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The Blackstone Valley, RI - Baby-boomer Doug Jacobs works tirelessly to help his fellow car and

motorcycle enthusiasts. The problem, as he sees it, is that when a classic car or motorcycle

experiences an electrical problem, the wiring diagrams they are forced to turn to can be more

work than the wiring. These diagrams appear to be made for people who have never heard an

optometrist say "reading glasses."

The 11” x 17” Color Wiring Diagrams from Prospero's Garage were specifically created for car

and motorcycle enthusiasts who, because they've crossed the four decade mark, can't read

tiny factory wiring diagrams. The type is small and the factory or other after-market diagrams

are rendered in black and white, while the car’s wiring loom exists in Technicolor.

"I'll be the first to tell you, it wasn’t that big a problem 25 years ago when I got in this business," says

Doug Jacobs, proprietor of Prospero's Garage and once factory trained BMW motorcycle mechanic.

"It's not that the factory wiring diagrams, or diagrams from aftermarket repair manuals have gotten

worse...it's just guys in their 40s and older can't read these things."

Doubling the size of a diagram is great for older guys, but even more useful to the classic car or

motorcycle enthusiast of any age are three other features of the wiring diagrams from Prospero's

Garage – Color, Legends and Lamination.

"Color. That's really one of the hardest things for the shade tree mechanic. All those black wires

run together into a mess of electrical spaghetti. The factory manual will say a wire is supposed to

be 'N/LGN’*, but what does that mean to the typical guy who does this for fun? So I always use

the same colors on the wiring diagram that you see on the wiring loom. It doesn't require

translation." *(brown wire with a light green tracer).

“Legends – or Lack of Legends. Every component on our diagrams are labeled right there on

the page. Anyone whose done any electrical de-bugging will tell you – tracing your way through

the wires, only to have to turn back four pages to find out what component numbered “142”

actually is – well, it’s infuriating. You’ve lost your place and now you have to hunt back through

the mess to find it again.”

“Lamination. Big problem – if you’re working on your car or bike, your hands are probably dirty.

If you’re using your original copy, you can bet it’ll be useless after one or two sessions. Other guys

make 20 copies of the black and white version so they can throw the dirty copy away. Ours are

laminated and are, essentially, permanent. Just don’t wrap it around a hot header pipe.”

Sales have been brisk at British car shows, motorcycle rallies, through enthusiast groups on the

Internet, and through online sales channels such as E-bay.

The wiring diagrams from Prospero's Garage first started out as something to help out Mr. Jacob's

friends. "A lot of guys I knew had recently acquired BMW Slash 5 motorcycles. A lot of them

needed help re-wiring. So I obtained some factory diagrams, and reworked them so they could

be usable." Before long, he began supplying them to other BMW motorcycle enthusiasts, and

various BMW car club members.

Once the popularity of their diagrams spread, Prospero's Garage started offering color-coded

wiring diagrams for many classic Swedish, British, German, Italian and Japanese cars, BMW and

Harley Davidson motorcycles. They are working constantly to expand the line – often the biggest

constraint relates to sourcing the factory diagrams they use for source material. New offerings

for 1960’s and 70’s American muscle cars are in the works, as well as an ever expanding line of

European & Asian classic sports cars – and even classic Toyota Land Cruisers and Ford Broncos!