Why the car’s shut up in the garage? (8)
I believe the answer is:
silencer
'the garage?' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both man-made objects as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'why the car's shut up' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'shut up' could be 'silence' ('silence' can be a synonym of 'shut up') and 'silence' is found in the answer.
A single letter 'r' remains which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for silencer that I've seen before include "It muffles the sound of a gun" , "Device designed to deaden sound" , "Gun noise reducer" , "Reclines with sound-muffling device" , "Device reducing a gun's noise" .)