On the Inspiration from an Empty Crate

Readers and fans of Garage Style Magazine have three things in common. Cars, garages and stuff.  The cars GSM’ers love run the gambit from early brass to supercars and every conceivable variant between the two.  The garages also run the gambit, from the single dirt floor shed to the so-called “garage mahal.”  And the “stuff” seems to be an extension of the first two.  The more sophisticated name for our “stuff” is automobilia; and it runs from yellowing pin up girl garage calendars to neon signs to oil cans and virtually everything that has ever been in or near a garage.

This is a tale of how a garage artifact wormed its way into my office.

One of the draws of the annual Hershey AACA swap meet is the opportunity to find things that you were “not only not looking for,” but didn’t know existed.  At one unassuming booth I spotted an old wood Champion Spark Plug crate.  It had great graphics, was totally intact, and smacked of everything that the overused word “patina” had suggested.  It was also the first one I had seen in 30+ years of attending Hershey.  While there is a large contingent of spark plug collectors and booths devoted to rare plugs, I had never seen a Champion crate before.  I immediately knew it was going home with me and relegated it to being a static display in the garage.  I started to imagine and envision how this could be the center of a display beyond just being an empty crate.

The first order of business of course was to get spark plugs for the crate.  At Hershey this was as easy as getting a latte at Starbucks.  Of course, I wasn’t interested in rare, exotic and museum pieces, many of which could cost hundreds of dollars apiece.  Luckily there were enough booths with twenty-five and fifty cent spark plugs.  I bought them by the bag full and also a handful of original cardboard boxes.  It dawned on me that I only had to create a false top to display the hundred odd plugs for impact.  After the display board was installed with an artistic design integrating the cardboard boxes (which was artistically arranged by my artist friend Dennis Wilkes), it was obvious that its impact had to be enjoyed daily and not just for my weekend excursions into the garage.

We cut a piece of thick plexiglass and Dennis crafted some support finials topped by spark plug elements.  Casters on the bottom of the crate now announced that it was destined as a table for my office.  I live with the table every day, and after six years I have never grown tired of it, thought of selling it, or taken it for granted.  I have never seen another one, although I am sure given the history and market penetration of Champion spark plugs, there are others out there.

The take home message is (like many GSM stories) to “think out of the box,” in this case it was an empty wooden box of spark plugs.