9 delightfully wacky Christmas tree car hauls

Sourcing the household Christmas tree is a timeless tradition. Emotions tend to run high. A gamut of smiling, laughing, screaming, and tears. For couples, a warm memory in the making. Or maybe the ritual devolves into bickering over which evergreen will fit best. On that note, the matter of transporting the tree can be a rather, erm, prickly one.

Not everyone has a pickup or trailer, so making do with the wheels at hand is often a necessity. Awkward and impractical? Sure, but it’s only once a year!

To save you the trouble, we scoured the interwebs for examples of the over-the-top lengths some have taken to bring home a real-deal Christmas conifer. Study up.

Rumblin’ around the Christmas tree

Grandpa, what can that weird flippy seat even do?

Hold my eggnog, kiddo. We’re going tree shopping.

One of the better party tricks at a Christmas tree lot has to be rolling up in a classic roadster and leaving with a rumble seat full of evergreen. While most of this gentleman’s resplendent paint looks to have been spared here, it’d be nice to see a blanket thrown over the seat when pulling off this stunt. The twine-to-bumper technique to prevent tree roll looks suspect as best, but it seems unlikely that this fella was taking corners with much gusto. Besides, when you’re rolling around in this much style during the holidays, what’s the rush?

Pony car passenger

Oh, the ’70s. Someone got themselves into a Mustang-sized pickle here. I’m willing to bet this young lady was either digging around in her purse for Winston Light 100s or some pocket change to phone a friend, because this is one stressful situation. Tobie’s tree of choice looks a little too hefty for her horsey’s rear seat, and it makes you wonder how she figured there would be enough room for her to squeeze behind the wheel. Given that Tobie drives her Mustang through Colorado winters, we assume she tossed on another layer and floored it all the way home, heater on blast, like a boss.

The Berlin missile launcher

Warning: Do not attempt! Even if you’ve seen a truck owner employing this cargo-over-cab technique in the past, this display looks like a full bottle of Schnapps preceded it. It doesn’t take a physicist to figure out the fulcrum was off here, applying an undue amount of pressure to the cab and load to the bed. Under enough braking power, giving a vehicle in front of you an unsolicited spruce spanking looks possible. Germans take Christmas very seriously, so this Berliner probably got carried away while getting his family an O Tannenbaum they’d never forget. That, or he just wanted to brag about how big his tree was at the local Weihnachtsmarkt. In both cases, it’s safe to say this is what overcompensating gets you.

The station wagon stuff

See sport, this is why I bought us a station wagon. Watch me cram this sucker up to the windshield.

You’ll sit … eh, someplace in there.

This ’80s-era family may not have lived in the station wagon heyday of the 1950s–70s, but that wasn’t stopping ol’ Pappy here from showing off the timeless utility of the longroof. Seats down, in went everything, including the family tree. Strapping it to the integrated roof rack would’ve made too much sense. If he were any less of a family man, he’d have come home with a badass pickup like the tan one behind him two spaces over. He’s a dad first, though, which means leading the clan’s caroling all the way home, despite their faces being full of needles. Character building, kids!

Dreaming of a sappy Landie

Auto detailers might want to look away now. Removing the resin from this cabin probably required the alchemy of an especially delicate chemical cocktail. Look, we can’t fault this woman’s idea of how this plan would go down; she likely hails from a long lineage of station wagon stuffers (see above) and wasn’t about to betray her inherited instincts. But Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, in the name of luxury interior leather, can’t the wealthy order their Christmas trees from Postmates or something?

Shotgun Tannenbaum

Compared to our friend Tobie, this woman from Andelfingen looks more comfortable running around roofless this time of year. All bundled up from behind the wheel, Mrs. Klaus appears to be fleeing the Black Forest with her tree after she stole it from a local wood nymph. Tightly wound netting makes for a more aerodynamic, responsibly sized, and securely belted-in passenger. In all, it’s a much better technique for expeditious motoring. She’s done this before, we’d wager. If you should ever encounter her kind tree hauling out in the wild, don’t get caught staring; get out of her way or get overtaken on the shoulder. You’ve been warned.

Mr. Efficient

Mr. Efficient takes no shortcuts; he buys only the best and all at once. It’s 1911, winter, and this man packed his luxury Lozier to the brim with everything you’d need for a complete Christmas, tree included. If it fits, it sits! During this time of year, no one wants to get caught running around in the frigid air, let alone in a slow tourer without a windshield or climate control. Yikes. Hopefully he had a shovel hidden under that fur made of 1000 beavers, just in case any lake-effect flurries decided to blow in. My guess is that there was a warm fire waiting for him at home, and thawing out that mustache felt pretty stupendous.

The Brooklyn brick

New York City is a splendid spot to celebrate Christmas, or at least that’s how it seems in Home Alone 2. I do wonder, though, how one rents a closet as a dwelling and manages to cram a tree into it. No matter, that’s a problem to sort out after this fellow crams this needly brick into his sedan trunk. Thousands of trees and millions of dollars go into bringing the real thing to the Big Apple. If it were me, I’d find the extra time and twenty bucks to grab a UHaul pickup rather than violate the trunk of my personal car. But so be it; a Christmas tree is no bumper bully, but the scratchy extension should at least keep most nasty Crown Vic cabbies off your rear for the ride home.

The Ferrari fur

We can think of 458 reasons why this is an awfully brave idea. Right on top of the engine compartment? That’s a head-scratcher to behold. This Ferrari finished the Cannon Run rally in England and found a festive souvenir along the route. Maybe this particular enthusiast is the target customer for the Purosangue SUV, which will be hitting the streets in short order.

That’s all! Merry Christmas! Do you have a memorable automotive Christmas tree moment of your own, silly or sentimental? Be sure to share your story in the comments below.

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