovaniemi, where the entourage is to spend two days and meet Father Christmas himself.
     
A Fiat 500’s top speed is somewhere in the region of 90km/h, but the convoy’s cruising speed is closer to 50 km/h.
      An overnight sleeper-train will then take the group back to Helsinki, for the crew needs to get back home and back to work.
      On Sunday morning, eleven 40-something Fiat enthusiasts arrived in Helsinki’s Vuosaari Harbour. One of the men will not actually be driving north, but flies back home instead.
     
The group includes four police officers, a restaurateur, a couple of mechanics, a company director…
      The trip is not just about a bunch of guys taking historic cars for an extended spin. This is also a fundraising and educational project.
      In San Marino schools small workbooks have been distributed to the pupils, containing assignments related to the different legs of the journey.
      The entourage provides daily reports to the country’s radio, and the caravan’s journey can also be followed on the Net.
     
As the ultimate destination of the “fantastic adventure”, the booklet mentions Santa Claus’s house at the North Pole, a statement which even from a San Marino perspective seems like a slight dimensional or navigational error.
      What the Finns who so jealously guard the Santa brand have to say about the faux pas is not known.
     
The group’s member Fabio Guardigli explains that the idea to travel up north came up when the group was together “eating and drinking”. The previous rally took the men to Paris.
      In all, the journey is around 7,000 kilometres in length, 2,000 kilometres of which is supposedly driven “on icy roads”.
      Yeah, right.
      Having witnessed Helsinki’s rainy conditions and well-above-zero temperatures, Guardigli is willing to compromise a bit on the “iciness” statement.
      But the group came prepared all the same: all the cars are fitted with winter tyres.
      The drive from San Marino to Rostock went almost without a hitch. Only one of the venerable little cars had a couple of minor issues along the way, but nothing that the group’s mechanic was not able to sort out.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 30.11.2009


Links:
  San Marino 500 Marathon
  Flickr: The San Marino 500 Marathon´s Photostream

PAAVO TUKKIMÄKI / Helsingin Sanomat
paavo.tukkimaki@hs.fi