Camping stoves have always meant compromises. True backpacking stoves obviously have to be light and small, and their performance is dictated by those constraints. But stoves for car camping? Well, in some ways those have frustrated us even more. The classic Coleman 2-burner liquid fuel stove works forever, but like all liquid fuel stoves is smelly and needs pumping. And with today’s smaller cars, they take up a huge amount of space; not a problem if you’re driving a Suburban, but if you’re environmentally conscious or just plain like to save money, this and a tent pretty much fill up the available space in a Prius, so the rest of the gear has to go in the back seat and the kids have to ride on the roof. Hmmm…did we get that backwards?

Enter the outrageously named Coleman PerfectStart InstaFlow Fold ‘N Go 2-Burner Stove($120). Honestly, the name takes up about as much space as the stove. This starts with a brilliant clamshell design: the pot supports and regulator fold up into the unit for travel, turning it into a mini suitcase that takes up maybe 1/4 the space of the liquid fuel version (roughly 11″W x 14″H x 5″ deep). And, it uses the ubiquitous 1 pound propane canisters that are available at every supermarket, hardware store, Walmart…even many drugstores. They’re inexpensive, last mostly forever, and work in all weather conditions without any fuss and bother. No spilling fuel, no stink, just power when you need it.

And when we say no fuss, we mean it. Open the “suitcase”, flip the pot supports into place, connect the regulator, connect the tank, start cooking. Being the anal retentive types that we are, we actually timed it…a reasonably experienced person, not hurrying, did it in 38 seconds. We don’t care HOW hungry your kids are, they can’t complain about that wait to get the hot dogs cooking; you’ll have to stove ready before they get them out of the cooler!

And the burners themselves…outstanding. They run forever in total blowtorch mode; you can saute, sear, or burn to your heart’s content (we tested the “burn” mode a bit too much, but that was our fault, not the stove’s). Simmering is a bit more of a challenge; the control is a little touchy down in that range, so we sometimes had to turn it back on a couple of times when we turned it just a LITTLE too low. Nobody complained, however; even with that minor ergonomic glitch it still worked better than a lot of our home stoves. The piezo ignition impressed, as well; we NEVER had a problem getting the burners to start, no matter what the temperature. The only issue we found compared to the liquid fuel model is the lack of a windscreen, but a little effort with aluminum foil solved that easily; we’d rather do that than have a heavy, bulky one attached when we don’t need it all that often.

But beyond all of that functional goodness, the Coleman became dearer to our hearts when we realized that it would actually fit into a kayak! Yes, it’s heavy (8 lbs, 5 oz) and bulky for backpacking (although we more than once have taken it to a group basecamp; when you’re cooking for 6, it’s worth the effort, particularly when one person is using a Bergans Alpinist 130), but we got it into all of the kayaks we use for overnights. Since kayak camping is sort of a cross between car luxury and backpacking minimalist, this is a perfect compromise, making it easy to boil a pot of just-picked fiddleheads while frying up a mess of freshly caught trout.

Coleman has been one of our favorite companies for years, and while we still mourn the death of the Peak 1 stoves and some of their other classic backcountry products, this level of innovation for car camping keeps them in our hearts as well as our minds. There are very few “perfect” products, ones where we didn’t say “I wish they had changed X”…but this stove is one. Everything works perfectly and easily, and there are no useless features to get in the way, add expense or, worse yet, break. Somebody set up a perfect set of design parameters, and then the design team executed them flawlessly. It’s that good, pure and simple.