Snap-on Gearhead Garage · Mekada, 1999 · rebuilt by TeamVanilla, 2026
Windows 10 · 11Android 7 and newer
Snap-on Gearhead Garage, the car repair game Mekada made in 1999, rebuilt to run on today's Windows PCs and on Android phones and tablets, with the original's own cars, screens, sounds and jobs.
The virtual mechanic
Buy a worn-out car at the Auction or take in a customer's, strip it in the WorkShop bolt by bolt, repair or replace what is worn with parts from the Catalog and the JunkYard, and put it back together.
The WorkShop's Go To buttons lead to the Catalog, the JunkYard, the Car Lot and the Auction
Four views of the car: Complete, Engine, Body and Running Gear. Point the impact wrench at a part and click it: its bolts are labelled, each comes out with a click, and the part drops into the Parts Bin.
The JunkYard's three areas, Engine, Body and Running Gear, are shelves of used parts in whatever state they are, each sold for its scrap price. Walk along them, and what you buy goes into the Purchase Bin.
A car drives onto the block and the clock runs twenty seconds. The asking price drops every two seconds and rises with every bid; six other bidders, each with their own keenness and their own ceiling, bid against you.
Customers bring their cars in with a fault to find. The 31 jobs written for the game come first, then ones made up from its own phrase book, each with a fee, a budget and the customer's face in the corner as Job Help.
Four brushes and 27 colours, sprayed through the view straight onto the car. Decals from the Catalog go on the same way, turned, flipped, sized and tinted in the Decal Browser.
Data\SnapShots, and Settings has a browser for every mechanic's
ghg.exe of 22 April 2002The screens, cars, sounds and jobs are the original's, read from its own files.
DirectX 11 or OpenGL take over on a card that cannot start DirectX 12. No DirectX 7, no compatibility mode, no administrator rights.
A window from 640 x 480 to 2560 x 1920, or the whole screen. The picture fills a wide screen or stays 4:3; the 3D views widen instead of stretching.
The app carries the game's data, 165 cars included. A tap is a click, a pinch brings the car nearer, and the phone's keyboard types a new mechanic's name.
Mechanics are saved in the 1999 game's own file format, so a career from the original can be copied in and carried on, on the PC or the phone.
Drag the car to turn it and the wheel brings it nearer; the JunkYard and the Car Lot walk by dragging. The arrow keys still work.
The game opens straight onto the sign-in sheet. Renderer, window, anti-aliasing up to 8x, frame rate and sound are on the sheet's own Settings page.
Mekada, the brand of Ratloop, Inc., made the game: concept, design, code, art and sound by Lucas Pope, cars by Tan Sian Yue, Chris Mullins and James Anderson. © 1999 Ratloop, Inc.
Snap-on Tools endorsed the game and gave it its name. Snap-on is a registered trademark of Snap-on Incorporated.
Head Games Publishing published and distributed it in 1999; Head Games later became part of Activision.
TeamVanilla rebuilt it for Windows and Android in 2026.
The whole game in one download. Version 1.0.260930.0126 for Android; the Windows build of 30 September 2026.
