Then he went home and watched YouTube videos until his eyes burned: engine repair tutorials, transmission diagnostics, fuel system breakdowns.
For seven days, Raymond lived in that Honda's engine bay. His small hands fit into spaces adult mechanics couldn't reach. His fingers traced wires and hoses, matching them to the diagrams in his notebook.
On the eighth day, he found it: a loose connector in the transmission sensor, corroded pins that weren't making proper contact—a problem that two shops wanted $600 to fix. Raymond cleaned the connector with a toothbrush, secured it with electrical tape borrowed from a neighbor, and the Honda started on the first try. Beatrice Nelson held her son and wept—different tears this time.
Across the street, an old man had been watching from his garage doorway: white hair, weathered hands, eyes that had seen more engines than most people would see in 10 lifetimes. Giuseppe Martinelli had worked at the Ferrari factory in Maranello for 30 years. He had tuned engines for racing legends, had drunk coffee with Enzo Ferrari himself, had forgotten more about Italian automobiles than most mechanics would ever learn. Now, he was 73 years old, living on a pension in Oakland, surrounded by memories and old car parts.
He crossed the street slowly, approached the boy who was still holding a toothbrush and a roll of electrical tape. "You fix that yourself?"
Raymond looked up. "Yes, sir."
"No help? No professional tools?"
"YouTube, mostly, and library books."
Giuseppe studied the boy's face, saw something there: a hunger, a focus, a gift waiting to be unwrapped. "How old are you?"
"Eight, sir."
"Do you know what a Ferrari is?"
Raymond's eyes lit up like sunrise. "The 250 GTO is considered the most beautiful car ever made. Only 36 were built. The engine is a Colombo V12, 3-liter displacement, about 300 horsepower. They're worth around $70 million now because—"
Giuseppe held up his hand, smiling for the first time in months. "Come with me. I want to show you something."
The garage was a museum: Ferrari posters covering every wall, engine parts organized on wooden shelves, photographs of Giuseppe standing beside race cars, shaking hands with drivers whose names were legend. In the center sat a partially disassembled V12 engine, the same type that powered the 250 GTO.
"I've trained many mechanics," Giuseppe said, "factory technicians, racing engineers, men with degrees and certifications." He picked up a carburetor, held it out to Raymond. "But I've never met an 8-year-old who could diagnose a transmission problem from YouTube videos."