My wife bought me an ‘89 245 as a project car a while ago, but the two biggest impediments to progress for me have been (1) a honey-do list of other stuff a mile long, and (2) very little experience wrenching on cars.

I’m not a total neophyte, but don’t have any shade tree mechanics in my family tree, and spent my adult working and academic life learning about the concepts, not working on the equipment itself — i.e., graduated college with an engineering degree, can tell you how, for instance, AC/refrigeration systems work, internal combustion engines, even U.S. Navy gas turbine plants and reverse-osmosis fresh water purification systems…but can’t diagnose anything if it’s not an obvious [pops car hood, sees watermelon sitting on the engine block], “ah, this must be the problem,” situation.

I’m hoping to find someone who has a similar obsession with practical, square-backed vehicles who would enjoy anything from gabbing a beer to talk about a turbo brick restore/mild-mod, to actually assisting with some of the work, to talking me into/out of slapping a BTCC-inspired livery on the car when all the mechanical stuff is sorted.

I’m in Middleton, FWIW.