Team behind M40 calendar produces some motorway gifts
The calendar sold in its thousands as the many fans of the M40 motorway revealed themselves, and now Motorway Vistas, the company behind last year's Christmas gift, have decided to create a new range of merchandise for the large number of M40 fans out there.
Angie Allgood, MD of Motorway Vistas, said: “We were inundated with messages of thanks from a huge range of people, retired policemen who’d patrolled the motorway for decades, even people who’d built the motorway and the service stations. It was quite special to realise how genuine and widespread people’s affection for the M40 was.”
Despite hundreds of requests to produce a new calendar for 2024, co-founder Jim Thornton said they had decided against it. "We had hundreds of requests to make calendars for other motorways from the M62 to the M5, but we don’t have the necessary knowledge to do them proper justice. "So we decided to double down, and make something that enabled M40 fans to show their appreciation not just on one wall in the house, but out and about, at work, and on the road itself.” Motorway Vistas have created four pieces of merchandise for the M40 fan, featuring specially commissioned artwork by graphic artist Peter Beddow.
He has turned the most popular M40 landmarks into stunning works of art that now adorn mugs, T-shorts, tins of travel sweets and air fresheners. The featured landmarks are The Stokenchurch Gap (northbound view), The Umberslade Obelisk near the top of the M40, and the iconic Middleton Stoney Water Tower just north of Oxford. The products, which are now available online at www.motorwaysvistas.com[3], are already flying off the shelves even before they have been officially advertised. "We’re intrigued to know which landmark will sell the most," said co-founder Angie Allgood. "Obviously the Stokenchurch Gap is the most recognisable to the majority of M40 drivers, but the Middleton Stoney Water Tower is a genuinely beautiful landmark to drive past. So far we’ve had no requests to produce a Pylon Alley (the infamous “invented” landmark of a row of electricity pylons) but you never know”, To order from the new collection of Landmarks of the M40 products, just visit https://motorwayvistas.com/[4] Motorway Vistas is a business set up by four M40 enthusiasts, Jim Thornton, Peter Beddow, Angie Allgood and Michael Lee. This is their second year of existence, following the success of their Landmarks of the M40 calendar. Help support trusted local news Sign up for a digital subscription now: oxfordmail.co.uk/subscribe [5] As a digital subscriber you will get: About the author Andy is the Trade and Tourism reporter for the Oxford Mail and you can sign up to his newsletters for free here. [6] He joined the team more than 20 years ago and he covers community news across Oxfordshire. His Trade and Tourism newsletter is released every Saturday morning. You can also read his weekly Traffic and Transport newsletter.He added: "There aren’t any other landmarks to feature. I mean we were stretching it just to come up with 12 landmarks for one calendar’s worth.
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