The 9 Best Things To Come Out Of Garages

It's no secret that if you can't find what you need, it's probably in the storage space known as the garage. But some people actually managed to build the most well-known companies and products of all time in there! Here are 9 inventions that prove the garage is a place of productivity, and to see the progress of one particularly crazy project, click here.

1. Google

Mike Licht / CC BY http://2.0 / Flickr: notionscapital / Via google.com

After meeting at Stanford in 1995, computer science grad students Larry Page and Sergey Brin collaborated on the concept of a search engine called "BackRub." But thanks to a $100,000 start-up fee and a (pretty great) name change, the two then moved into Susan Wojcicki’s garage in Menlo Park and figured out a way to unleash the world's most important information to us.

2. The Predator

The National Guard / CC BY http://2.0 / Flickr: thenationalguard / Via washingtonpost.com

In 1981, Abraham Karem used his three-car garage in Hacienda Heights to build a combat aircraft that could stay in the air for an astonishing 56 hours. A decade later he had The Predator, a remotely piloted drone that could follow the enemy for about a day before controllers monitoring video screens can fire missiles toward targets.

3. Harley-Davidson Motorcycles

Urban Explorer Hamburg / CC BY http://2.0 / Flickr: blogchef / Via harley-davidson.com

In 1901, 21-year-old William Harvey of Minneapolis wanted to put a motor on a bicycle. By 1903, Harvey and Arthur Davidson debuted the very first Harley-Davidson motorcycle (which they had admirably built in a "wooden shed" that was 10x15 feet wide).

4. The Big Red Soda Jetpack

As we see here, finding space in the garage and keeping your work a secret are of equal importance.

5. Apple Computers

Blake Patterson / CC BY http://2.0 / Flickr: blakespot / Via extras.denverpost.com

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak used the Jobs family garage in Mountain View, California to put together the first computer that could be used at home in 1976. But if you were going to buy it, it would've been in your best interest to know how to program and assemble it first.

6. Barbie Dolls

vaniljapulla / CC BY-ND http://2.0 / Flickr: 65290859@N05 / Via collectdolls.about.com

In 1945, Ruth and Elliott Handler and Harold Matson opened up Mattel in a garage in Southern California. In the beginning they manufactured picture frames, but a successful side project in dollhouse furniture allowed Mattel to expand and create the most eerily attainable (and yet unattainable) women on the face of the planet.

7. The ReWalk System

Boston Globe via Getty Images / Via modernmedicaltech.blogspot.com

Israeli inventor, Amit Goffer, came up with the ReWalk system after an accident left him without the use of his legs. His product is a wearable brace that uses motors and sensors to detect upper body movements in a person and helps the lower limbs move via remote control.

8. YouTube

Brand X ONOKY Fabrice LEROUGE / Getty Images / Via inventors.about.com

Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim all met at PayPal and then created YouTube in 2005 inside a Menlo Park garage reportedly because neither guy could find a watchable clip of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake's Super Bowl Halftime Show in 2004.

9. John Lennon

Richard Radford / Getty Images / Via chathamdailynews.ca

In honor of John Lennon's 70th birthday, a Canadian newspaper found the remaining members of Lennon's first band, The Quarrymen. In the beginning, they practiced in an air-raid shelter in the back of Paul Shodden's house, and Rod Davis indicated he wasn't surprised with Lennon's success when he said, "We were just a garage band and he was a good leader, that's all."