Jóhannes Reykdal traces lifelong passion for cars
Saturday 19th September 2026 on 20:45 in
Iceland
Former journalist and technology manager Jóhannes Reykdal has been passionate about cars and machinery since childhood, mbl.is reports. He is also known for managing and editing Bílabloggið, a car website.
“I was born in the United States. My parents travelled there separately during the war to study at university, met there and had me, so my roots are in California,” Reykdal says. He returned to Iceland with his mother at six months old in 1945, travelling by military aircraft via Greenland.
Reykdal says his interest in cars and machinery began at home. His maternal grandfather, Árni G. Eylands, was a prominent importer of tractors and agricultural machinery, while his uncle Eiríkur Eylands was among the first people in Iceland to work with excavators and bulldozers.
“I got this interest over breakfast at my grandparents’ home,” Reykdal says. As a boy, he accompanied his uncle on business connected to the sales committee for defence force property, where he encountered various machines and vehicles.
Reykdal grew up in Hafnarfjörður, where his family lived in what is now the Setberg neighbourhood. He also spent two periods in the countryside. At the large farm Holt near Stokkseyri, he saw five or six tractors and two trucks. Two years later, he went to eastern Iceland, where he cleared sheep sheds to make fuel for the winter.
There was no car in his home during his early years. When he obtained his driving licence at 17, he was able to buy one through an unusual arrangement.
Reykdal says he met a man who was building boats in one of his grandfather’s company buildings. The man had been caught driving under the influence and lost his licence, so he sold Reykdal his car for 2,000 Icelandic krónur. In return, Reykdal drove him during the year he was without a licence.
The car was a 1939 Morris 8, which Reykdal bought in Hafnarfjörður in 1961. He describes it as old, small and useful before it eventually rusted away.
“This development has produced useful cars for us in Iceland, but there are things I do not like at all, such as the older type of Tesla, which you almost have to crawl into with a shoehorn,” he says.