Automotive Tech Tip: It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane… It’s Super Creeper!
It may be almost Halloween around here at Auto Trends, but I’m not talking about a cool scary mask, or a new Friday the 13th movie, but rather your standard, everyday automotive shop creeper… with a serious love of heights!
Your standard creeper has been around for decades. It keeps your back clean, allows you to move around on the garage floor to various areas of the underside of your vehicle with relative ease, and can actually make the chore of changing your oil, an acceptable task. Heck, I know of a mechanic or two who has even been known to fall asleep on one of these a time or two.
But come to think of it, after decades of using one, we were missing half of the equation. The top portion of the equation. Imagine how nice it would be to arrange yourself to conveniently levitate around the top portion of your engine. The convenience to slide around the various nooks and crannies, without the necessity of physically climbing into the engine bay (been there, done that).
I didn’t even know what I had been missing, until I was introduced this Fall to a rather innovative product. It is called The Elevator and it is manufactured by Nomad. Basically it is an elevated shop creeper, which works particularly well on large trucks, SUVs, and other 4X4s. It has various heights it can be adjusted to, ranging from anywhere around 3-feet to 6 ½-feet suspended off the ground.
It features a relatively comfortable padded top, grippers to help you climb aboard, a tool tray, so you won’t find yourself climbing up and down. It also has soft touch bumpers, to protect the finish of your vehicle while sliding it in and out from the underside of your vehicle. About the only things this unit doesn’t include is a pillow, cup holder, and big screen television.
It doesn’t come cheap at around $650 for the entire assembly, but for those of you with a less than perfect backs, you just might be able to pay it off in a couple of years with the reduced number of trips to the orthopedist and masseuse. If you know how to weld, you might also be able to facet one together yourself, if you’re game. Either way, this is a pretty cool garage helper for the serious hobbyist.
[Photo via Nomad Manufacturing]






