The Best Gifts for the At-Home Mechanic

At-home mechanics are essentially hyper-focused DIYers, so anything that makes garage life and work easier is a surefire holiday-gift win. A brand-new full socket set to replace and supplement their existing collection? You bet. A light bar with lumens that give sun a run for its money? Definitely. A magnetic telescoping pick up tool to get in the most unreachable places? You better believe it. These are just some of the best gifts for the at-home mechanic — you can’t go wrong with anything below.

Haynes Manual

Factory repair manuals can get pretty pricey and most likely have more information then you’ll ever need, which is why Haynes Manuals are a staple in any at-home mechanic’s garage. There’s still plenty of information to help you repair your car, but it comes at a veery reasonable $30.

Telescoping Magnetic Pick Up Tool

The bane of all mechanics’ existence is dropping a socket, bolt or washer into the dark abyss of a full oil pan or down a narrow chasm in the engine bay. A telescoping magnet is incredibly simple but wildly helpful.

Shock Absorbing Rubber Mallet

There are very few times in at-home mechanic’s career where the sound of a metal-on-metal impact is welcomed. When the job does call for a hammer, a little more finesse is usually required. A rubber mallet not only takes the sting out of the energy traveling through the handle, but it also is kinder on metal and painted surfaces.

Big Ass Light Bar

Six leveles of brightness, a 5,000 lumen output and a chemical resistant body pretty much ensures the Big Ass Light Bar will replace any flashlight you currently have – and will be the last one you ever need.

Steelgrip Nut Splitter Set

When all the conventional methods of loosening a seized nut fail but defeat is not an option, a nut splitter will finish the job. Using a point splitter and focus pressure, the nut splitter does exactly what its name entails and cracks the nut of the bolt, allowing for easy removal.

Magnetic Fender Cover

If you look into the garage of any professional mechanic shop you’ll see fender covers up and down the maintenance bays. It’s important to protect the fenders from accidental scratches caused by tools and clothing while leaning and working under the hood.

Streamlight Enduro Pro Headlamp

When a job requires two-hands (spoiler: most of them do) and you need a light source a headlamp is the way to go. This one from Streamlight gives you bright LED light exactly where you need it.

Car Battery Carrier

Most batteries live in tight quarters, which means getting a grip on them when they need replacing isn’t so easy. A car battery carrier makes life less difficult and lets you get into tighter spaces on the sides of the battery. It also is a great way to handle older or damaged batteries without directly touching them.

Utopia Shop Towels

Red shop towels are fairly iconic – every home mechanic knows they’re a must in every garage. They’re not tough on hands or skin but do an amazing job of scrubbing greasy surfaces and cleaning any spills. They’re also machine-washable, and so a pack of 100 Utopia Shop Towels can go a long way.

Mechanix Wear Original High Abrasion Gloves

As much as the home mechanic likes to work under the hood of their car, it’s not the most friendly place for bare hands. Hard, sharp surfaces and edges are everywhere, and if you’ve ever slipped a wrench in a tight space in an engine bay, you’ll appreciate the protection of high abrasion gloves. Made with extra grip on the fingers and abrasion-resistant material, they’re an essential defensive weapon in an at-home mechanic’s arsenal.

Pro-Lift Double Pin 6-Ton Jack Stand

Unless you’re one of the fortunate ones and have a full car lift in your garage, jack stands are a must. Each Pro-Lift Double Pin Jack Stand can hold up to six tons, so having one at each corner of the average car, truck or SUV is more than enough support.

Black+Decker Rotary Tool

Getting into tight spaces to clean and polish a surface or cut a bolt or shear an edge is a regular activity in thee garage. The Black+Decker Rotary Tool’s slim body and 27-piece set turns laborous, time consuming chores into simple, stress-free tasks.

Pro-Lift Foldable Mechanic’s Creeper

For the longest time, the creeper wasn’t much more than a plank of wood with a few wheels bolted on the bottom. The Pro-Lift Foldable Mechanic’s Creeper not only has six three-inch polyurethane, oil resistant, full-bearing casters for a smooth ride across the shop floor, it also folds up and becomes a stool, eliminating crouching and hunching for jobs like tire changes.

Craftsman Digital Torque Wrench

A torque wrench is an essential tool for any mechanic looking even to do simple maintenance. When using a conventional torque wrench, you’re essentially eye-balling it – converting foot-pounds to inch pounds or Nm on the fly. The Craftsman Digital Torque Wrench takes the guesswork out of the equation by doing all the conversions at the touch of a button and displaying the exact force you need on an LED backlit screen.

Dewalt 168-Piece Mechanics Tool Set

There’s nothing worse than setting out to do a job only to find you don’t have the sockets you need. With a Dewalt 168-Piece Mechanics Tool Set, there’s a good chance you’ll have every size socket to take your entire car apart and put it back together.

Arcan Aluminum Floor Jack

Again, unless you’re one of the fortunate souls to have a full lift or drive over bay, you’re going to need a floor jack. The Arcan Aluminum Floor Jack has a three-ton capacity and is relatively light at 65 pounds, so it’s not a complete workout moving it across the garage floor.

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Citroen 2CV: A Classic Exercise in Profound Minimalism

On October 8th, 1948, the Citroën 2CV debuted at the Paris Motor Show to an unimpressed crowd. One American purportedly remarked upon its reveal, “Does it come with a can-opener?” Meanwhile, a correspondent for Autocar called it “the work of a designer who has kissed the lash of austerity with almost masochistic fervor.” Despite the kneejerk criticism, though, the 2CV was a hit with the buying public and remained in production for over 40 years. Today it is as synonymous with France as a Breton shirt, the Eiffel tower, a smoky corner cafe or a flaky croissant.

Of course, austerity was pretty much the entire point of the 2CV, and to fully understand why, you’d have to go back to the very beginning of its development: 1936, a time when the rural dwelling French still relied on horse-drawn carriages, and even the humblest cars were priced out of reach. Wanting to create a true car of the people, Citroën Vice-President Pierre Boulanger challenged his team to create an “umbrella on wheels” of sorts, a minimalist car that was cheap to buy and so stupidly simple it could be easily repaired and maintained, even on a shoestring budget.

His design brief went something like this: The car should carry four people, and 50 kilos of potatoes (or a keg of beer, depending on who you ask) at 60 kph while consuming three liters of fuel for every 100 kilometers. Similarly, it should be able to traverse rugged terrains and drive through a freshly-plowed field without cracking a basket of eggs. Looks were more or less irrelevant.

The product of this brief was the TPV (Toute Petite Voiture, or “Very Small Car”), a rudimentary, aluminum-bodied car with hammock-like seats that hung from the interior ceiling. The TPV was set to debut at the 1939 Paris Auto show, but once France had declared war Germany, the project was scrapped. All working prototypes of the TPV were either dismantled, buried or hidden away. Boulanger didn’t want to see his creation seized and become a part of the Nazi war machine.

After the war, France was in much worse position to mobilize its people, and just about 100,000 of France’s two million pre-war cars in France were left. What’s more, the government instituted a “Plan Pons” to regulate car production with scarce materials which, in short, limited Citroën to only producing the more upscale Traction Avant. It wasn’t until the government disbanded this plan that the 2CV could come back to fulfill its original vision, though revised with a redesigned steel body (aluminum was too expensive at this point), steel-tubed seats with rubber support (instead of roof-mounted hammocks) and a 375cc air-cooled flat-twin engine producing nine horsepower and achieving a top speed of around 35 miles per hour.

Basic though it was, the car resonated with a recovering Europe and eventually went on to be a success in export markets like South America, Africa and Asia. All in all, nearly 9 million 2CVs were built, and production lasted until 1990. Though the 2CV was bound to change somewhat with the times — more “luxurious” features and larger engines would eventually enter the mix — the car stayed true to its humble roots.

That much is obvious when driving one of the 2CV’s later iterations. In my case a mid-’80s “Club” model. Step in, and you can tell that there are a few small upgrades made throughout, including a more ergonomic steering wheel, better interior trim pieces and, most notably, a finer plaid upholstery with the look and texture of a Penfield flannel.

That said, even with these improvements, the car is still an exercise in profound minimalism as it was on the original. The body panels are crêpe-like thin, so much so that the hood flexes upon opening. Air conditioning is reduced to two small, vents above the dash that channel oncoming headwinds into the cabin aimed at your face and upper torso. The seats can be removed and used to have a roadside picnic, if you like. The windows open by flipping upward and out, and the vinyl roof manually peels all the way back, the like top on a tin of sardines, to expose the interior to the kiss of the sun on a warm summer day.

But the most notable addition to this later 2CV is the engine, the 602cc flat-twin that became the standard on late model 2CVs making around 30 horsepower which bestowed it with the ability to (barely) hit modern highway speeds, though I’m not entirely sure how badly I wanted to test that out. My time in the 2CV was mostly concerned with around-town driving, and even then the sensation of speed was amplified well beyond the reality shown on the speedometer.

The best analog I can think of is an old two-stroke moped. You really need to push and rev to eke out every smidge of power, and with that come vibrations and noise that combined with its light weight make the whole experience feel weirdly visceral despite how slow you’re going. Amplifying that is the four-speed manual which is unlike anything you’re likely to experience in another car. The 2CV has a standard(ish) H-pattern with a dogleg layout (which means first gear is down and to the left) but rather than pushing a lever forward and back, you’re pushing the shifter in and out of the dash while twisting it.

It goes something like this: Twist the lever to the left so it’s angled towards you, then pull out to go into first. Then, push it back inward while twisting it to the right (so the knob is standing straight up) to go into second. Pull it straight back to go into third. Then, twist the shifter to the right (so the knob is angled away from you) while pushing back inward to put it into fourth. Make sense? No? I’m sorry.

But whatever. It takes about thirty seconds after ham-fistedly trying it in person to make sense, and the shifting action (at least in this lovingly cared for example) is crisp, intuitive and satisfying. That, combined with the fact that you have to drive the car at ten-tenths all the time (remember: moped) yields a decidedly raw driving experience. What’s more, that soft, long-travel suspension — the one designed to save a basket of eggs from Humpty Dumpty-esque fate — provides both a smooth ride and a… unique cornering experience. This thing leans. You haven’t truly experienced body roll until you’ve driven a 2CV, yet the car has proven nigh impossible to topple, even during hard driving.

It’s hard to think of another car that offers such a distinct driving experience, which I think has a lot to do with why the 2CV has become canonized as an automotive icon. Yes, we tend to measure cars regarding their overall performance and their backstory, but these are figures and yarns that are more often than not regurgitated, telephone-style, by the enthusiast community. But our most distinguished automotive memories, more than anything, are characterized by the tactile experiences we have in a car and the personal stories we share.

Consider this: the owner of this 2CV, whom hails from the Netherlands, acquired it because she had one in her family growing up. She and her sister would drive it from Amsterdam to the South of France in the summertime. Just imagine that, more than 700 miles — one way — through the French countryside, the top rolled down and sun beaming, the thrum of a flat-twin engine reverberating throughout the tin-like cabin, with the car vigorously leaning into every corner.

Her story is just one of, literally, millions — and there really are millions because of the 2CV’s initial raison d’etre as a simple, affordable car for the people. Today we have much more modern, safer and better-appointed cars to fulfill that mission. And that’s fine. Because today, I could imagine owning a 2CV as fun, daily runabout, driving it to the store to buy brie cheese and a baguette, inspiring smiles both from drivers and pedestrian along the way. The car still lives on, a sublime little umbrella on wheels, still creating stories.

Viva la 2CV.

6 Beautiful Car Design and Engineering Details

From Issue Seven of Gear Patrol Magazine.

It makes sense that a beautiful car would be made of beautiful parts. And while the smaller components of some luxury vehicles aren’t aesthetic masterpieces in their own right, they’re often interesting works of engineering (and proper middle fingers to design conventions). It’s only a bonus, then, that the following elements are attached to uniquely desirable automobiles. Here’s a handful of notable details that, in a sea of relatively homogenous vehicles, stand out as beacons of style and design.

Volvo Gearshift by Orrefors

Leave it to a decidedly Swedish premium automaker to offer an attractive yet understated crystal shift knob on top-trim levels of select vehicles. Volvo has been killing it design-wise as of late, with gorgeous new models debuting in rapid succession. But its attention to detail doesn’t stop at the sheet metal. Inside the spartan yet luxurious cabin of Volvo’s XC60 T8 is a crown jewel handmade by the Swedish crystal makers Orrefors. The brilliantly clear, stubby shifter in this top-end, four-seat SUV is as pleasing to the eye as in the hand. There have been many superb shift knobs and levers in the history of the automobile, but as modern examples go, this one is king.

XC60 Inscription T8 Specs
Engine: supercharged and turbocharged 2.0-liter inline 4; 9.2-kW-hr lithium-ion battery-powered electric motor
Transmission:8-speed automatic; all-wheel drive
Horsepower: 313; 87; 400 combined
Torque: 295 lb-ft; 177 lb-ft; 472 lb-ft combined
Price: $57,695

Second-Generation Ford GT Buttress

At once aerodynamically functional and outrageous, this buttress is unlike almost anything else you’ll find on a road car. It connects the rear-wheel housing to the main cabin, giving what would otherwise be a relatively skeletal carbon-fiber body the appearance of having much more surface area. It also allows you to see straight through the side of the car. In addition to looking alien, the buttress diverts airflow, reduces drag and increases downforce.

Second-Generation Ford GT Specs
Engine: 3.5-liter twin-turbocharged V6
Transmission: 7-speed dual-clutch; rear-wheel drive
Horsepower: 647
Torque: 550 lb-ft
Curb weight: 3,354 lbs
0-60 mph: 2.8 seconds
Top speed: 216 mph
Price: ~$450,000
Total built: 1,000

Bentley ‘Organ Stop’ HVAC Vent Knobs

Bentley’s charming, stodgy British nature shines through in this detail. Instead of a small flip-style tab like you’d see in virtually any other car, these organ-stop pulls open and close each HVAC vent, giving an otherwise plain dashboard a lot of blingy texture. They also harken back to a time when everything on a car — whether it was on a coach-built Bentley or a Model T — was handcrafted and manually operated.

2019 Bentley Continental GT Specs
Engine: 6.0-liter, twin-turbocharged W12
Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch
Horsepower: 626
Torque: 664 ft-lbs
Curb weight: 4,947 lbs
Top speed: 207 mph
0-60: 3.6 seconds
Price: $214,600

Koenigsegg Dihedral Doors

Unconventional door hinges can be functionally necessary — there isn’t room in the real world for a wide supercar’s doors to swing outward — but sometimes their existence is nothing but ostentatious peacocking. The Koenigsegg dihedral doors are mostly the former, but with a tangible dose of the latter: they push outward horizontally then rotate around an axis, eventually settling at a 90-degree angle.

Koenigsegg Regera Specs
Engine: 5.0-liter twin-turbocharged V8; three electric motors
Transmission: Koenigsegg Direct Drive; rear-wheel drive
Horsepower: 1,500 (V8 and electric motors combined)
Torque: 1,475 lb-ft
Curb weight: 3,510 lbs
Top speed: 250+ mph (est.)
0-60: 2.8 seconds
Price: $1.9 million (est.)

Lincoln 30-Way Perfect Position Seats

Most rental-car seats adjust four ways (they recline and slide forward and backward), while your dad’s “nice” car may have an eight-way seat that also rises and lowers. Thanks to 11 separate air cushions, Lincoln’s seats are customizable in 30 directions, meaning you can almost literally find the perfect position for your posterior (and back). Their articulation and appointment are second to none.

2018 Lincoln Navigator Specs
Engine: 3.5-liter twin-turbocharged V6
Transmission: 10-speed automatic; four-wheel drive
Horsepower: 450
Torque: 510 lb-ft
Top speed: 115 mph
0-60: 5.5 seconds
Towing capacity: 8,700 lbs
Price: $72,555 (base)

Alpina B6 Gran Coupe Wheels

Alpina-modified BMW cars are hyperbole on wheels. Faster than a streak, these cars are big and brash, but they tend to feature minimal bodywork and solar additions. The wheels of the BMW Gran Coupe, however, are a dead giveaway that car has been magicked into something special. The 20-spoke rims look magnificent at speed, but standing still is when they truly shimmer.

Alpina B6 Gran Coupe Specs
Engine: 4.4-liter twin-turbocharged V8
Transmission: either-speed automatic; all-wheel drive
Horsepower: 591
Torque: 590 lb-ft
Curb weight: 4780 lbs
Top speed: 199 mph
0-60: 3.6 seconds
Price: $124,000 (base)

2019 Jaguar F-Type Coupe Tail End

In an homage to the inimitable 1960s Jaguar E-Type, the F-Type is a modern miracle of retro design. It doesn’t look hokey, as some other recent retro-inspired vehicles have, but instead offers a contemporary take on a very sexy shape. The rear end lifts to such a sharp point that it impinges on trunk space; the kind of impracticality only the most dedicated enthusiasts accept.

2019 Jaguar F-Type SVR Coupe Specs
Engine: 5.0-liter supercharged V8
Transmission: 8-speed automatic; all-wheel drive
Horsepower: 575
Torque: 516 lb-ft
Top speed: 200 mph
0-60: 3.5 seconds
Price: $122,750 (base)

Note: Purchasing products through our links may earn us a portion of the sale, which supports our editorial team’s mission. Learn more here.

Lincoln Navigator Review: After 20 Years, the All-New SUV Is On Top of Its Game

It’s an obvious assertion that the new Navigator is aimed squarely at Cadillac’s bling-king SUV. The long and short of that discussion is that the Navigator is, without a shred of doubt, leaps and bounds better in every discernible way. Regardless of your take on that rivalry, what’s more amazing to me is who else Lincoln is now successfully competing with: in terms of luxury, capability and technology, the 2018 Navigator, the first complete redesign in the vehicle’s 20-year history, is worthy of comparison with much, much bigger dogs, like Mercedes-Benz’s GLS and Bentley’s Bentayga. This is a serious, serious SUV — an absolute mic-drop benchmark for its price range. Though Cadillac, et al. likely aren’t scared, I do imagine they’re quickly wearing through plenty of whiteboards with furious brainstorm scribbles.

Lincoln’s goal is to make “the ultimate family vehicle.” Now, I don’t have a family, per se, but I do have opinionated adult friends; instead of suburbs and daycare runs, at my disposal are the beautiful environs of upstate New York. We loaded up early in the day and hit the road in earnest, covering hundreds of miles of highways, country roads, small towns, driveways, parking lots, narrow city streets and light gravel lanes. Even when a three-hour, late evening traffic jam impeded our return, there was nary a complaint.

This completely new, titanic vehicle is replete with technology and comfort and convenience features that are, simply put, on par with those found in the quarter-million-dollar luxury stratus. This is where super upscale competitors should take note. The seats are cosseting thrones, positioned and appointed so well that no one gets shorted on space or of the full-on comfort experience. In between the optional second-row captain’s chairs is a console that rivals some furniture pieces in my actual apartment in terms of size. Like the middle console between driver and passenger, it also features a storage compartment that swallowed a camera bag, a liter of water and shopping bag full of snacks, and it had room to spare. It’s a comfortable, beautiful, airy, bright and spacious living room on wheels (with 11 standard power outlets). My friends, guys whose heights hover around six feet, could all easily cross their legs in even the power-reclining third row.

Beholding the interior of the new Navigator is an endless exercise in appreciation of design, though my favorite element is the horizontal dash section on the passenger side, which stands out as a singular and deeply emotional detail. Opt for the high-end wood trim in your Navigator and every wood applique will be sourced from the same tree, meaning their grain matches flawlessly. This is something you’ll only find in vehicles twice the price of the Navigator and it’s best showcased on the marvelous center console. The piece de resistance, however, is the Lincoln insignia inlaid on the far right end — a proud nod to Lincolns of yesteryear.

The Navigator’s overall design draws more heavily on the concept-vehicle version touted a couple years back than I expected it would; most manufacturers only tease hints of their future vehicles with auto-show art pieces. Save a few concept-car features, like a retractable side staircase and gullwing doors, this is essentially the same vehicle Lincoln revealed at the 2016 New York Auto Show. There are horizontal lines galore, mostly inside, drawing your eye from left to right over pleasantly varied materials. Outside, there is absolutely no mistaking this for anything but a Lincoln Navigator. The roof stands higher than I do, and the emblem on what seems like a ten-acre chrome grille is a full nine inches tall. The shockingly large wheels, reminiscent of an airplane’s spinning prop, really do give a sense of motion when standing still.

And yet it’s not ostentatious. Bold? Yes, very. But in a sensical, moderated fashion. In the same way Lincoln’s ’60s Continental was a monolithic — but not gaudy — brute of a luxury sedan, the Navigator doesn’t exhibit wince-inducing tackiness. Instead, it’s handsome and properly impactful and draws admiration of form more than it does attention for attention’s sake. I have a strong feeling that this is what a big, progressively styled SUV should look like. It’s a design win.

Lincoln’s desire to make the new Navigator an “ultimate” SUV translates into a vehicle that drives very, very well

Lincoln is also heavily emphasizing the literal experience of being in the Navigator more than any other element. This starts, of course, with the driver. Different drive modes are available — it does seem a little irresponsible to put such a large vehicle into anything like a sport mode, but it’s there mostly to keep the powertrain responsive should conditions call for it. A key feature is the heads-up display (HUD), on which vital data like speed, miles-to-empty and more projects onto the windshield in front of the steering wheel. Most anything the driver needs to know can be displayed there, on what Lincoln claims is the “biggest and brightest” HUD on the market. It’s also intelligently designed and intuitive: when you move a function to the HUD, it’s gone from the standard physical digital gauge cluster, eliminating redundant distractions.

Most importantly, Lincoln’s desire to make the new Navigator an “ultimate” SUV translates into a vehicle that drives very, very well. The steering has proper weight and, combined with a premier seating position and visibility, offers a supreme sense of command. Its twin-turbocharged V6’s 450 horsepower feels like nuclear propulsion when coaxed with the throttle. What the Navigator doesn’t feel like from the front left seat is a big, loping truck. It drives big, but it’s manipulated as easy as a family sedan half its size.

While I was busy enjoying driving dynamics, my “family” was constantly noting, in half-whispered, awed voices, observations like “even the windows are smooth.” The panoramic glass roof is so large they figured it must be several massive sliding windows put together. Discovering the rear-seat entertainment tablet/Bluetooth headset combos was like a gateway drug — the second-row friends, who acted, I assume, much like eagerly curious children, continued to find new features and delights until I dropped them off late into the evening.

I, frankly, have almost no complaints beyond the quality of very few interior materials — for instance, molded plastic “knurling” on some knobs is unfortunate but totally fine for the price range. It’s not right to complain about the sheer mass of the thing — here, mass is, of course, necessary and unavoidable since its goal is to transport full-sized adults in total comfort. Others who prefer small vehicles will be very satisfied when using the 360-degree camera system for parking maneuvers. In something this big, they’re a godsend when you’re trying to… navigate.

The big question: Is it worth it? The Navigator will start around $73,000, and top-end models like the one I drove will sticker for just under $100,000, a price comparable to the Navigator’s main competition, the Escalade. And yet, that’s less than half what the top-tier competition charges. The Bentayga starts around $225,000, for instance, and while that premium is deserved for many reasons, the price delta cannot be overlooked. In fact, it should be heavily considered by any luxury SUV buyer. Escalade shoppers, though, should know this: the Navigator is a worthy entry into the “big luxury SUV” thing; it does the whole “experience” thing better; it looks better; drives better. It’s just better. So yes, the Navigator is absolutely worth it — just ask my family.