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The common handheld drill isn't the first tool that comes to mind when talking about cars, but you'd be surprised just how useful one can be if you work on cars for long enough.

Whether it's powered by air, a wall socket, or a battery, a drill can be a supremely handy piece of equipment when performing DIY work on your car. If you don't have any sort of powered wrench or ratchet, driver attachments can make routine maintenance easy. And if you're doing modifications, it takes just seconds to drill out the necessary holes.

The most obvious example I can think of is adding hood pins to a car. In addition to the pin holes, the mounting points for each pin also need holes of their own to be bolted down. All you need to do is mark the holes correctly, pull the trigger on your drill a few times, and boom, you have all the holes you need to get your race car one step closer to passing tech inspection.

Drills are especially useful if you're making new parts or modifying existing parts. There have been numerous instances where I've had to take a piece of metal, plastic, or rubber and drill it in some way to get it to fit properly on my project car. I've lost count of how many times I've dug up a random piece of metal in my garage to use as a battery tie-down, modifying it with a drill so it would fit just right.

Drills are relatively complex power tools, so don't expect them to be as cheap as your average ratchet. I prefer using cordless battery-powered drills as they're powerful enough for most situations and way more convenient than their corded equivalents. The one I use, the Hercules 20V brushless 1/2-inch drill, is just $69.99 at Harbor Freight right now. If you prefer buying from Amazon, Milwaukee has a similar drill listed for $102.90.

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