Over the past decade or so, a listing of humorous “tool definitions” has made the rounds of car-club newsletters and car-lovers’ websites.

Unfortunately, some of those lists that have made the rounds, and some that are still making the rounds, are incomplete. I’m guessing that’s due to a lack of space to run the whole list than for any other reason.

So, for the purposes of sharing with fellow Corvette club members, and car-enthusiast friends of all varieties, is the long listing of tool definitions that Peter Egan compiled for his “Side Glances” column for Road & Track Magazine back in April of 1996. Egan also included it in his column collection Side Glances Vol. 2: 1992-1997, published by Brooklands Books LTD.


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Hammer: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of
divining rod to locate expensive car parts not far from the object we are trying to hit.

Mechanic's Knife: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on boxes containing convertible tops or tonneau covers.

Electric Hand Drill: Normally used for spinning steel pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age, but it also works great for drilling rollbar mounting holes in the floor of a sports car just above the brake line that goes to the rear axle.

Hacksaw: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

Vise-Grips: Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

Oxyacetylene Torch: Used almost entirely for lighting those stale garage cigarettes you keep hidden in the back of the Whitworth socket drawer (What wife would think to look in there?), because you can never remember to buy lighter fluid for the Zippo lighter you got from the PX at Fort Campbell

Zippo Lighter: See oxyacetylene torch.

Whitworth Sockets: Once used for working on older British cars and motorcycles, they are now
used mainly for hiding six-month old Salems from the sort of person who would throw them away
for no good reason.

Drill Press: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of
your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, splattering
it against the Rolling Stones poster over the bench grinder.

Wire Wheel: Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench at the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and hard-earned guitar callouses in about the time it takes you to say, "Django Reinhardt".

Hydraulic Floor Jack: Used for lowering a Mustang to the ground after you have installed a set of Ford Motorsports lowered road springs, trapping the jack handle firmly under the front air dam.

Eight-Foot-Long Douglas Fir 2x4: Used for levering a car upward off a hydraulic jack.

Tweezers: A tool for removing wood splinters.

Phone: Tool for calling your neighbor to see if he has another hydraulic floor jack.

Snap-On Gasket Scraper: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; used mainly for getting dog-doo off your boot.

E-Z Out Bolt and Stud Extractor: A tool that snaps off in bolt holes and is ten times harder than any known drill bit.

Timing Light: A stroboscopic instrument for illuminating grease buildup on crankshaft pulleys.

Two-Ton Hydraulic Engine Hoist: A handy tool for testing the tensile strength of ground straps
and hydraulic clutch lines you may have forgotten to disconnect.

Craftsman 1/2 x 16-inch Screwdriver: A large motor mount prying tool that inexplicably has an
accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end without the handle.

Battery Electrolyte Tester: A handy tool for transferring sulfuric acid from car battery to the inside of your toolbox after determining that your battery is dead as a doornail, just as you thought.

Aviation Metal Snips: See Hacksaw.

Trouble Light: The mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin", which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside, its main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105-mm howitzer shells were used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading.

Phillips Screwdriver: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; can also be used, as the name implies, to round off Phillips screw heads.

Air Compressor: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power plant 200 miles
away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact
wrench that grips rusty suspension bolts last tightened 40 years ago by someone in Abingdon,
Oxfordshire, and rounds them off.

Grease Gun: A messy tool for checking to see if your zerk fittings are still plugged with rust.
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If you have any additions that you’d like to make to this list, especially of any Corvette-related tools, please feel free to post them in here!