Article by Steven Bochenek, photos courtesy of suppliers
It’s that jolly time of year when automotive writers rip off each other’s ideas for last-minute top-10 lists. In this spirit of bonhomie and sharing, we at Autos.ca humbly invite you to forward this link to others, take ideas from it for gifts to your car-loving partner, or even steal from and re-write it! Happy Motoring, Canada!
 Top Picks: 10 Holiday Gft Ideas for Your Auto Enthusiast. Click image to enlarge |
First, for the Recessionaires: We Three Gifts Under $25!
10: Books celebrating used ‘classic’ cars, from $14.43 online.
Nothing says ‘we’re in this together’ like an inexpensive gift. One way to celebrate your bind is to wear the same rose-coloured glasses. Consider. Your 20-year-old Tercel is only a mutual agreement away from being vintage or classic. It just hasn’t been listed in this Encyclopedia of Classic Cars yet, which is available for as little as $14.43 online at Chapters-Indigo. Or if you’re really trying to make a statement, they’re even selling used (classic?) copies!
The Encyclopedia Of Classic Cars: A Celebration Of The Motor Car From 1945 To 1985
9: Top Gear DVD Collection, $20.98
If you aren’t the car nut yourself, this is something you still may enjoy. The smart alecks at Top Gear have made automotive geekery fun for all. Maybe the two of you can’t quite afford Jeremy Clarkson’s lifestyle but you can watch it cheap, plus avoid all that annoying British driving-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-road business. Best of all, there are nineteen seasons. So that’s two decades of inexpensive shopping pretty much wrapped up. Season 15 here for instance, selling directly from the BBC website, is just $20.98 Canadian. Jolly good holiday savings!
8: LED Gloz Undercar Lights, $16.99
Spoiler alert: Most of us car fanatics aren’t overburdened with good taste. If this sounds like the one on your list, I guarantee this will be his (forgive the sexist assumption) favourite gift of the year, plus you’ll still get change, taxes in, from a twenty! Of course, your loved one’s ride will look like a special effect from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but so what. It won the Oscar for Best Cinematography.
LED Gloz Undercar Lights, Blue, 8-Pk
  Top Picks: 10 Holiday Gft Ideas for Your Auto Enthusiast. Click image to enlarge |
7. LED Alert Beacon (aka first responder’s emergency flashing light), US$29.99, plus shipping
Even if your special someone doesn’t work outside all winter, they don’t need one of these LED beacons to want one. (For further elucidation, see above regarding taste.) Its magnetized base clings to any metal surface like, say, a basement beer fridge or garage wall! The grand-mal-inducing ‘Super Bright High Intensity LEDs’ of this Blazer Baja Tough Alert Beacon can have your auto enthusiast reminiscing over ‘80s CHiPs episodes all year long. Incidentally, you can find these in Canada at a significantly inflated price if you don’t want to wait for the shipping across the border.
Blazer Baja Tough LED Alert Beacon
 Top Picks: 10 Holiday Gft Ideas for Your Auto Enthusiast. Click image to enlarge |
When It’s Becoming More than Casual: Three Gifts Under $50
6. Roadside Winter Kit: “Because I want you to be safe out there” – $39.96
Here in Toronto, people want to sue the government every time there’s a snowstorm. But this year’s early arrival of winter has proven that even Torontonians genuinely need emergency kits like this. So this could be one of those gifts you disguise as something for your loved one, but is just as much for you. Say, like a day at the spa. (“You can work on your car all day without me getting in your hair.”) The kit is remarkably well thought out, including everything from booster cables and a collapsible snow shovel to thermal blanket, candles and matches – sadly no bottle of red wine and condoms to complete the romantic atmosphere. All in a self-contained carrier bag!
 Top Picks: 10 Holiday Gft Ideas for Your Auto Enthusiast. Click image to enlarge |
5 “Honey, I’m gonna give you a ‘Shining Monkey’ under the mistletoe!” – $39.99
If that line doesn’t get their motor running, what would? This Elastic Poly Clay Bar from Shining Monkey is the veritable, umm, Cadillac of polishing products. Its clay material removes contaminants so small you can’t even see them. Ahem: so why does that matter, you wonder? Ask your car enthusiast for an answer long enough to last through Midnight Mass. Sure, we gearheads may not notice our underwear atrophying after four days on the bathroom floor, but microscopic dust on a rear spoiler? Fuhgeddaboutit! Suffice to say that this bar extends the life of the car’s paint. Better still, like any good monkey, it’s reusable.
Shining Monkey Elastic Poly Clay Bar
Baby, You’re the Best: Three Gifts Under $100
4: Puma Motorsport Footwear, USD$75
What’s faster than a Puma? Okay, yes, a Jaguar but you won’t even find a cast-iron one of those for under $100, Canadian or American. Besides, this shoe’s ‘grippy rubber outsole’ features a tire-track print. What better reason does the car geek need? Warning: they don’t go well with most clothes. Suggest strongly that they’re to be preserved for long spells behind the wheel.
  Top Picks: 10 Holiday Gft Ideas for Your Auto Enthusiast. Click image to enlarge |
3. I love you just the way you are, except maybe…. Thule bike rack, $79.99
It’s something you “can do together: cycling when the warmer weather comes! And won’t it look great atop that awesome car?” It’s another of those gifts you kind of bought for yourself. That’s why this gift, though still inexpensive, is no cheap fobbing off. Thule is the veritable, umm, Cadillac of bike racks. You may want to mention that. Most gearheads suffer a sudden paucity of knowledge when it comes to any automotive trivia and technology venturing towards fitness.
 Top Picks: 10 Holiday Gft Ideas for Your Auto Enthusiast. Click image to enlarge |
2: The ‘Exhaust burger’, cooks your burger while you drive!
I think this one’s under $100 at least. A team of elves spent days researching and couldn’t discover where to purchase this ingenious if utterly disgusting gift idea. Imagine! The heat from your exhaust passes next a burger chamber connected to an attachment for your exhaust pipe. So your burger cooks while you drive. Sick, as the kids would say. If your partner is time– and food–starved, you may have saved a life and a mind! Plus, as the Iranian marketing materials boast it ‘helps you prove how much concerned you are about the environment’. But of course: about the environment is not we all concerned most egregiously? Speaking of environmental concerns, presumably it also cooks vegan burgers and not just those methane machines called cows. Best of all, if your hard-to-buy-for someone is an inveterate multi-tasker, the Exhaust burger could also be used to dry soaking ski gloves, make popcorn and cure green marijuana. (Just in case you too are time-starved, and because sarcasm is hard to display onscreen without emoticons, this was a joke. Apologies if reading about the Exhaust burger has left you hungry.)
 Top Picks: 10 Holiday Gft Ideas for Your Auto Enthusiast. Click image to enlarge |
Finally, one dream gift over $100,000: No, it’s not the predictable Audi R8
1: Your car geek’s own Canadian Tire franchise – from $125,000
We took into account that, if you’re reading this, you may not be the auto enthusiast yourself. That’s why you’ve only seen one other option so far from Canadian Tire. Chances are you may not want to shop there. If your partner’s a gearhead, though, there’s probably a catalogue in your basement bathroom for casual reading. For car geeks, Canadian Tire is like the holiday season all year round… it’s also been called ‘Shoppers Drug Mart for guys’. And what better way to say ‘I get you, even if I don’t get why you are like you are’ than giving them full-blown ownership of their own franchise! Wow!
Canadian Tire franchise information
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And a bonus eleventh gift-giving idea – this one’s free!
Print off this article (after leaving comments below and forwarding the link to all your friends) then accidentally leave it on your partner’s pillow with a highlighter. Maybe you’ll save yourself some time, although you’ll probably want to trim the Exhaust burger just in case.
