Roaming through auto stores, looking for car gift suggestions for the holidays, I realized that I get as much of a kick out of shopping as women I poke fun at. It is just a matter of venue. They like dresses and crystal. My tastes are mahogany-rimmed steering wheels, finned aluminum valve covers and those big bumper guards that push kangaroos out of the way when you’re traversing the King of Prussia outback.
I’ve run across some good gift ideas. Some of them are aimed at car crazies. But most will be useful to that vast majority of the motoring public–folks who use and even like cars, but don’t turn into heavy breathers when they see a Ferrari.
– Spare Tank: This new product is a non-flammable gasoline derivative you can carry safely in your trunk and pour into your tank if you run out of gas.
Conventional gasoline is highly combustible and constitutes a real hazard when transported.
Spare Tank, which comes in a 1-gallon plastic container, is essentially premium gasoline with its volatile ingredients removed.
In addition to removing those volatile components (such as butanes and pentanes), the processing takes out olefins, which create gums that can clog injectors and other elements of a car’s fuel delivery system.
Thus, Spare Tank officials say their product can be stored indefinitely in your trunk, while regular gas has a limited life before it starts gumming things up.
Spare Tank, which includes an attachable plastic spout, lists for $24.99. The stores where it is available include K mart, which usually sells it for $19.99.
– StartMeUp: A joint venture of Polaroid and Future Labs, a Philadelphia-based auto accessory company, StartMeUp is a palm-sized device that gives a battery a low recharge to start the car.
You plug this device into the cigarette lighter, wait about five minutes, and hit the starter. A red indicator light tells you StartMeUp is charging your electrical system, and a subsequent flashing green one informs you the car is ready to start. Once you’re started, you throw StartMeUp away.
This product works only if your battery has a little juice left in it, say enough to get a clicking noise from the starter solenoid when you turn the key on. It won’t work if the battery is completely dead or if you have some other electrical woe, such as a bad starter.
The nice thing about this product is that you don’t have to get out of the car, as you do when you jump a battery conventionally. It is also safer than jumping, which can ignite hydrogen gas from one of the batteries involved or cause electrical system damage if the jumper cables are placed on the wrong battery terminals.
StartMeUp costs $19.95 at www.startmeup.com or by calling 888-782-7863.
– Abandoned Autos Calendar: There is nothing particularly aesthetic about cars abandoned on city streets. But as Hemmings Motor News demonstrates in its annual Abandoned Autos Calendar, cars left in America’s fields and woods often rise to the level of art.
Hemmings illustrates the calendar by buying the work of photographers who stumble onto these sad subjects. There is just something so wonderfully forlorn about the denizens of these fields of faded automotive dreams.
The Abandoned Autos Calendar has proved so popular that Hemmings has added a slew of others, including Great American Cars of the ’50s, Great American Pickup Trucks and Great American Street Rods. All cost $10.95 plus $2.50 shipping.
Visit www.hemmings.com, call 800-227-4373, ext 550 or write Hemmings Bookshelf, Box 76, Bennington, VT 05201.
– Mercedes-Benz SLK pedal car: You have the right to drive an SLK sports car, but your 4-year-old daughter does not. That is a case of age discrimination Mercedes hopes to rectify by offering this yellow plastic SLK pedal car for $295. The pedal car is among more than 200 entries in The Collection, Mercedes’ 1999 holiday catalog. The items range from an $18 Mercedes key ring to a $3,950 Benz mountain bike.
You can get the pedal car or any of the other items through a Mercedes dealer or by calling the automaker’s Client Assistance Center at 800-367-6372.
– Haynes Automotive Repair Manuals: OK, this is a motorhead item. But these manuals, available at Pep Boys for $12.99, will be welcomed by people whose idea of working on their cars goes beyond changing the oil. There is a detailed, illustrated manual for most cars that covers changing everything from a spark plug to a camshaft.
– Standard Guide to Cars & Prices: Subtitled, “Prices for Collector Vehicles 1901-1992.” This is a bible for people who want to buy or sell an old car or truck. Editors James T. Lenzke and Ken Buttolph have filled the 2000 edition with the current prices of 40,000 collectible American cars and light trucks, plus many imports, built between 1901 and 1992. The listings include prices for six condition grades for each vehicle and are based on sources ranging from professional appraisers to auction results.
The guide also includes advice on buying and selling vehicles at auction.
The 696-page paperback can be purchased in major bookstores, or from the publisher, Krause Publications, for $16.95 plus $3.25 shipping. Write Krause Publications, Book Department PR-99, 700 E. State St., Iola, WI 54990-0001. For credit-card orders, call 800- 258-0929.
