When I was a kid, I loved looking through the Sears Wish Book and picking out things I hoped Santa might bring me. As a grown-up, the presents I remember most aren't the most expensive or most sought-after. They're the oddball stuff my parents picked out for me that I didn't ask for but ended up really loving.

Case in point - Clyde's Car Crusher.

The design was fairly cheap and simple: A couple of plastic wrecker trucks roughly twice the size of a Matchbox car, a few molds of smaller vehicles, and the Crusher itself. You used your imagination to come up with the rest of the junkyard scene.

All you had to do was put a small square of aluminum foil around the car molds and shape it until it looked right. If you wanted to decorate the foil with markers or stickers, that was optional. Finally, you removed the plastic mold and placed your car-shaped piece of foil into the Crusher (a crazy-looking mix of gears and wheels), turned the crank and watched as your creation was pulverized into a nice little square.

This was the greatest thing ever, and I don't remember getting tired of it too quickly. As a young boy, I delighted in the ability to destroy something without suffering the consequences. Talk about instant gratification.

Do you remember the coolest toy you ever got?