Add walls, a ceiling, and a concrete floor and you’ve got yourself a garage, right? Well, sure, but that’s like calling an 85’ Plymouth Reliant a car!

You probably all remember that best-selling poster we all hung up in our bedrooms during high school or in our college dorms. You know the one with ten garages that read, “The Benefits of Higher Education,” or “Decision, Decisions, Decisions.” It had a cross-selection of fine automobiles lined up one after the other, and it set in motion that eternal “guy discussion” about what ten cars you would choose if it was your ten car garage to fill. Always a fun bit of car talk amongst your buddies. But other than walls, floors, a ceiling, and your choice of cars, what makes for a truly great garage?

It’s really all about scale and priorities. Scale is important, because as much as we’d all like to have Leno’s money and his garage(s), that’s just not realistic for 99.9% of the population. On the flipside, there’s no such thing as a car guy that would ever be happy with just one car. Sure, you might love, adore, baby, modify, restore, and play with just one car, but given a bigger budget, you’d have at least one more. Then there’s the lifestyle part of a great garage. Some car guys would say the only real car guys work on their own vehicles, others would staunchly disagree, but in the end, the important part is taking care of them properly. So no matter what, there’s an area dedicated to car care--it might be a ginormous tool box, a hydraulic lift, and a full array of air-compressed apparatus. It could be a full-on welding set-up, maybe a place to work on sheet metal with cutting tools and glue sets and upholstering machines. Or it might just be a very well equipped cabinet filled with towels and the latest and greatest from Meguiars and Zymol. A great garage has a place to fulfill a car guys need to take care of his car.

A major factor that separates a “great garage” from all other garages is livability. This is where that gap between “man cave” and simple vehicle storage is bridged. The greatest garages are cool enough, neat enough, safe enough, and large enough to hang out in for hours, if not days at a time. What functional elements make for this important “next level” in garage greatness? There are four simple items. There can be dozens more, but there are at a minimum, these four items. The first is a refrigerator. Now any fridge will do, that’s true. But in truth, it should be a fridge that speaks to your taste in the automotive world, or automotive history. If you’re a 40’s-50’s car guy, then a vintage fridge from that era, even unrestored (but working), is a remarkable piece for your garage. Likewise, if you’re a German car guy, of any era, there’s nothing quite like a stainless steel Bosch fridge sitting next to a 60’ era 356 or a 1980 gun metal 911 whale tail Turbo. There’s that next level of that fridge holding some nicely chilled American beer or German beer or Italian beer suited to your car craziness. And sure, a wine fridge is a nice touch, but there’s something about garages and beer. Save the vino cravings for your next trip to Formula 1 at Monaco or the Concours at Pebble. Same on the cigars guys, eventually, that stench will find its way to your precious upholstery--ventilation or not. Always, always, always make sure there’s ice in the fridge, you’ll need it for drinks and you’ll need it for injuries.

The second item you need is a sofa. Yes, a sofa. Chairs get in the way, get broken, end up holding tools or pizza boxes or helmets or jackets. Loungers or La-Z-Boys aren’t bad, but they’ve got to be nice and not cheesy and let’s face it, quilted blue velour is just cheesy. Quilted blue velour with grease on it is cheesier yet, and quilted blue velour with grease on it, and food stains is just downright gross! Take two cans of Scotchgard, spray the crap out of a decent but cheap fabric sofa and put it in the garage. If you have a “side room” within your garage, leather is even better if you can afford to go that way. Scale is important here too and size is a factor--it’s simple, the bigger the sofa, the more guys you can get on it (without feeling too close). So go with the biggest sofa that the space can handle, “L” or “U” shaped sofas are a total bonus, if you can do it, do it.

Third item is the “red Corvette” of the great garage set up, it’s the TV and audio. Like the sofa, bigger is better, louder is better. Every great garage has a TV. There’s always a place for it, and there’s always a place for speakers and a receiver. Whether you’re into sports, racing, or just love to hunker down with some buddies on a stormy Sunday to watch the “Bullitt/Cannonball Run” double feature again, a nice big screen will serve the garage well.

Last but not least, the fourth items are what define your garage, they define your car craziness and your automotive loyalty and passion. This is the category of car “stuff.” This is your memorabilia, signage, framed articles, photographs, trophies, and other such stuff. It is the ultimate car guys definition of ‘decorating’ a great garage. The great thing about these items is that they are both infinitely affordable and outrageously expensive. With the advent in recent years of replica signs and reproduction posters, there are dozens of places to buy reasonably priced pieces of art, posters, and other materials that reflect your car thing. In many cases, there are also pieces of cars that can be polished or painted, and hung, for very little money. Steering wheels make for great wall art.

There’s more, of course, and there always will be. If you budget can handle it, there are pool tables now made from car chassis, upholstered leather chairs with any car logo known to man, exquisite tables with bases made from new racing tires, polished aluminum blocks, pistons, or wheels.

Flooring can now be glazed, polished, rubber coated, or covered in customized plastic tiles. These always make for a nice touch and more often than not, provide great protection against oils, transmission fluid, or other harsh chemicals making it into your concrete, of draining off into the water supply. They just make clean up, and remaining cleaned up, a whole heck of a lot easier.

Whether it’s one car or 100 cars, these four elements are at the core of turning your space into a great garage. It’s in this great garage that dreams and ideas are generated, good friends become great friends, and unfinished projects find the light of day. Only car guys understand the importance of this space. And it’s only car guys who will never finish having that conversation about which ten metal beasts are best suited to theirs.

By Jonathan Kaufman

Jonathan Kaufman is an automotive journalist, humorist, and certifiable car nut. He has attended hundreds of car shows and collectible auctions. Over the past 25 years, he has owned or driven over 100 performance vehicles (and no, he isn't a valet in Beverly Hills).

Jonathan has received driving instruction from the great Bobby Unser at Lime Rock Racetrack, has attended the Richard Petty Driving Experience, and spent a few years drag racing.

He still collects Hot Wheels (and plays with them).

Professionally, he has been a new car salesman for BMW and is an expert in direct response marketing for automobiles and automotive-related products.