9 Automotive Gifts We’re Putting on Our Holiday Wishlists
Let us stop you right there: Yes, it’s barely Halloween. Yes, most folks haven’t even scoped out the turkey that will adorn their dinner tables late next month. Yes, we’ve got a whopping 55 days to go until Christmas. No, we don’t think it’s too early to make wishlists. Sure, we’ll check them twice in a few weeks.
Look, if department stores can deck their halls with festive decor this early, what’s to say we can’t also settle into the mood a bit ahead of normal?
Our digital staff is already beginning to hunt for the things we’d love to unwrap this year. Gathered here is a collection of items from our team that might spark ideas for the car nut in your life—or give you ideas on what to ask for—as well as a few that are a bit out there, but noble and worth including nonetheless.
A Helping Hoist for the Holidays
I’m always trying to maximize the functionality and fun in my garage, so my wish list is pretty simple:
A QuickJack 7000TL would cover just about everything I do in my shop and save me a little time with each car or project I need to lift. Saving a few minutes each time can give me back enough time to maybe get around to a few of the projects that have been sitting for too long. My floor jack and stands have been fine for years, but a boy can dream that this big box will be under the tree this year. Since I am 100 percent sure there won’t be an extra few feet of ceiling height under the tree, this would be the next best thing. — Kyle Smith
Scaled-Down, Still Sweet
This is easy for me, after writing this article I re-cemented my desire to get a 1/8th-scale Ferrari Testarossa die-cast model car. They were only a dream to a kid visiting The Sharper Image catalog back in the early 1990s, but they can be a reality now.
Of course, nothing car-related is ever easy when you also write about cars for a living. Now the lone item on my Christmas wishlist also has to be restomodded using aftermarket interior/suspension/engine parts, painted Miami Vice white, and documented here on Hagerty Media to be the ultimate gift to me. This might just happen, so be ready for it! — Sajeev Mehta
Upgrading the Toolkit
The long-handle, flex-head set of 1/4-, 3/8-, and 1/2-inch Craftsman V-Series ratchets are looking pretty tempting and are on sale for the holidays. My recent go-to ratchets have been my standard-length 1970s-era round-head, fine-tooth ratchets. These would provide a lot of options to flex into position and tackle projects with extra torque. — Brandan Gillogly
The Will (and Time) to Part with My Volvo
When I bought my Fiesta ST a year and a half ago, my ’86 240 wagon got parked . . . and stayed parked. The little Ford was just too much fun—and it had air conditioning and CarPlay. The Volvo is my first hobby car, though I never had to get it running because it just always ran. Well, the few times I’ve tried to start in the past year and a half, it struggles to start. (Could be that I parked it with nearly zero gas. I pray it isn’t the squirrels on the property.)
All I need is an afternoon and the will to face my guilt, and I could probably get it running—but I’ve promised my significant other that I’ll sell it, to make space in the driveway, and something tells me I’m more sentimental than I realized. Letting go is hard! — Grace Houghton
Lift, Part Deux (and Much More)
To free up space and make wrenching easier in my cramped garage, I’d love a lift. Getting my Formula Vee project going and completed will be challenging enough, so while we’re fantasizing here, I’ll take an extra three or four free weekends on the 2025 calendar. And, once it’s done, I’ll need a truck and a trailer if I actually want to race the thing, so I’ll take those, too, please. — Andrew Newton
A Sleigh of His Own
Topping my automotive holiday wishlist is Toyota’s GR86 Hakone Edition (and it looks like I’ll need a little of Santa’s magic to get my hands on one). It’s my perfect combo of conservative and approachable in a sports car that wouldn’t scare me away from redlining the hell out of it often and in nearly any weather. Also, it would look really good next to the Tacoma in the garage. — Bryan Gerould
Short-Track Salvation
Really hoping to find a race track under my Christmas tree. Too many of America’s short-track ovals are being sold off for various reasons. Lack of community support, aging owners, or fat checks from land developers, to name a few. I’d love to save at least one. Even if I never opened the gates to the public, it would make the ultimate automotive playground for my friends and family. — Cameron Neveu
Space Like the Cool Kids
I’d love to open up a giant box with a garage in it. Just a humble little 1- or 1.5-car deal. Doesn’t even need to be a fancy one with custom cabinets or a swanky floor. I’ll take bare bulbs for lighting. In all my adult life I’ve never owned a house with a usable garage, and living in the rainy PNW means I have zero interest in doing anything to a car in my driveway from about October to June. A garage would solve a lot of my problems and maybe up my incentive to do more work on my vehicles. Or set up a massive Tyco track that incorporates the 15 sets I currently have in storage . . . — Stefan Lombard
Simple and Sweet
Ain’t it great that dreaming is free? Man, these answers sure do run the gamut of what’s possible. I love it. Earlier this summer while working on swapping the rear hub and bearing assembly on my wife’s Toyota Highlander, I realized that my socket drawer—perhaps the most-used tool and bit category for car nuts—was sorely lacking. So, I’ve made it a goal this year to fill my Christmas list with a few new ratchets and a whole mess of new sockets.
For the ratchet, I’m quite fond of this 3/8-inch-drive, eight-inch quick-release model from Tekton. It seems like the most foundational element in a well-stocked socket drawer, and something I can build on from there. I love the look of the chrome handle, practicality be damned, so I’d pick this version over the rubber-gripped one in part because it’s easier to clean, but also because it just looks timeless. I’m a huge fan of Tekton mainly because the company is headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan, close to where I grew up. Once that piece is in hand, I’ll start piling on the deep and shallow socket sets, the metric and the imperial, the Torx bits and the swivels . . . There’s truly no end to the bottom of this barrel. — Nathan Petroelje
Yes it is only Halloween. -Boo.
Okay then, just consider this a list of “treats” they’d like instead of candy in their pillowcases tonight. Tomorrow, it turns into a list of things they’d like to be thankful for in a few weeks. Finally, it’ll be a list of Christmas wishes. THEN, it can be a list of things they can hope to acquire in the new year!
Now that’s a better idea! _ What’s your favorite ‘car candy ‘ ? _ That bric-a- brac and tchotche that seems fitting for certain vehicles. Plastic Jesus or cheeses or a compass on the dash, you name it hanging from the rear view mirror. Those kinds of trinkets and souvenirs that seem appropriate. I have a St. Christopher medal hanging from my rear view mirror. Came with the car and there it has stayed. Seemed bad luck to remove it. Why tempt fate? – ” I don’t believe in god but I’m afraid of him.”
For a reason I’ll not go into here, our daughter had a 3″ metal lobster figure hanging from a chain on the rearview mirror (the story is part of family lore). After her death, her car came to us. And so, even though its swinging all around during driving drives my wife nuts, it’ll stay right there.
So sorry for your loss but what a wonderful memory, tribute and reminder daily of the treasure she was.
A friend of ours had a disco ball mirror dangly that drove me nuts
I had to look out the passenger window but not the windshield
The lobster sounds somewhat dangerous but I can appreciate the sentiment
Thanks for the thoughts, folks.
” I don’t believe in god but I’m afraid of him.” – This is the funniest this I’ve heard for a very long time!
p s m: “I don’t believe in god but I’m afraid of him” is a contraction of sorts, at least to me.
There is a story about a VietNam POW getting tossed back into his cell after being tortured. His cell mates asked about his experience. He said, it was bad, so I prayed. His cellmates said….I thought you were an atheist, what God did you pray to….His answer….All of them
Dub – Understand completely. Unlobstering would be sacrilege.
Sorry, that was to be funniest THING.
No holiday gifts for me, they seem to come out of necessity year round.
Just more time.
I would prefer an App that suddenly instills in my brain the ability to do all the things I would like to do but instead, I farm them out to shops that can do! I can do simple things that I learned at the shell station some 50 plus years ago. That’s the extent of it and I do get some satisfaction from that.
The shell experience and constant reading gives me a perception of what needs to be done, but that often is just a SWAG too.
I’ve had that 50=60 years of experience too, but I note that nearly everything is covered in a youtube video, enough to know when you need to take the car to the dealer or independent for service. Again, I can do a lot but I couldn’t do it for a living.
I wish for literally nothing in my garage for Christmas. No extra cars, no extra parts, “No I wish I had done this,no reminders of past epic unfinished dreams….
Just a clean slate to start all over again ; )
something on my xmas list? motivation – to work on projects. not always a problem, but frustrating when the weather is nice and inviting (yeah, no one to blame but myself!)
Kyle, don’t forget to ask Santa for the Pinch Weld blocks. Lifts high enough to easily get the engine out of my 63.
Noted!
Brandan Gillogly, DON’T GET THE CRAFTSMAN! Craftsman quality has gone down hill in the last years. Go for the Snap-on if you are going to use them. Much more money but very good in the hand. I have some great “OLD” Craftsman ratchets but the last ones I bought were returned and I bought Snap-on, well worth the difference in $ . Just my opinion.
You are correct that the new Craftsman stuff is garbage. There is an alternative if you don’t want to spring for Snap-on. The Harbor Freight Icon line seems to have replaced the Craftsman of old. They still have the cheap stuff, but the Icon stuff is pretty nice. I know professional mechanics who use it all the time.
I’m gonna date myself with this, but … In the 1980’s I spent 7 years as a mechanic in import specialty garages in Ohio. My choice in ratchets and deep well sockets during those years was – Benchtop – the store brand of Kmart! Oh, and one old lonely Craftsman 1/2 inch for when I needed to put a hammer or a pipe on it to free-up REALLY tight and rusty nits and bolts (like only upper midwest states with lake-effect snow and road salt can produce). I still have the 1/4 and 3/8 Benchtop ratchets in use over 34 years since I left the auto world to return to my first calling, pastoral ministry. Many inexpensive (not cheap!) tools are plenty good enough for pros and amateurs! Choose wisely, not just cheaply.
We had some Indestro socket sets. Seemed rugged and inexpensive. SK stuff was not bad and moderate price
Perfectly accurate. In our shop I needed a “large” 3/4” drive socket. The jobber suggested I could buy a complete 3/4” drive set from offshore for the price of the one Gray Tool Brand socket I needed. I asked who would pay the medical bill when el-cheapo socket slipped and I, uh, hurt myself. Daily use- buy the best.
I’ve got a mix of stuff accumulated over 60 years, but I had a chance to buy “steelwillies” for really cheap, so got 1/4″ and 1/2′ drive socket sets. The source went south before I could put together enough bucks for the 3/8″ drive set. I like them best over any of the others except maybe some Snap-on stuff I have.
I really like the Tekton brand stuff, and some of their tools are made in the good ‘ole U.S.A. !
4-post lift, the BEST tool I’ve ever bought!
Dear Santa, I’d like to have a younger body that doesn’t hurt so I can work on my car. A lift would also be nice, but then I’d need a garage with a higher ceiling.
We built a 24 x 40 shop in 2011. I bought the materials package and he provided the labor and concrete floor work to build. We discussed what height to make it and he said only need 8 ft ceiling because he was only working on Honda Civics at the time. A few years later he wanted to install a 2 post lift that requires a 12 ft ceiling. It would been about $1000 more at the time we built it to do that, but probably cost him over $4000 to raise it 4 ft later, and that was with lots of good friends providing free labor and expert construction advise.
How about a body that doesn’t have Parkinson’s disease like I have ? I have the quick lift and do use it. I still do things but it just takes me longer. PD isn’t fun.
Twin turbos for my LS 68 Camaro would look great under the Christmas tree
Boyd
My wife would never buy me tools. I have more tools than I can use and she would not know a screwdriver from a butter knife. My wish list from her would be high temp grease, or a good oil filter and 10w30 oil for my old classic. She did buy me a new creeper one year which was great ( my son may have suggested it) If your talking from Santa, maybe a new set of radials if he has room in the sleigh.🎄🎅
Let it be known to others: DO NOT BUY ME TOOLS. I have specifications for tools I want and not the ones you think I want.