When I was first getting interested in cars the one thing that I had very few of was tools.My father had the basic stuff like a few open end wrenches and screwdrivers but that was it.That could really pose a problem if you wanted to get into tearing an old car apart. That problem was solved when much to my delight on Christmas morning I found a brand new Craftsman hand carry box packed full of new sockets,ratchets,box wrenches and just about anything else a budding young mechanic might need.I still have most of those tools today and I would have to rate this as one of my best Christmas presents ever. What was your best car related Christmas present?
A big hand-carry Kennedy toolbox (like Herman Munster's lunchbox) when I was about 23. I had quite a few hand tools already but no good place to store them. Thanks, Mom and Dad! I've still got, and use, it.
My buddy Bloss gave me a 1942 MD plate with the hard-to-find 47 year corner clip-on.The plate is mint! Thanks buddy!
Since I'm an old fart there are probably quite a few things I could post up.......if I could just remember them..........but this is one I got a few years ago, has been right handy.....
My wife one year got with my friends and have them build me a shaved tailgate and paint it without me finding out. I was blown away. Don't have the tailgate or truck anymore, but I am hanging on to the wife.
Very nice Christmas gift for yourself, Don...I mean, for your wife. My wife has managed to give me at least one cool car-related Christmas gift almost every year. Lots of power tools. Complete set of Henry Gregor Felsen's books. Complete set of Don Montgomery's books, all signed by him. And of course, "jammies and sockies".
Fifty one years ago my Dad gave me a Craftsman tool chest with a basic tool set. I still have that set-up today...................Picture of my Dad and me on the left.
Ha I don't even have pictures from 50 years ago. I can't really think of much in the line of car related stuff. For most of my adult life I haven't got much for christmas anyway. Comes with being the black sheep in the family I guess.
My wife got me a header kit to make limefire type headers, I had just dogeared the page in the Speedway catalog for future reference and she figured out I needed the BBC kit to make headers for my BBF!
Christmas, 1956. I wasn't quite old enough to get my license yet but I had bought my own car, a '48 Chev Fleetline and was working on it. My dad got me a dual exhaust set-up, complete with tube headers, head and tail pipes from Sears Roebuck and Co. I couldn't wait to get it all installed and hear that 216 rappin' in the driveway. It didn't come with mufflers so we bought 2 used Smitty's. I loved the sound - and once I got my license - I found out the local cops didn't like it so much.
I just got this image in my head. The Fleetline sitting in the driveway: I'm a chevy with a six and I live in the sticks. I'm all rough and tumble gonna head for the jungle . . . Wooooord.
One year my wife bought me a Miller 200 amp Mig. She knew I had looked at one but was to cheap to buy it. Christmas morning it was in my shop with a bow!. A couple of Christmas's ago she bought me this jack for my lift. I was looking at them at a car show and again, she surprised me. She's a keeper. Tom...
The Jalopy Journal
