Ten Best Tools of All Time

Forget the Snap-On Tools truck; it has never been there when you need it. Besides there are only ten things in this world you need to fix any car, any place, any time.

1. Duct Tape

   Not just a tool, a veritable Swiss Army knife in stickum and plastic. It’s safety wire, body material, radiator hose, upholstery, insulation, tow rope, and more–in an easy to carry package. Sure, there’s prejudice surrounding duct tape in concours competitions, but in the real world, everything from Le Mans-winning Porsches to Atlas rockets use it by the yard. The only thing that can get you out of more scrapes is a quarter and a phone booth.

2. Vise Grips

   Equally adept as a wrench, hammer, pliers, baling wire twister, breaker-off of frozen bolts and wiggle-it-til-it-falls-off tool. The heavy artillery of your tool box, vise grips are the only tool designed expressly to fix things screwed up beyond repair.

3. Spray Lubricants

   A considerably cheaper alternative to new doors, alternator, and other squeaky items. Slicker than pig phlegm, repeated soakings will allow the main hull bolts of the Andrea Doria to be removed by hand. Strangely enough, an integral part of these sprays is the infamous Little Red Tube that flies out of the nozzle if you look at it cross eyed (one of the ten worst tools of all time).

4. Margarine Tubs with Clear Lids

   If you spend all your time under the hood looking for a frendle pin that caromed off the pertal valve when you knocked both off the air cleaner, it’s because you eat butter. Real mechanics consume pounds of tasteless vegetable oil replicas just so they can use the empty tubs for parts containers afterward. (Some, of course, chuck the butter-colored goo altogether or use it to repack wheel bearings.) Unlike air cleaners and radiator lips, margarine tubs aren’t connected by a time/space wormhole to the Parallel Universe of Lost Frendle Pins.

5. Big Rock at the Side of the Road

   Block up a tire. Smack corroded battery terminals. Pound out a dent. Bop noisy know-it-all types on the noodle. Scientists have yet to develop a hammer that packs the raw banging power of granite or limestone. This is the only tool with which a “Made in Malaysia” emblem is not synonymous with the user’s maiming.

6. Plastic Zip Ties

   After 20 years of lashing down stray hose and wiring with old bread ties, some genius brought a slightly slicked-up version to the auto parts market. Fifteen zip ties can transform a hulking mass of amateur-quality wiring from a working model of the Brazilian Rain Forest into something remotely resembling a wiring harness. Of course it works both ways. When buying a used car, subtract $100 for each zip tie under the hood.

7. Ridiculously Large Craftsman Screwdriver

   Let’s admit it. There’s nothing better for prying, chiseling, lifting, breaking, splitting or mutilating than a huge flat-bladed screwdriver, particularly when wielded with gusto and a big hammer. This is also the tool of choice for all filters so insanely located that they can only be removed by driving a stake in one side and out the other. If you break the screwdriver–and you will just like Dad and your shop teacher said–who cares, it has a lifetime guarantee.

8. Baling Wire

   Commonly known as MG muffler brackets, baling wire holds anything that’s too hot for tape or ties. Like duct tape, it’s not recommended for concours contenders, since it works so well you’ll never need to replace it with the right thing again. Baling wire is a sentimental favorite in some circles, particularly with the MG, Triumph, and flathead Ford set.

9. Bonking Stick

   This monstrous tuning fork with devilish pointy ends is technically known as a tie-rod separator, but how often do you separate tie-rod ends? Once every decade if you’re lucky. Other than medieval combat, its real use is the all-purpose application of undue force, not unlike that of the huge flat-bladed screwdriver. Nature doesn’t know the bent metal panel or frozen exhaust pipe that can stand up to a good bonking stick. (Can also be use to separate tie-rod ends in a pinch, of course, but does a lousy job of it).

10. A Quarter and a Phone Booth

See tip #1 above.