While at the car wash with my 1989 Honda Prelude recently, I noticed a vending machine that dispensed “Little Trees” air fresheners, and I remembered something I recently learned that I wanted to share with The ClassicCars.com Journal family.
Chances are, at some point you’ve owned a car (or known someone who has owned one) with a pine tree dangling from its rearview mirror. Did you know that Little Trees have been around since 1952? They are produced by the Car-Freshner Corporation, headquartered in Watertown, New York.
The company’s website says, “In 1952, a milk truck driver in northern New York complained to Julius Sämann about the smell of spilled milk. To address this issue, Julius combined exceptional fragrances with specialized blotter material and invented the first car air freshener. He gave it the shape of an abstract evergreen tree in honor of his years extracting aromatic oils in Canada’s pine forests.”
Photo credit: Google Maps
Car-Freshner’s facility is located on Little Tree Drive. The sign out front is an oversized Little Tree. But the best part? There’s a 0.6-mile walking path out back, visible from aerial view, in the shape of a tree. Amazing. Unfortunately, the path is only available to employees, but I love the innovation.
Look closely at the center of the below two images.
Photo credit: Google Maps
Photo credit: Google Maps
I grew up around Little Trees, and when I got my 1994 F-250, I specifically sought out the “Bouquet” scent because it’s the one I remembered my dad using in his F-Series trucks when I was a kid. Unfortunately, Bouquet was discontinued some time ago, and surviving unopened examples are tough to find (right now, I’m seeing one on eBay for $49).
In case you were wondering, the top-selling scent in current production is Black Ice, followed by New Car Scent and Vanillaroma.
By the way, the next time you buy a Little Tree, make sure you use it correctly: Don’t unwrap it from the plastic completely, but rather expose a small portion of the tree each week to moderate the amount of scent being distributed and make it last much longer.
Now, if I could just get access to that tree-shaped walking path to take a couple of laps in pine-scented fresh air!
