Cool Garage

"We'll take The Car."

"I must congratulate you, sir. You dynamited an entrance through a hundred feet of shale. Carved a flight of steps from solid stone. And all to create for yourself a rather remarkable... garage."

— Alfred Pennyworth, Detective Comics #0 (1994)

Does the hero have a Cool Car? Then the hero needs a garage — and not just any garage would do. It has to be a cool garage that is up to the car's level. It's only fair. It may even come with its own resident Gadgeteer Genius to serve as a mechanic, if the Cool Car is so advanced that the hero cannot work on it himself.

An Elaborate Underground Base or Supervillain Lair is frequently equipped with one of these. Indeed, many Cool Garages could just about serve as Elaborate Underground Bases, given an addition or two.

The garage equivalents for other modes of Cool Transportation, such as a Cool Plane's hangar, also qualify if they fulfill the "as cool as the vehicle it houses" criterion.

Some people attempt to build these in Real Life, in which case it may be referred to as a "Man Cave" (though a man cave can also just be a room in the house).

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The Big O: Roger Smith had two of these — one was a giant hangar in his mansion that stored the Big O (his giant robot) and his car, and the other was the left foot of the Big O.
• Gunsmith Cats: We only get to see it once, which is a big damn shame, but Bean Bandit's house is not so much a house as it is an abandoned building in downtown Chicago full of cars with a tiny apartment for himself.
• Sonic X: The main characters mostly live in a garage for the start of the first series, despite the fact the main house is massive in size. It has a lab above it where Chuck does his experiments and for some reason it was built to raise up revealing a, larger, garage underneath which houses the Cool Plane.

Comic Books

• Batman:
  • The Batcave. The animated series version not only contains the Batmobile, but a whole fleet of cars of various models when Batman needs a less conspicuous ride. The cave also houses the Redbird during Tim Drake's stint as Robin, as well as Nightwing's modified motorcycle while Dick is operating in Gotham.
  • In the Batman: Hush story arc, the Batcave has revolving racks featuring just about every Batmobile ever seen.
  • Bizarrely, the Batcave came with its own resident genius, Harold, that nobody remembered until Hush got ahold of him.
  • Red Robin: When Tim Drake built his own base under a renovated theater in Crime Alley it included a sweet garage with a couple of tricked out motorcycles and a new Redbird and the space and tools to modify and tinker with them.
  • In The Attack of the Annihilator, Supergirl builds a large garage for Batgirl beneath a mechanic's shop, complete with a secret ramp.
• Wonder Woman Vol 1: The Golden Age Wonder Woman had a secret hanger for her space worthy stealth plane, complete with a chemistry lab set up and adjoining space for her usually conspicuously absent horse Serge.

Films — Animated

• Lightning McQueen's trailer from Cars. This being Cars, the semi pulling it is a character. His name is Mack.

Films — Live-Action

• Iron Man:
  • Iron Man the movie, included a surprisingly Cool Garage that is literally, Tony Stark's garage. An article in Popular Science even says that the Cool Toys in said garage were more interesting than the rest of the movie. Well, given that one of them was Captain America's shield... which even gets some (inglorious) use in the sequel. Not to mention that it's less of a Shout-Out and more of a hint at the then-unconfirmed The Avengers.
  • Also, in Iron Man 3, Tony completely renovates the garage of the kid that helped him, and upgrades a lot of his science equipment.
• Similarly, The Green Hornet's protagonist has a cool garage filled with cars it's actually his dad's garage.
• Due to the burning down of Wayne Manor in Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne has settled in a high-rise apartment in The Dark Knight. In lieu of the Batcave, Batman stores the Tumbler, Batsuits, and odd looking motorcycle Batpod in, what else, a brand new Cool Garage.
  • This was a reference to the Bat Bunker from the comics, located under the Wayne Foundation building. Bruce once moved into the penthouse and utilized this facility because he wanted to be closer to his city.
• In Batman Forever, Batman also keeps the Cool Boat and Cool Plane in the Batcave.
• In TRON: Legacy Sam Flynn lives in a garage/house he built out of re-purposed shipping containers.

Literature

• In different incarnations of the Zorro franchise his cave with hidden entrance in the manor is always a fine example of a this trope.
• Dirk Pitt actually lives in his in some volumes, amenities like a bed being something of an afterthought.

Live Action TV

• Dan Tanna on Vega$ (1978) parked his 1957 Ford Thunderbird in his warehouse/office.
• Airwolf followed this pattern with only slight modifications. The titular helicopter was the Cool Car, and the secret hollowed-out mesa hangar was the Cool Garage.
• The Green Hornet parked his Black Beauty in a revolving garage.
  • To clarify: Black Beauty was underneath a revolving platform in his garage. Kato hit a button and the regular car was clamped down and the whole thing turned over, revealing the formerly hidden Black Beauty.
• Street Hawk has Command Central with part garage, gym and command center for Tully to monitor Street Hawk's activities in the field. It also has a neat secret exit for the hero to leap out of when on a mission.
• In Knight Rider, "The Rook," a cool garage which was an 18-wheeler tractor trailer, which had a fully functional high-tech auto shop, a cute Wrench Wench, and a ramp from which KITT could drive into and out of the truck while it was in motion.
  • In the Pilot Movie, the cool garage becomes a C-130 cargo plane, with all the aforementioned awesomeness, but with flight capabilities.
• Thunderbirds Tracey Island has to represent the Mother of all Cool Garages.
• Since Power Rangers RPM had a racing/cars theme, the cool garage was mandatory, complete with pool table, kitchen, and refrigerator-mounted cannon (yes, you read that right.)
  • Power Rangers Turbo, also car-themed, had a massive garage built below Angel Grove where the Turbo and Rescue Zords, as well as the RZ's carrier, Artillatron were stored. A section of street opened up to allow them out, though they could also be teleported out in their shrunken size if need be. (In the sentai, it was part of where the Rangers worked, a normal garage, albeit this section was added by Dappu to store the mecha.)
  • A similar thing existed under the Hartford mansion in Power Rangers Operation Overdrive, where the zords were stored and served as the team's command center.
• Angel got one of these in Season Five.
• In one episode of Monk, "Mr. Monk and the Other Woman," Monk finds Monica Waters' garage so clean, neat, and organized that he becomes ecstatic at the sight. In his eyes, it was this trope.
• The "Candy Store" from Fast Lane, loaded with cool cars and other equipment, all of it seized from arrested criminals and used for undercover purposes.

Toys

• BIONICLE: The Codrex, which contains several Transforming Vehicles.

Video Games

• Grand Theft Auto. Early games had garages that were infamous because a brief close of the door repaired any car in a second. This glitch become so well loved it was purposely kept in later games.
• The Need for Speed series, especially in Most Wanted 2005.
• The Test Drive Unlimited series. You can go from a small caravan and a two car garage to a five million dollar yacht with its own vectral, eight car garage.
• Fallout 4 has the Red Rocket Station, a mostly intact gas station smack dab in the middle of the Wastes. Unfortunately, you can't get any vehicles^note until the inevitable Game Mod comes out but it serves as a player home. You can fortify and decorate the place however you like, store stuff, sleep, craft and modify items, keep your companions there and customize your Power Armour.
• Mario Party 6: One of the boards is E. Gadd's Garage, named after the Gadgeteer Genius who has stocked it with teleporters, conveyor belts, and other such gadgets.

Western Animation

• In Batman: The Animated Series an episode was devoted to the character Earl Cooper, who was not only the Batmobile's mechanic, but its designer. Cooper had a hidden Cool Garage where Bats took the Batmobile after its front end was crushed under a closing draw bridge. It also contained a hilarious flashback to when Cooper first met Batman-his old Batmobile had coincidentally broken down next to Cooper.
• An animated example could be Rude Dog and the Dweebs, where the garage was the house.
• In The Transformers the Autobots' crashed space ship served this function for the entire team.
• In Darkwing Duck, the cool garage is referred to as Darkwing Tower, and it is (secretly) located atop one of the main support pillars of the suspension bridge that spans Audubon Bay. This bridge is the principle route into Saint Canard, Darkwing's City of Adventure. The requisite Cool Car is herein replaced with a cool motorcycle, the Ratcatcher, and a Cool Plane, the Thunderquack.
• In the case of Motor Ed from Kim Possible, his Cool Garage is his Supervillain Lair.
• In SWAT Kats, the civilian identities of the title Super Hero duo are mechanics who live at their garage—which also doubles as their Elaborate Underground Base; in this case, instead of a Cool Car, they've got a hangar for their Cool Plane: the TurboKat, a custom jet filled with mods like a machine gun that fires cement. Also stored in the hangar are Cyclotrons, the HoverKat and snowmobiles.
• Freakazoid! had a giant garage that he used in one episode, to fit his personal Cool Car, the Freakmobile. The building was filled with hundreds of identical vehicles, which the Freak wandered around for a time before picking a favorite: "This one! 'Cause it runs!"

Real Life

• Jay Leno's garage. Being a lover of all things car and motorcycle related Leno has the largest collection of cars and motorcycles ever. Now that's a pretty cool garage - especially seeing as Jay's got quite a lot of cool cars. The mini-series Jay Leno's Garage shows off how cool Jay's car collection is.
  • And it's not just the cars, but all the car-related memorabillia, artwork and whatnot.
• Garage Mahal, on the DIY Network, is all about building these.
• The Living Garage - ca. 1958, "House & Garden" magazine was playing up the idea of upgrading the garage with fancy materials, plant beds, and furniture, for the homeowner to spend more quality time with the car. It didn't catch on.
• While not as extensive as Leno's (Whose is though?) Adam Carolla has a wonderful garage full of vintage Datsuns, Porches, and Cobras.
• The Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah's garage includes dozens, perhaps hundreds of high-end supercars, some of which were specifically built for the Sultan and not released to the public. His brother Jefri was also known to have a large collection of expensive cars, as well as a private Boeing 747.
• Jerry Seinfeld hollowed out a New York City brownstone and turned it into a three storey garage.
• The personal garage of YouTuber Shmee 150 (AKA "the Shmuseum") Houses around nineteen high-end cars, (known by him and his fans as the "Shmeemobiles". In addition, the garage also includes an office and a racing sim (among other things). And he's still working on making it even cooler.

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