Apprentice’s remarkable resto

When Geraldine apprentice Flynn Coskerie ticked off his last year of an automotive finishing apprenticeship, he had a good reason to be prouder than most.

Putting his tools down after four years of study, he finally had a chance to stand back and admire the craftmanship he put into a complete restoration on a 1970 Datsun 1200, all done during his modern apprenticeship with old school knowledge.

Flynn works for MTA member Geraldine Auto Restorations and was given the job of restoring a customer’s cherished Datsun in his last year of a fouryear apprenticeship last year.

“It’s pretty cool to be working on someone’s pride and joy,” he says.

And it wasn’t a job for the faint-hearted either. The 53-year-old Datsun was in pretty rough shape and had to be wheeled into the workshop on a trolley halfassembled, with no motor and no running gear. There was a pretty long list of parts needed too: a new bonnet, driver’s door and front guard, which were all reproduced panels.

“I took it under my wing and did everything myself with guidance,” Flynn says.

“And I am now a Level 4 automotive refinisher, so I’m done;, I qualified about a week before the Datsun left the workshop.”

With his apprenticeship done and dusted, there’s plenty of work on the radar for Flynn.

“We have got cars coming out our ears at the moment, and they are all classics - we don’t touch any modern stuff.”

And testament to how good the workmanship at the business is comes from the array of models awaiting a craftsperson’s hand.

“We have got a Porsche 356, it’s a ‘write your phone number down and you could probably buy it’ sort of car. It’s the first one sold in New Zealand, and it has been raced by Stirling Moss, so it is a pretty special car,” he says.

“We have a GT Falcon replica, a Mark 1 Cortina, a big old 1930s Cadillac and an early ’30s Buick, and it’s a major one that needs to be just perfect, everything just… perfect.”

Not so unusual, but special to its owner also is an old Falcon ute waiting to be tended to.

“A cocky has owned it since new and he’s towed horse floats around the farm with it. It’s rusted out once and been fixed and now it is in for a full resto, and the first thing we have to do with that one is get it on a trolley and jig it before it folds in half.”

Flynn’s interest in cars came from the Gateway course he did through the local high school. From there he was hooked on auto refinishing as a career, and with Geraldine Auto Restorations just down the road, Flynn says he found the perfect place to start.

“I spent a few days there and decided I liked it and a few days turned into holidays spent there and I did that for a year. Spending my holidays there turned into getting an apprenticeship and, hell yeah, it is enjoyable, I really love my job,” he says.

With all his finishing skills sorted, you would imagine he would have a personal project to work on, and he does, a 1978 HZ Holden one-tonne ute. But this isn’t going to be a classic restoration job, he’s going all out to build a hot-rod.

“It is going to be a custom hot-rod type of thing. I am putting a ’67 Camaro front end on it; something different, something to throw people off.”

“We have got cars coming out our ears at the moment, and they are all classics - we don’t touch any modern stuff.”