There’s a guy at my car repair shop who seems pretty clearly to have an IQ above 150

I think about this often

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context: it’s a very big, well known shop — 30-40 cars being worked on at any time  

he seems to have encyclopedic knowledge of every car make & model;  understands holistically how they operate; every mechanic, even most senior ones, ask him questions 

then has total recall for customer names / cars / history

Is it possible that this person may be a high-functioning autist? HFAs sometimes possess perfect declarative memory recall for niche topics of interest to them, but would struggle in other cognitive areas.

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I'd rule out autism and similar conditions. That kind of job requires more than technical, domain-specific know-how.

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I had no idea what's a HFA before. Good to know.

Car mechanic is actually considered one of the best placements for HFAs precisely because they excel at troubleshooting systems holistically and can focus on the technical work. The job does not necessarily entail interacting with customers — especially at larger shops, others can handle that.