Need criticism and inisght

Hey guys, I came to college with a mustang that has a half restored interior. I had pictures on my laptop of the car on my desktop, people always came in and complimented me about it. They started telling me about how they've always wanted to restore a bel aire or an old ford truck or even a mustang, but never had the resources or experience to do it themselves. I then found a university sponsored club that builds formula cars and races them in the national races. I took a few of these guys who told me they wanted to build cars to the meeting...Their description was that all the members would have to learn about automotive theory by themselves and only if they really really needed help would the members be able to ask the more experienced ones. Second of all, the newer members would barely do anything on the car... Bottom line, was that I think being part of a race team isn't very helpful because a race car is a completely different field then restoring an older one.

I then remembered that over the summer, I was offered a 79' vette for free, to work on, but i had to turn it down because of lack of space. The wheel began turning in my head, i said why don't I get together with my R/a (who recently told me he wants to restore a mustang) and try to form a group on campus that restores cars? After restoring the cars we can paint em the School Colors and auction it off to the alumni? or We have a car rental program on campus, in which for 12 bucks an hour of so, you can take the car anywhere, the company pays for gas, insurance, everything... we could rent it out to them in an effort to pay for the next year's car and parts.

What do you guys think? Good idea? Bad idea? Do you think big companies will sponser a university project such as this? if so who? Anyone know of any project cars sitting around? any car really, Preferably a 64.5-70 mustang, old vette, camaro, ford truck, bel aire, anything! Donations would be superb! (But right now i just need some ammo to take with me when requesting for the car) I've spent 13-14k on my car, including the car itself... How much do you guys think it would cost to do a restoration... I know it depends on what kind of budget I get but how much do you think I should petition for? Students will do all the work on the car, perhaps even paint.. Or i might be able to get my painter to give me some lessons on body work :shrug:
 
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do what my school (Middle Tennessee State University) does with 2 of it's corvettes of the same age... build alternative fueled engines and show how ethanol can still make power. http://www.mtsu.edu/~srickett/Photos.htm If you have an agriculture program or some sort of science program that would give guidance and find sponsors to pay for parts, could possibly get sort of class credit out of it.. Not hard to build an ethanol engine. Just have to do some research.
 
I'm a freshman so i'm totally new to the whole club idea; i've emailed and met up with some people and they have either not responded or they have suggested that I wait till next year or semester after i fully adjust to the college pace. and BME is a demanding major; well at least so far it has been. I haven't forgotten about it just waiting till i have time to research it once again.