CAR MAGEDDON WHILE NOT THE END OF THE TRADITIONAL GARAGE, THERE'S BEEN A SURGE IN NEW AND INVENTIVE USES.

Byline: Barbara De Witt Staff Writer

Garages are the quintessential storage unit.

Attached or detached, this prime piece of real estate can be turned into a family room (with the required permits), but more often, the great American garage is simply used to store the washer and dryer, lawn mower, hobby equipment and holiday decorations.

Sometimes, while the SUV and convertible cool their engines on the driveway, the garage can give birth to great ideas. Walt Disney began his cartoon career in a modest wooden garage. Years later, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built the first Apple computer in a garage. Bands like Buddy Holly and the Crickets and the Calabasas-based alternative rock band Incubus were born in garages.

When we asked readers to open their garage doors, the creativity poured out. Sam Aberbom of Sherman Oaks had paneled his garage and set up tracks for his model train, while Maralee Knowlen wrote to say that her husband uses the garage to display his ``late wife's early watercolors.'' Neighbors may want to take note that Johnny Tong of North Hollywood uses his garage as a rehab center for huge snakes.

``Arizona may have the largest garages, but California has the best, the ones with a lot of invention and versatility,'' said Kira Obolensky, author of the coffee table book ``Garage: Reinventing the Place We Park'' (Taunton Press; $32).

In three years of looking at more than 150 garages, she's seen everything from the coal shed Henry Ford turned into a garage workshop for the first Model T, to a rustic garage covered in squirrel tails, as well as actor Dennis Hopper's ultra-clean garage that features glass block flooring, a live tree, plus a gallery for both artwork and automobiles.

Obolensky says Californians clearly love to build temples to their cars. One example is the garage of Malibu resident Jim Hull. At his Craftsman bungalow, Hull enlarged and redesigned the garage to allow guests to sit on the sofa while admiring his vintage cars, including a 1937 French Talbot-Lago coupe that rests atop its own hydraulic lift like a museum sculpture on a pedestal.

Less glitzy but more hands-on is the art-and-auto studio of Craig Vilaubi of Newhall.

``When I moved here in 1989, I wanted to paint the nearby canyons and needed a studio. Since there was no space in my house, I had to add a room or convert the garage, and it was easier to convert the garage. And it's turned out to be a nice way to meet my neighbors, as I usually have the garage door open when I'm painting and they stop by to visit,'' says Vilaubi.

An artist who specializes in western art, Vilaubi has worked for numerous TV and film studios, and his studio/garage is decorated with both his own artwork and studio souvenirs. Among the latter is a mannequin whose legs hang from the ceiling and also a thick black vinyl flooring from NBC's ``The Tonight Show'' that makes a nice display mat for his shiny red 1964 Porsche.

These shrines to cars are not to be confused with ordinary garages, which take their name from the French word garer, which means ``to shelter.''

``A better word,'' says Northridge resident Susan Fields, ``is garage mahal,'' and she uses it to describe the former two-car garage that her husband, Ben, turned into a showroom for his restored 1971 El Camino and 1972 Chevelle convertible.

His pride and joy, the enlarged garage has been enhanced by drywall and cabinets and a black-and-white checkered floor that sports the trademark Chevrolet bow-tie insignia in the center.

``My son, Michael, and I bought the tile at Home Depot and laid it ourselves, but we had a friend use his computer to design the placement of the bow tie,'' Ben said. ``The floor may look like it needs special care, but it's really more practical than cement because oil wipes right off instead of staining it.''

So, while friends gather in the Fields' garage mahal to admire Ben's cars, Susan's sits outside - like most California cars.

For information on building permits that might be needed to convert a garage in Los Angeles County, call [phone].

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(1 -- 3 -- color) The garage of Jim Hull's Craftsman bungalow, above, features couches for the comfort of guests admiring his car collection. Craig Vilaubi converted his garage, left, into a studio where he paints landscapes to hang over his vintage Porsche. Ben Fields laid a Chevrolet ``bow tie'' into the tile floor of his garage, below, where he restores old Chevys.

John McCoy/Staff Photographer