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So here—borrowing a page from Jeff Foxworthy—are a few other signs that you might be a car guy:
1. You pick up the morning paper and the headline reads, “Alien Death Ray Incinerates Millions.” You set the front page aside for later reading and go straight to a Sears insert that says, “Presidents’ Day Craftsman Tool Sale.”
2. You’ve owned at least one brand of car that your local insurance agent has never heard of, and you have to spell it twice. Or three times, in the case of the Innocenti Mini Matic T1000.
3. There was no way on earth you would have missed the opening night of a Clint Eastwood movie called Gran Torino, regardless of content.
4. You have a whole drawer filled with cruddy, slightly rusty “take-off” hose clamps, which you will never use again. Unless you need to get an engine running at midnight when the auto parts stores are closed.
5. You have neighbors who wonder why you can never get a rebuilt engine running before midnight. And why the garage doors have to be open…
6. You spend Sunday watching three different types of racing on Speed Channel, and on Monday morning someone at your office says, “How about those Bears?” and you don’t know whether they’re talking about football or a fire in Yellowstone.
7. You own a “cherry picker” engine hoist that’s all spattered with overspray from a defective nozzle on a can of chrome-aluminum spray paint that also hit your Cobra poster.
8. The left fingertips on the rubber glove in your bead-blasting cabinet are all worn away from holding small carb linkage parts. Your fingerprints don’t look so good, either.
9. Jay Leno’s garage seems like an island of enlightenment and perfect sanity in a world gone mad.
10. Opening a velvet-lined micrometer case creates exactly the same rush of endorphins in your brain as lifting the lid on a plush-lined case containing a triple-pickup Les Paul Custom.
11. All your blue jeans have a worn left knee because you have a hole in the left knee of your coveralls.
12. Your air compressor is slightly larger than the refrigerator in your house.
13. The only time you use unprintably foul language is when you’re alone in the workshop and things go really wrong. Which is about every five minutes.
14. In just one evening of looking at classifieds, you can entertain notions of buying a big-block Corvette, a short-wheelbase Land Rover, a suicide-door Continental or an MG TC, all in the same brain.
15. Your bench grinder pedestal is permanently bolted to the floor.
16. There is no day so bad that the sight of a buff-colored issue of Hemmings in your mailbox doesn’t dissolve all worldly cares.
17. You are on a first-name basis with the only guy in the county who knows how to rebuild Dynaflow and Hydra-Matic automatic transmissions.
18. You own more than one floor jack.
19. The electrical parts drawer in your toolbox contains two high-performance Lucas Sport Coils that look brand new, but you honestly can’t remember if they’re new spares or if you took them off a race car that was misfiring. So you never use them and you never throw them out.
20. You’re starting to think maybe a real car guy should have a coil tester…
21. You go to the hardware store to buy two 7/16 grade-8 locknuts and walk out with a box of 100, because “it’s always good to stock up.”
22. You own at least one Nomex racing suit that you’ve “outgrown” and one or more helmets with expired Snell stickers, preferably from another century.
23. When you go house-hunting with a realtor, you automatically reject any home without room to park a car trailer—or at least a place to hide one, if it’s one of those upscale neighborhoods where zoning laws are concocted to keep out people exactly like you.
24. Half the money you earned in your 20s was given to a man in a Snap-On Tool truck.
25. You have a surprising number of friends whose children are named for legendary members of
Team Lotus.
26. You privately believe that a cheap or insubstantial toolbox reflects a kind of spiritual malaise in the owner.
27. You never completely bond with any dog that doesn’t enjoy riding in a car and looking out the window.
28. You own several combination wrenches that have been heated to a cherry red with your oxy-acetylene torch and bent to perform special tasks, now forgotten.
29. You have a wall locker in your garage containing at least eight cans of motor oil, all of different brands and viscosities (synthetic, non-synthetic, straight 50 wt. racing, etc.), left over from past oil changes where you bought one extra can, “just in case.”
30. You imagine that someday you might own an old beater of such low status that it won’t bother you to mix brands and viscosities while doing an oil change. That day never comes.
Peter Egan/Side Glances-roadandtrack.com- Feb 2010
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1. You pick up the morning paper and the headline reads, “Alien Death Ray Incinerates Millions.” You set the front page aside for later reading and go straight to a Sears insert that says, “Presidents’ Day Craftsman Tool Sale.”
2. You’ve owned at least one brand of car that your local insurance agent has never heard of, and you have to spell it twice. Or three times, in the case of the Innocenti Mini Matic T1000.
3. There was no way on earth you would have missed the opening night of a Clint Eastwood movie called Gran Torino, regardless of content.
4. You have a whole drawer filled with cruddy, slightly rusty “take-off” hose clamps, which you will never use again. Unless you need to get an engine running at midnight when the auto parts stores are closed.
5. You have neighbors who wonder why you can never get a rebuilt engine running before midnight. And why the garage doors have to be open…
6. You spend Sunday watching three different types of racing on Speed Channel, and on Monday morning someone at your office says, “How about those Bears?” and you don’t know whether they’re talking about football or a fire in Yellowstone.
7. You own a “cherry picker” engine hoist that’s all spattered with overspray from a defective nozzle on a can of chrome-aluminum spray paint that also hit your Cobra poster.
8. The left fingertips on the rubber glove in your bead-blasting cabinet are all worn away from holding small carb linkage parts. Your fingerprints don’t look so good, either.
9. Jay Leno’s garage seems like an island of enlightenment and perfect sanity in a world gone mad.
10. Opening a velvet-lined micrometer case creates exactly the same rush of endorphins in your brain as lifting the lid on a plush-lined case containing a triple-pickup Les Paul Custom.
11. All your blue jeans have a worn left knee because you have a hole in the left knee of your coveralls.
12. Your air compressor is slightly larger than the refrigerator in your house.
13. The only time you use unprintably foul language is when you’re alone in the workshop and things go really wrong. Which is about every five minutes.
14. In just one evening of looking at classifieds, you can entertain notions of buying a big-block Corvette, a short-wheelbase Land Rover, a suicide-door Continental or an MG TC, all in the same brain.
15. Your bench grinder pedestal is permanently bolted to the floor.
16. There is no day so bad that the sight of a buff-colored issue of Hemmings in your mailbox doesn’t dissolve all worldly cares.
17. You are on a first-name basis with the only guy in the county who knows how to rebuild Dynaflow and Hydra-Matic automatic transmissions.
18. You own more than one floor jack.
19. The electrical parts drawer in your toolbox contains two high-performance Lucas Sport Coils that look brand new, but you honestly can’t remember if they’re new spares or if you took them off a race car that was misfiring. So you never use them and you never throw them out.
20. You’re starting to think maybe a real car guy should have a coil tester…
21. You go to the hardware store to buy two 7/16 grade-8 locknuts and walk out with a box of 100, because “it’s always good to stock up.”
22. You own at least one Nomex racing suit that you’ve “outgrown” and one or more helmets with expired Snell stickers, preferably from another century.
23. When you go house-hunting with a realtor, you automatically reject any home without room to park a car trailer—or at least a place to hide one, if it’s one of those upscale neighborhoods where zoning laws are concocted to keep out people exactly like you.
24. Half the money you earned in your 20s was given to a man in a Snap-On Tool truck.
25. You have a surprising number of friends whose children are named for legendary members of
Team Lotus.
26. You privately believe that a cheap or insubstantial toolbox reflects a kind of spiritual malaise in the owner.
27. You never completely bond with any dog that doesn’t enjoy riding in a car and looking out the window.
28. You own several combination wrenches that have been heated to a cherry red with your oxy-acetylene torch and bent to perform special tasks, now forgotten.
29. You have a wall locker in your garage containing at least eight cans of motor oil, all of different brands and viscosities (synthetic, non-synthetic, straight 50 wt. racing, etc.), left over from past oil changes where you bought one extra can, “just in case.”
30. You imagine that someday you might own an old beater of such low status that it won’t bother you to mix brands and viscosities while doing an oil change. That day never comes.
Peter Egan/Side Glances-roadandtrack.com- Feb 2010
.
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